Trump wants the Kotel – more comments from the Rav

Shiur given the evening of the 17th of Iyar 5786

Hashem said to Cain, why are you bringing flax?! What, you don’t have dates?

Except, the dates he was keeping for Putin.

Now, they are saying that Trump is going to come here, another time. They are always breaking us. Every time, I get broken again.

Rockets – there aren’t. Trump – there isn’t. What is left for us?

Trump says that he’s going to pass by here. I know that he’s going to go to some church, or to the Kotel.

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Kushner – we wanted to go on Erev Shavuot, last year, no, it was on Hoshana Rabba, we wanted to go the eve of Simchat Torah, so then Kushner came, and they shut the whole Kotel.

Each time, they have new excuses [why they have to close the Kotel]. So, for sure, Trump is going to also want the Kotel, he only wants the Kotel.

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The Argentinian Prime Minister, he, the first thing came, to the Kotel.

People come to the Kotel, non-Jews, Jews, it doesn’t matter. Halevai, if only, we can go there. Everyone is coming.

Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or # 456.

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Ad kan, from the Rav.

I went up North for a couple of days, for a ‘break’.

There was a cool place where you could decorate gourds close to Nahariyya, so we went, and I had the best time I’ve had for a long time.

(I highly recommend, here’s the website: https://delart.co.il/?studio. This is a pretty old vid, but you get the idea:)

The owner told us we were the second customers he’s had in two and a half months… It’s really not simple, what’s going on at the moment.

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We also swung past some kivrei tzaddikim, because any holiday without some kedusha is basically just going to feel flat, boring and kinda empty.

(That’s starting to explain a lot, isn’t it?)

So, I said to my husband, let’s go to the first kever we see. We were on the road to Meron, so it happened to be the kever of Rabbi Kruspedai, a little way up a hill.

We got out, said a TK by the grave, then a car of Breslovers showed up and started telling me husband he HAD TO follow them to the next grave, where they were going to light the ner tamid for a month.

He argued a bit, then he gave in and we followed them.

We hopped across the road to the grave of the Amorrah, R Yose deYokrat (I think…) One of the Breslov guys gave my husband the leftover olive oil from the ner tamid, and told us it’s a proven segulah for healing and pain relief.

My gums have been really painful for months and months (I think it’s stress related, honestly, as this point. Long story.) So I thought, let me try it, and see.

It’s the second day, but my mouth is feeling much better than it has been for a long time, BH that will continue.

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We travelled on to Rabbi Shimon and Meron – and I just loved being up there, with the tzaddikim, and the nice gourd man of Nahariyya.

I felt very blessed to live in Israel, even still under fire, even still with all the horrible stress going on, in a million ways.

Honestly?

When has it ever been different?

Things have never been easy in the Land of Israel, as becomes clear if you spend even a microsecond learning some history, recent or ancient.

And also in the world – there have always been wars going on, in the non-Jewish world, from the time Cain stabbed Abel to death, because ‘the whole world’, literally, wasn’t enough for him and he didn’t want to share it.

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When Moshiach comes, the madness, or at least, the ‘war’ madness, will end for good.

Rabbenu taught that Moshiach will conquer the world without firing a shot, i.e. by prayer alone.

Remember, the Rav said a few weeks ago that ‘Moshiach is made up of our prayers.’

I don’t know how complete Moshiach currently is, but I guarantee a bunch more bits have been filled in recently. It might take another week, or another 200 years, who knows? But eventually, sooner or later, enough prayers will have been said for Moshiach to conquer the world without firing a shot.

And in the meantime, we just need to figure out how to live as productively, happily and ‘holy’ as we can, in the waiting room.

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The Rav’s prayer for R Dov Kook of Tiveria

Last I heard, R Dov Kook of Tiveria is very unwell.

He’s apparently sedated and on a ventilator after suffering a bad bout of pneumonia. Ventilators never augur good.

This is a prayer the Rav just put out for everyone to say for R Dov Kook’s refua shlaimah:

(Hebrew original below the footnotes).

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Prayer for Am Yisrael to say for: Isser Dov ben Shoshana HaKohen [Rav Dov Kook of Tiveria]

Ribonu shel olam, Who can do anything, and from Whom nothing is withheld.

Send a refuah shleimah [complete healing] in the blink of an eye to the Rabban of all the Children of Israel, HaRav, HaGaon, and the awesome Tzaddik, who no-one else has been like since the creation of the world. And there will not be anyone like him until the end of time, HaRav, HaGaon and HaTzaddik, Isser Dov ben Shoshan HaKohen.

Answer, Hashem!

Please cancel the awful decree that has fallen upon him, because we have nobody who could replace him, and there will never be someone who could replace him, for ever and ever.

And it is said about him, like about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, that he purifies the city of Tiveria, and he makes it tahor (ritually pure).

And mamash, the whole of Am Yisrael has already stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, because he was Sinai, for all the generations.

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And only in his sole merit will all the residents of the city of Tiveria make complete teshuva.

Like Reish Lakish, in the merit of Rabbi Yochanan, who left all his evil ways.[1] And like Yakum Ish Tzrorot, who in the merit of Rabbi Yochanan the Amora immediately made complete teshuva.

And so, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon[2] said that fi we had been on the Sanhedrin, they would never have sentenced a man to death.

Because immediately when a person would see the face of the True Tzaddik, everyone would make real teshuva.

Like it’s written on the headstone of Rabbi Aharon the Great of Karlin, who merited to bring 80,000 people back in teshuva – the whole of Karlin, to make them into complete tzaddikim.

As it’s written in Likutey Moharan[3]:

Mevakshey panecha Yaakov Sela –

That only the shining face of the Tzaddik, that shines like the sun, this is already enough that the whole of the people of Shechem made real teshuva.

And so, it was forbidden to kill them.[4]

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reish Lakish was a bandit when he first met R Yochanan, and was taken with his ‘beauty’. R Yochanan promised Reish Lakish that if he would stop being a bandit and would come to learn Torah, R Yochanan would arrange for Reish Lakish to marry his sister. And so it came to pass, that Reish Lakish became R Yochanan’s most beloved student.

[2] See the Gemara, Tractate Makkot 7.

[3] Lesson I: 27. It says there: “[P]eace is attained by way of the concept of ‘Jacob’, who represented the shining of the Countenance, as in, “Jacob’s splendor resembled the splendor of Ada.” (Bava Metzia 84a). This is alluded to in, “Those who seek your Countenance, Jacob.’ (Psalms 24:6).”

[4] Referring to Yaakov’s sons Shimon and Levi, who put the city of Shechem to the sword after the rape and captivity of Dina,  on the third day after the men of the city had circumcised themselves.

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PS: The brother of one of my girl’s good friend, Recanati, just got killed by a drone in Lebanon. Am Yisrael is bleeding from a million cuts at the moment, it’s hard to keep up with the real, ongoing suffering occurring at the moment, in so many ways.

I just wanted to remind us all what the Rav said a few years ago:

Shuvu Banim is the ‘ark’ for our generation.

Take that however you wish.

But, I would encourage you to climb aboard, if you haven’t already.

More stormy waters appear to be ahead.

 

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‘UFOS’ and spiritual deception

There’s a very interesting article on the anti-semitic SOTT site, about UFO-demons.

You can see the full, long, well-written article HERE.

These are some snippets that caught my eye:

The Orthodox patristic tradition has a specific term for what happens when demonic entities present themselves as luminous, wise, and spiritually elevating to unprepared human minds: prelest, meaning spiritual deception. Seraphim Rose, a hieromonk who died in 1982 at forty-seven, argued in his 1975 work Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future that the modern UAP encounter accounts matched the patristic descriptions of prelest with a precision that was not coincidental.

Rose had come to Orthodoxy through comparative religion and Eastern philosophy — he had read Guénon carefully before his conversion, and Guénon’s diagnosis of modernity’s metaphysical dissolution remained foundational to how he read everything that followed. The entities in the UAP record presented as wise, claimed cosmic significance, produced experiences of profound meaning and transformation in their witnesses — and required nothing of those witnesses in the way of moral or spiritual development. That last detail is, in the Orthodox tradition, the definitive diagnostic marker of deception rather than genuine spiritual contact.

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A practicing Catholic whose prior scholarly work focused in part on Marian apparitions, Diana Walsh Pasulka was not looking for a new religion when she began researching what became her 2019 book American Cosmic. She was a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington with the methodological training to recognize the structural features of a new religion forming in real time. That is what she found — operating not at the credulous margins but at the highest levels of the American defense and technology establishment.

The central argument of American Cosmic is not that UAP are real or unreal, extraterrestrial or demonic or psychological. It is that the phenomenon functions as a religion-generating force regardless of its ultimate nature, and that this function is operating at the highest levels of the technological establishment rather than, or in addition to, the credulous margins where the popular imagination places it. The people Pasulka embedded with in the course of her research were not rural abductees or convention circuit enthusiasts. They were scientists with security clearances, Silicon Valley figures with access to classified programs, aerospace engineers who spoke about their work in the register of the converted…

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 If Rose is right about what the phenomenon is, then Pasulka’s embedded researchers are people in the process of being deceived by something that has been deceiving human beings for millennia and has gotten very good at it…

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Exorcism in the classical sense is not a defensive posture. It is the assertion that hidden things can be identified, confronted, and expelled. Whether that applies to non-human psychic entities, to a human breakaway civilization, or to some entanglement of both, the logic is the same. Avoidance and gradualism are strategies for living with something. Exorcism is a strategy for ending it. The civilization that spent seventy years managing this problem has not yet asked whether ending it is possible. Given what the record contains, that question is probably overdue.

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Before we continue, the authentic Jewish tradition that is always overlooked and missing from these arguments explains way more of the ‘holes’ in the theories about what is really going on. As mentioned, the Zohar clearly talks about 7 underground worlds, however we are meant to really understand that, populated by ‘things’ that seem to have some corporeal reality, but aren’t human.

And as said before, I don’t know if those ‘things’ are just more subsets of demons, or something else, but for sure, there are spiritual phenomena going on here that smug idiots like to characterise as ‘aliens’, and then stop there, thinking orthodox Jews are STOOPID and misguided, for not following their lead.

The more a person has a soul, the more they already understand, how little they, or perhaps anyone else, really knows about how God created the world and is running it.

This was always the province of the kabbalists – and so many of them, too, were ‘deceived’ and destroyed by the spiritual entities they came into contact with.

It’s very, very dangerous to mess around with this stuff, even for genuinely holy people with genuinely good intentions.

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So now, bottom line, what are the takeaways from the snippets above, relevant to you and me?

Let’s focus on this one:

The entities in the UAP record presented as wise, claimed cosmic significance, produced experiences of profound meaning and transformation in their witnesses — and required nothing of those witnesses in the way of moral or spiritual development. That last detail is, in the Orthodox tradition, the definitive diagnostic marker of deception rather than genuine spiritual contact.

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You know how I keep banging on about working on our middot?

That there is nothing ‘for free’ in this world, spiritually, and each of us has work to do?

That is genuine Breslov, authentic Rebbe Nachman, consistent Rav Berland.

And, it’s missing from nearly all the other ‘Jewish content’ you find circulating online, even from people with big beards and loads of books on their shelves.

If this bit is consistently missing from the ‘discourse’, where your Jewish guru:

required nothing of those witnesses in the way of moral or spiritual development

Then, I would pause, and seriously ask myself:

Is this person, and all their ‘wisdom’, and all their ‘miracles’, and all their ‘transformation’ – is it coming from a good place, really?

Or not?

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The next thing to pay attention to, is that the military-industrial complex has been intertwined with these demonic entities for a very long time.

Which also starts to explain why the wars are never-ending, soul-destroying and totally pointless, from a ‘building the world’ or ‘helping humanity’ perspective.

Doesn’t it?

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The last thing to pay attention to, is this:

Pasulka’s embedded researchers are people in the process of being deceived by something that has been deceiving human beings for millennia and has gotten very good at it…

We are dealing with layers upon layers of spiritual deception.

This has literally been going on for millenia – and let’s not kid ourselves that the Jewish community is immune to it.

Sabbateanism began as an outgrowth of kabbalah practised by individuals who didn’t have the moral ‘vessel’ required to properly handle their knowledge.

This also wasn’t a new process or problem, but as the kabbalah spread to the masses, the sheer numbers of ‘rabbis’ and others who felt they ‘knew kabbalah’ increased – and made them prime targets for the Sitra Achra.

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When a person learns kabbalah, they usually get very arrogant, that they ‘know how stuff works’.

Pride is the one thing that Hashem can’t stand, so that person grows in arrogance and kabbalistic knowledge – but also, distances himself from Hashem, and the protection that comes from being under Hashem’s wing.

That person then becomes a prime candidate for a ‘demonic takeover’, but of course, that’s not how it’s presented, at least, not initially.

It’s presented as ‘dreams from Tzaddikim’; or ‘spirit guides’; of help from some friendly ‘angelic being’, that’s happy to share awesome spiritual wisdom with you, but doesn’t say a word about you needing to work on bad middot, shalom bayit and shmirat eynayim, for example.

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This has been an issue, a problem, for millenia.

Just now, it’s gone mainstream.

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Ultimately, all this is from God, and this too is for the best.

The point is this:

the phenomenon functions as a religion-generating force

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As the UFO narrative starts to increase in force, more and more people will be forced into thinking about spiritual aspects to life.

Part of the UFO narrative is to shove Judaism and the Torah into the same ‘basket’ as xtianity and islam, and then to try and negate all three equally, as being ‘tools’ used to ‘control the masses’.

For two of the above, that charge holds true.

But the Torah was given directly from God, and it cannot be compared to any other man-made religion.

This is going to be the frontline of the spiritual battle, approaching in the guise of ‘UFOS.’

And the main gun in the arsenal is Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, and Breslov.

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Yaakov de Haan and the ‘Chareidi State’ – more comments from the Rav

This shiur is a corker.

Lots and lots of v interesting stuff to unpick.

Enjoy!

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Shiur from Friday, 14th Iyar 5786

Now, Rabbi Shimon – he can cancel the din across the whole world.

Whoever comes to R’ Shimon, he already can’t sin. A person sees R’ Shimon, he can’t sin. If you see Rabbenu, you already can’t sin, it’s impossible.

[And so this is why R’ Akiva said] If I was on the Sanhedrin, the murderer would have made teshuva, the Shabbos desecrator would have made teshuva. [And then, they wouldn’t have needed to have had the death penalty].

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In any case, now we are talking about the matter that the whole Parsha is not in the right place.

Because Rashi says [that the mechalel shabbat], he went to pitch his tent. When did they organise the tents? In Bemidbar, that’s when they organised the tents. Yehuda, Yissachar, Zevulun, on the east side. Reuven, Shimon and Gad, on the south side. And after this, Ephraim, Menashe and Binyamin, on the west side, where the Shechina was.

And after this, we have the north side, which is Dan, Naftali and [Asher].

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So, we said that we would read here the verse that from Bnei Shimon, they went to Har Seir, and they slaughtered Amalek, and the remnant fled to Germany.

The GRA brings this, he brings this [in the book] Ha Ish al Ha Homa (The Man on the Walls), that Wilhelm II came. He brings it here, that the German emperor came, and R’ Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld didn’t want to go to him.

After all, it’s written that a person has to go and greet monarchs, to see [the difference] between the kings of the nations of the world and the king moshiach.

So then, there was R’ Tzvi Meir Shapira, who was the greatest gaon, and he didn’t know whether to go, or not. So then, an urn of boiling water spilled on him, and he couldn’t go. He [R Zonnenfeld] said, we received a tradition from the GRA that Germany is Amalek, mamash. They are Amalek! And they ran away from the tribe of Shimon.

That was here, 1897/8.

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[What follows is a very disjointed paragraph, with lots of the information ‘missing’ in the original:]

Yeshivat Hevron that was murdered by Arabs…the Saba of Slobodka… Epstein…Leibush Mordechai…the British…Victoria on the Mount of Olives…the Chacham Bashi of Turkey…

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Here, there is the Kishle [old stone prison in the Old City of Jerusalem, next to David’s Tower.]

In the Kishle, they used to hang 10 people every day, 10 people in the Kishle, ten people in Sha’ar Shechem, until the war finished, until they left[1]. And then, everyone was expelled to Damascus.

…1897/8 was Dr Wallach / Wallace… There still weren’t mercedes.[2]

The first bus arrived in 1919/20, and R’ Shlomo Zalman [Auerbach] didn’t go to greet it. He was a child aged five, everybody went, all the cheders and the yeshivas went to see the first bus. The only one who stayed in the yeshiva was R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a child aged five, he didn’t interrupt his learning.

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…said it’s not possible, because the Arabs said they will stop delivering crude oil

Everyone will die from cold, the whole of Europe. If there is no crude, there are no heaters, so people die from cold. So…[missing in original]… And they said this after the First World War. It’s better that there shouldn’t be oil, than that there should be rivers of Jewish blood.

So then, the decision was made to found a State.

They wanted to give it to the chareidim, R’ Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld. He brings here [in the book] a picture of De Haan, who travelled to Faisal, he went to Abdullah, and he brought back letters.

Here, he brings the Balfour Declaration [where it states only holds] on condition that the neighbouring peoples will agree to it.[3] He brings the Balfour Declaration here.

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…All this is locusts.

It’s impossible to understand what is a plague of locusts, it’s something terrifying.

I never saw such a picture in my whole life. Billions and billions together, eating all the herbage, eating everything…He describes this [in the book by Shmuel Shapira] Yemei Shmuel, how they entered the nose, and the eyes, and entered the ears…

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This is Slonim. This is R’ Yaakov Meir, he was called ‘Yaakov Meir’, in Geula, ‘Yaakov Meir’.

This was the Chacham Bashi, this is Alfandari, the Rishon LeTzion. This is Torah Chaim, opposite the yeshiva…Here it is Torat Chaim and after this, it’s ‘Etz Chaim’. Here, he also brings the destruction of ‘Etz Chaim’, which was destroyed in 1926/7.

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The Chofetz Chaim bought an apartment in Petach Tikva.

[In the end] he said I am not going. And this was a big miracle, because if he had of come to the Aretz, he would have taken either the side of Rav Kook, or the side of R’ Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, and then half of the people wouldn’t be learning Mishna Brurah.

Because they would have said, you are with R’ Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld, and we are Mizrachi-ists. We are ‘knitted kippas’, we aren’t going to learn this.

Now, everyone learns it. If he would have gone with the Rav Kook, then the kanoim (extremists) wouldn’t have learnt it, Meah Shearim wouldn’t have learnt Mishna Brurah. So Hashem arranged things.

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They told him [General Allenby] that the Jews were a murderous race.

Before he came [to conquer Jerusalem for the British], he arrived with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, he was holding it in his hand. And then he saw R’ Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, and he said now, I know everything is lies!

Here there is the picture, here’s Allenby. I said they should look for Allenby [street] in Jerusalem, they did Kikar Allenby.

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This is Balfour.

It’s written [in the Balfour Declaration] on condition that all the neighbouring peoples will agree [to found a Jewish State].

So, he [De Haan] travelled to Faisal, travelled to Hussein, Hussein Ali, in Mecca. He went to Mecca to get a letter from him, here it is.

The meeting with Faisal, King of Iraq, the son of Mecca, he was. He said b’kavod, with pleasure. There is the letter. He brings the letter of the King of Mecca, of their father, that it would be an honour to return the Jews to their land. It belongs to the Jews, it’s the land that Hashem promised them, they’ve already been in exile 2,000 years.

He brings the letters here, Yaakov de Haan. He bring Yaakov de Haan here.

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He was killed in Sivan, on the 29th of Sivan, he was killed at 2pm. It was the eve of Rosh Chodesh.

He brings the picture of de Haan here. He was meant to be the [first] Prime Minister. R’ Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld was meant to have been the Chief Rabbi.

He [de Haan] was a professor. He knew seven languages, he had two degrees. They wanted to make him the Prime Minister – so they shot him.

If he would have got on the plane to London, so then he would have received the agreement of the government in London. This was already 1922, after the First World War.

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…Mearat HaMachpelah…

So here, he brings de Haan…the League of Nations, Geneva, that they…

He brings here on page 483… R’ Yaakov Yisrael de Haan, he’d already been in Russia, he was a communist… He had a gentile wife, he divorced her. And he was poet and a writer, he was a professor and a doctor, and philosophical thinker, until he found…

Mizrachi – in the end, he saw that they were counterfeit. This wasn’t the true [Jewish] religion. So he went to Eretz Yisrael, and at the beginning he was with the Mizrachi, and that’s when he divorced his wife, and then he came on the 4th of Sivan, he came to Israel, and they held a reception for him.

The biggest professor in the world, seven languages!

And afterwards, there was a meeting… And then he moved over to Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld. Everyone persecuted him…He started to fight for them… Against the chilonim, and against Weizmann, he fought against everyone.

He was a Jew…

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The levaya of de Haan, this was 29th Sivan.

In the afternoon, he left Sha’arei Tzedek, from the synagogue, 28th Sivan, Monday, 28th Sivan, in the evening. That is to say, it was the eve of the 29th, Dr de Haan left the entrance of the hospital, Sha’arei Tzedek, after the evening prayers. And he started to walk via the small gate, he left via the back gate to cross Jaffa St., and afterwards, and after he’d taken three steps, three gunshots were heard.

They shot a bullet straight into his heart.

The head of the hospital saw him lying flat on the pavement, wallowing in his blood. Three shots, dum-dum bullets, which explode. It’s a bullet that explodes the blood, and everything…

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It was already the evening of the 29th, they pierced his heart.

So, the police came, the head of the police was… He was from the Haganah, he was against de Haan, so they [the police] ran in the opposite direction, when they went to ‘apprehend’ the murderer. They knew. They sent the killers. They knew that they’d murdered, they knew where they ran off to – so, they ran in the opposite direction of the murderers, in order to not apprehend them.

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Tuesday, it was the levaya, 29th of Sivan.

Around 20,000 people came, the whole of Jerusalem came.

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Because they wanted to make R’ Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld the Chief Rabbi, and to make him the Prime Minister, and they wanted to found a State.

A Chareidi State.

[The President of the United States] Truman said to give the State to the Chareidim, and not to the chilonim. Because he worked with the United Nations, that they would permit a State.

They said [after the Shoah] there’s been enough killing, already. Enough pogroms. Enough, six million. Yalla, they should have their own State already, so that they can protect themselves.

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The chilonim decided to get rid of him [De Haan].

They saw that he was going to found a government only with the religious [Jews], just with the chareidim…

Only after many years passed, was it revealed who murdered him…When we go to Ein Karem, we see… He was the chief of the Hagana, he was one of those who gave the order [to kill De Haan].

The order can be found today in a closed safe, that the people who killed him said we are not going to go, until we receive an explicit command, also from Golob [Golomb?] and also from the the two heads of the Hagana.

And this is in the closed safe, it’s hidden there, until this day. They didn’t rip it up, they didn’t destroy it, because they didn’t let anyone touch it. This belongs to the State, it belongs to Bibi, it belongs to the Hagana…

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Everybody admitted it. They said.

They agreed to speak. They said, we had to kill him, we didn’t have a choice. He was going to found a State with the chareidim, and we would have been kicked out of here. We wanted to be in the government, that it should be given to Weizmann, the [Balfour] Declaration. But suddenly, the religious were going to rule here!

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He brings that R Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld used to cry out, why [are the chareidim] not making aliya to Israel?! Why are they not making aliya?! We are a minority here! They want to kill us, they want to destroy us. Come!

Nobody made aliya.

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Before they shot him, he was meant to be going to Lod [the airport].

Straight after he came out from ma’ariv, from Sha’arei Tzedek, a car was waiting for him, to take him to Lod, to fly to London.

And they knew that if he flew to London, they were lost, because then, they [the British] would have understood that the chareidim were the authentic Jews, and … were not Jews, at all. They were heretics, they didn’t even believe themselves, that they were Jews.

They wanted to be arabs.

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So, he had three letters, from Faisal.

We saw Faisal here, with Weizmann…The Balfour Declaration. There was a letter from Abdallah, he went to his tent, he travelled to Jordan, and sat in his tent…. It was a royal tent, beautiful, with persian carpets made of gold.

But it was still a tent.

TBC

Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or, #455.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Rav appears to be referring to the Ottoman Turks, during World War I. This needs more checking.

[2] I.e. travel around Eretz Yisrael was still very difficult, and mostly still done by horse, donkey or camel.

[3] I.e. that a Jewish state will only be founded in Eretz Yisrael, if the neighbouring Arab countries agree to it.

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R Chaim Palaggi’s 104 shekel segula for Shavuot

It’s nearly Shavuot again.

I am reposting this from last year, about the Rav’s Kollel Chatzot and R Chaim Palagi’s segula to give 104 nis to Torah scholars ahead of Shavuot.

These folks definitely count!

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My contact at the Rav’s midnight kollel just sent me this:

רבי חיים פלאג’י שהיה צדיק גדול ומקובל כתב בספרו ‘מועד לכל חי’ סגולה שמובאת בספר הקדמון ‘ספר מעשה הצדקה’: “ערב שבועות – יפריש צ”א (91) פרוטות וישלים על שיעור ב’ פעמים ב”ן (בן בגימטריה 52. כלומר: 52*2=104) ויתנם לתלמיד חכם עני ועניו, והוא תיקון לעוון אדם הראשון ועוון העגל ולפגם הברית, והוא סגולה לחשוכי בנים ולקירוב הגאולה”.

על פי הספר הקדמון המצוטט על ידי רבי חיים פלאג’י, מי שנותן בערב חג שבועות לתלמידי חכמים 104 שקלים זוהי סגולה המסוגלת לכפרה על חטאים, לכל הישועות ברוחניות ובגשמיות ובפרט לחשוכי ילדים!
חוץ מעצם הסגולה הרי שאדם שנותן צדקה בערב חג הוא מקיים מצות עשה מהתורה: “ועשית חג שבועות ושמחת לפני ה’ אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך והלוי והגר היתום והאלמנה אשר בקרבך וכו'”. וכן הרמב”ם בהלכות יום טוב מפרש שבכלל חובת השמחה ביום טוב הוא לשמח את העניים. והזוהר הקדוש מאריך בשבח מי שנותן צדקה לעניים לחג שזוכה לברכה גדולה מהשמיים.

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My free-wheeling English summation is this:

R Chaim Palaggi wrote in his book Sefer Ma’ase Tzedakah about a segula for erev Shavuot, where you give 104 prutot [shekels, dollars, pounds, euros – whatever currency you are operating in day to day] to a poor and humble scholar.

If someone out there wants to help me translate the Hebrew gematria explanation in the Hebrew, leave it in the comments and I’ll amend the post.

This is said to be a tikkun for the sin of Adam HaRishon, and the sin of the Golden Calf, and also for pgam habrit (immorality).

R Chaim Palaggi’s book states that giving 104 prutot to a poor and humble Torah scholar on the eve of Shavuot is especially good for those who lack children.

And in addition, giving tzedeka on the eve of Shavuot also fulfills a positive commandment from the Torah that:

“And you shall celebrate Shavuot and rejoice before the Lord, you and your son and your daughter. And your servant, and your maid, and the Levite, and the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are among you, etc.”

Similarly, Maimonides, in the Laws of Yom Tov, explains that in general, the duty of joy on a holiday is to make the poor happy. And the Holy Zohar extends its praise to those who give charity to the poor on the holiday, who receive a great blessing from heaven.

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Ad kan, the free-wheeling translation.

If you want to give the 104 prutot to the Rav’s Kollel Chatzot, here’s the link (click the underlined wording):

Shavuot 104 nis – Kollel Chatzot

May we just hear good news!

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(Just to reiterate, I get no kickbacks, money, nothing, nada, nega-nega torey from writing this stuff. Just I think it’s a good place to give tzedaka to, and I also give to them.)

 

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Some thoughts on Fake Aliens

Back in 2018, there was a big ‘story’ about an alien ship.

Here is a cached version of what really happened, from a site that is no longer with us:

Source – Express UK

by Jon Austin, January 17th, 2018

Express.co.uk today reveals the shocking truth about a “UFO picture” that played a key role in the staggering “Pentagon UFO” story that has convinced many people “we are not alone” and intelligent aliens may be flying advanced craft on Earth.

The still image of the so-called “white tic tac UFO” was screened during a major conference when former US government and military insiders were brought to together by former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLonge for his new alien research group To The Stars Academy.

The photograph was shown during an October 2017 presentation by academy member Chris Mellon, who served for almost 20 years in the US federal government in a series of national security positions.

Its use appeared to suggest the image showed the “Nimitz UFO” encountered by a US Navy crew off the coast of San Diego in November 2004.

The UFO, which was also captured on Navy radar video camera, was said to “defy the laws of physics” in its movements.

With a large version of the still image behind him on a screen, Mr Mellon told reporters: “Clearly this is not a US experimental aircraft, but whose is it?

“How did it accomplish these feats?

LEAD BALLOON? Chris Mellon talks physics-defying UFOs with a suspected helium balloon on screen.

“This story may sound like a sci-fi movie, but it is a true story, and far from being the only one of its kind.”

Details of the case went on to make international headlines with the image of the alleged UFO even being screened by US TV news station Las Vegas Now.

However, Express.co.uk can reveal the picture was not taken in San Diego in November 2004, but in Eccles, Manchester, in July 2005.

Worse still, it is not even a UFO, but believed by UFO investigators to be a helium party balloon in the shape of the number one.

The embarrassing revelation has cast doubt among some on the credibility of the To The Stars Academy, which was hailed as a turning point in the quest for the truth about UFOs by many investigators due to the backgrounds of many of its key members.

The academy has been crowdfunding to raise cash to enable its research and has so far pulled in more than $2.3 million (£1.7m) from 2,580 investors.

The picture and others of the same balloon can still be seen in a July 2005 report by Manchester UFO investigator Steve Mera on conspiracy theory website Rense.com.

Mr Mera said he investigated it at the time and later concluded it to be a floating party balloon.

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Steve Mera’s post, with a whole bunch of those ‘alien spaceship pictures’ is still up, HERE.

Take a look, if you can be bothered.

Of course, this was before AI fake ‘reality’ got so convincing, and I’m sure it’s just a CO-IN-CID-ENCE that the AI had to get really, really good at faking images and footage on a mass scale, just ahead of the ‘alien files’ being released.

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We have covered this many, many times on the blog, but there definitely are ‘alien-looking things’ in our world.

Just, they aren’t ‘aliens’ per se, they are demons.

And our Gemara is chock-full of information about how these things act, look and operate, and what they are really after.

In a nutshell: to take over a person’s soul, or to be more specific, their body, because demons were created at the twilight of Bereishit, when God ‘didn’t have enough time to create bodies for them’, whatever that actually means.

So they exist as real spiritual entities, but without a ‘body’ in this world, which means they are constantly looking for people to go and ‘parasite off” and act through.

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Here are my top tips for making it as hard as possible to a demon to take over your body:

  1. Don’t do drugs – not even so-called ‘soft’ drugs like grass etc.

Each time a person goes AWOL from their own consciousness (aka ‘high’) they lose control over their nefesh, and make it very easy for other entities to walk right in, and start driving their bus.

That’s why when people are high / intoxicated, they frequently have massive character changes, and also, part of why the come down is so bad for so many people. You just let a demon into your headspace while you were off being ‘high’, and for sure, getting rid of that thing again is not so simple.

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2) Work on overcoming your anger, as a number one spiritual priority.

The Rav’s booklet on prayers mentions again and again, the Talmudic teaching that when a person gets angry, it’s as though they have no God.

The Rav expands on this, and explains a person literally gets taken over by ‘demonic forces’ when they let their anger take control of them. The soul flees from an out-of-control angry person, leaving a vacuum that is filled by…. ‘aliens’.

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3) Up your kedusha.

Anything you do to improve your morality – dunking in mikva’ot, only having physical relationships in the context of kosher marriage, a bit more tzniut, a bit more guarding the eyes, saying Rabbenu’s Tikkun Haklali at least once a day – all this stuff is maintaining the soul’s force-field, it’s spiritual protection.

And every little immoral thing we do, weakens that forcefield.

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We’ll keep this short – those three things by themselves are plenty challenging, for most people.

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In the meantime, looks like I wasn’t the only one having ‘Hantavirus sceptism’.

Apparently, 99% of the world thinks it’s bull-shite, so I guess they’ll have to go back to the drawing board on that one, and put more effort into the fake aliens instead.

Coming soon, to a (fake…) sky near you.

==

PS: Rebbe Shimon seems to have sweetened stuff radically, last week, BH.

I am personally feeling happier than I have been for months, and it seems to me that when many thousands of people went to Meron on L’ag B’omer anyway, last week, they broke the power of the evils, in some way, to keep pulling the same shtick over and over again.

It started over there, by Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai.

But, it seems to be spreading.

TBC

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Deja vu

Shavua tov!

I just asked my husband what’s going to come first: fake aliens, or fake hantavirus ‘pandemic’?

He couldn’t be bothered answering me.

That kinda sums things up, doesn’t it?

In the meantime, so many people I know seem to be developing some serious, stress-related illnesses from the last six years of madness here in Israel.

It really seems like the human body has reached its limit of ‘stress’, at least where I live, and that people just can’t do this circus and all the lies any more.

More and more of us are just opting out of ‘news’, opting off social media, turning off the ‘noise’.

So now the question is: how are they going to pull ‘the next thing’ off?

If a growing amount of people just aren’t buying the circus production any more?

That is the question.

==

More interesting stuff from the Rav this week.

BH, I will translate it and post it up later in the week.

In the meantime… the aliens are apparently coming…again.

And so is the covid-rinse-and-repeat called ‘hantavirus’, this time around.

Yawn.

 

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A person loses everything because they don’t wait 2 minutes – comments from the Rav

Shiur given by the Rav on Monday, Iyar 11, 5786. (April 28, 2026).

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Lots of interesting stuff in this one.

Enjoy!

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A person can lose everything, because they don’t wait one more minute

“Shmuel said to [King] Shaul, ‘You have failed! You did not keep the commandment of Hashem, your God, that He commanded you. Now, Hashem would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not endure. Hashem has sought a man after his own heart and appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not observed that which Hashem has commanded you.” —Shmuel I:13:13.

[Background: King Shaul was commanded by the Prophet Shmuel to wait for him, before performing the sacrifice ahead of his war with the Philistines. There was a very short time left to wait, before the day Shmuel had specified he would come was over, and Doeg the Edomite persuaded Shaul that Shmuel wasn’t coming, after all, and he should just get on with it, before his whole army deserted him.]

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Hashem said to Shmuel: Tell him that I wanted to give him eternal kingship, if he would have waited another two minutes.

“Then Shmuel arose and ascended from Gilgal to Gevat-Binyamin.”— Shmuel I: 13:15. And, “Shmuel said to [King] Shaul, ‘You have failed! You did not keep the commandment of Hashem, your God, that He commanded you.”

If you would have waited another two minutes, “Hashem would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.” You would have been king forever.

==

A person loses out because of just two minutes, he misses out.

That he doesn’t wait for the tzaddik, he loses his whole life.

After this, he [Shaul] was meant to have destroyed Amalek. He said: I can’t kill babies, women, women didn’t do anything, they don’t go out to war! How am I meant to kill women and children?! Day-old babies?!

But Shmuel knew that this was all the [souls of] Nazis.

==

When World War II occurred, so Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld said, that he had a tradition he’d received from the GRA, that Germany was ‘Amalek’.

He didn’t go and say hello [to Kaiser Wilhelm II, when he came to visit Jerusalem in 1898.]

There is a mitzvah to greet kings [Tractate Brachot: 9.]

I am not going.

And there was one person (R. Yehoshua), Tzvi Michel Shapira [author of Tzvi leTzaddik], he was the greatest gaon in Jerusalem. He didn’t know, yes to go, no to go…

A hot water urn spilled on him, boiling water, he was totally scalded, because Hashem didn’t want him to go. This was in 5658 – 1898. Two years before 1900, he [Kaiser Wilhelm II] was here.

==

So, Amalek is the root of the Nuhkba, of ISIS.

Now, someone shot at Trump, the fifth time they fired at him. The Americans are already fed-up. What, what, why is he stuck to these Jews?! The Jews are the most awful people!

Are you a Jew? No, don’t stand next to me…

They say that the Jews are a nation of murderers. So now they fired on him for the third time now, but he didn’t succeed. He wanted to get into his room, he only fired at the body guards. This was on motzae shabbat, by us, it was already 5am.

So, it’s the third time they fired on him.

==

Charlie Kirk – they really killed him, mamash.

He said, I am going to give a talk now, I am pro-Israel. Whoever wants to say things against [Israel], they should say it. I will respond to them.

But then, instead of replying, they gave him a bullet, straight into the throat. I don’t know why, dafka, it was in the throat. I’ll ask him.

==

They caught him [Charlie Kirk’s assassin].

His father handed him over. His father saw his picture in the paper, so, who is this? This is my son! His father went from there [to the police, and said] this is my son! I don’t agree that he should be doing these things!

So his father turned him in.

==

So now, we are going to learn, ‘he decreed against the Cohanim’ [of Nov, the city where King David took refuge when running away from Shaul, who wanted to kill him.]

This was the last sin of Shaul.

The first sin was that he didn’t wait for Shmuel, he missed out on eternal kingship. Now, he was meant to get kingship for four generations [instead], like Jehu. Five generations, Ahab four generations, he should also have [Shaul] four generations, at least.

Yonatan, and Yonatan’s son – but he didn’t kill Amalek.

He [Shmuel] said, now, you’ve already missed out on everything!

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And after this, he sinned a third time, which was – here, bring the Pirkei De Rebbi Eliezer.

When he sent to Tzofnit, the mother of Avner. Avner was a tzaddik. A person always needs to go and visit the grave of Avner when they go to the Mearat HaMachpelah. He merited to be buried in the Mearat HaMachpelah, because even when they kill someone with two simanim[1], a person still lives [for a while longer].

But there, [Yoav] stabbed him [Avner], he said, there it’s not a balagan like in Shuvu Banim.

He said [Avner to Yoav], there is a queue, you stabbed me, now I’m going to stab you back [before he would die from his wounds]. We’ll do it, we’re going to arrange it.

So then the whole of Am Yisrael came, and they fell at his feet. What?! Have mercy on us! We only have one Ramatkal [Head of the army] left! And now, you also want to go and kill him?!

==

So here, in chapter 33, it’s written Tzofnit. Here, 33, page 115.

That [Shaul] went to a practitioner of Ov.[2] And this is “there blood is upon them”. This is not simple.

He called to him Tzofnit, the mother of Avner.[3] She was the mother of Avner. Avner was a tzaddik, but his mother was an evildoer, what can you do.

==

So, Moshe [Rabbenu] asked Hashem:

Why is the first King of Israel going to die by the sword?

They said to him: what can we do? He murdered a whole city! [Nov, the city of the Cohanim].

Each person there was like the Kohen HaGadol, each person was on the level of the Kohen HaGadol, who could enter the Kodesh Kodeshim (Holy of Holies).

And he killed them! Because they gave David bread.

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Translated from a newsletter containing the Rav’s shiurim from the previous week, pp: 31-32.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] I.e. two of the signs identified in the Gemara as indicating a person is about to die.

[2] ‘Ov’ was a type of witchcraft, forbidden by the Torah, which involved trying to divine future events by using enchanted bones, perhaps, human remains.

[3] This is the witch of Endor, who raised the spirit of Shmuel from the dead, which then told Shaul he and his whole family would be killed in the coming battle with the Phillistines.

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More thoughts on L’ag B’omer

So, clear proof that I don’t know anything at all:

We heard that the Rav’s bonfire was going to be today, at 6pm – which sounded kinda weird even at the time, so we double-checked, as best we could, and that’s what we were told.

But, the Rav apparently lit yesterday at 10pm in Jerusalem:

https://ravberland.com/en/blog/morinu-harav-shlita-will-light-tonight-in-jerusalem-lag-baomer-5786-in-emergency

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I didn’t know that was going to be happening, so I went up to my daughter in the Shomron – where it was freezing cold, blowing a gale and even, in some parts, raining.

But my SIL built a magnificent bonfire that was burning for a full three hours, at least.

And as I sat and watched it crackle and smoke, I realised that Jews have been doing this for 2,000 years.

And even if the Evils do their darndest to dampen the celebration of L’ag B’omer – it’s a temporary blip.

The Evils will be gone sooner or later, like all the ‘Evils’ in our long history, and the Jews, and the Torah, and our traditions and customs will continue.

That’s always how it’s been, I realised yesterday, and there is nothing to worry about, really, even though the current persecution of the olam haTorah is very upsetting, on so many levels.

==

In the meantime, thousands of people made it to Meron yesterday, as this screenshot from the YWN proves:

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You can’t keep the Am down!

It must be driving them nuts.

And in the meantime, the YWN ‘coverage’ of the event included a short clip of the Rav:

Rabbi Berland Urges Followers to Travel to Meron Despite Restrictions

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People keep going on about where are the fearless Torah leaders who are taking a stand on [fill in the issue du jour]?!

If you keep up with the Rav, you already know the answer to that.

So, to recap: I know nothing at all, apparently not even the day of the week.

Rashbi mamash sweetened something yesterday, you can feel it in the air today.

The Jews are an eternal people, the Torah is eternal, and even if there are temporary periods of suppression, the Jews and the Torah and the customs will continue, over the long term.

And last but not least: AM YISRAEL CHAI!!

Hope you have a fantastic rest of the chag.

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Arabs don’t fire at Meron – more comments from the Rav

Excerpt of a shiur given during the shiva for R’ Avraham Hananya, z’l. [Last week of April 2026].

Now, they want to ‘return’ the shtachim.

They want that we will give them half of Eretz Yisrael. Trump is telling them that it’s allowed to fire on them [i.e. on Israel].

You, it’s forbidden to fire on them [i.e. Israel on Lebanon]. Now, they fired five drones at Shtula. The Rav showed me where it was, Shtula, Moshe Waag, he was there, trained there. He was in the army, he trained there, in Shtula.

In the end, he had an accident and he broke his leg, so they released him [from service]. He finished the army, I used to meet him by the Leks family, in Bnei Brak. This was next to… [missing in original] next to the Stern family.

The children, Shlomi Chaim and Yaakov, they used to play with Rav Stern.

He went to high school in Netanya, I don’t know how he became such a baal teshuva. Because everyone went to the army, and there, they were ruined.

==

So, Moshe Waag now told me, that he was in Shtula.

There, they fired around five drones, five rockets, and it’s forbidden to return fire. Trump doesn’t permit returning fire. Gomarnu, the story’s finished.

But this is a miracle! [That Trump doesn’t permit Israel to go against Hezbollah with full force.]

Because otherwise, they would be firing upon Meron.

Because the Hezbollah doesn’t fire upon Meron. They fire the day before, the day after – on L’ag B’omer, they don’t fire.

Because they know that it is the hiloula of R’ Shimon, of the RASHBI, it’s forbidden to fire. Even arab terrorists, who are looking to kill Jews – they know about Meron.

==

Now, we are before L’ag B’omer.

It’s written that a week before L’ag B’omer and a week after L’ag B’omer, Rabbi Shimon is already present.

Rabbi Shimon is with us.

So that L’ag B’omer is over the whole Eretz Yisrael (i.e. not just in Meron).

==

Because in Corona, they didn’t let people come.

So then the Admor travelled, he said said I will travel to where it’s permitted to travel.

Now, there was the disaster where 45 people died. So then, the Admor [of Toldos Aharon] doesn’t travel to Meron any more.

He said, if this occurred during the hour I lit my bonfire [at Meron], so then it appears that I am to blame for everything.

And he shut himself in a room for a week of days, and he didn’t want to come out, and he just wept, he didn’t stop crying.

He said, I am not travelling to Meron anymore, everything was because of me.

[When] a person says, everything was because of me, this storm was of my making – now, he can go and sweeten all of the judgements.

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Behold, he [R’ Avraham Hananya, who recently passed away from the Shuvu kehillah], just went up to heaven, and the war was stopped.

He went to shemayim, it’s already impossible [for the war to continue].

There are 2,000 people already injured just from running to the mamad (safe room), from running to the bomb shelter.

A man picks up a woman aged 90, goes down with her to the bomb shelter – this takes half an hour. When you hear the siren, the rocket is already falling, because there is some sort of bug in the system, because they ought to register the rocket when it is first fired up [into the sky]. Straight away, they see it’s direction, and according to its speed, they can straight away measure the spped and the now where it’s going to fall, precisely.

If it’s going to fall in Tel Aviv, of in Rishon LeZion West, Rishon LeZion East.

Whoever is putting all the sirens, all the alarms, they tell you ‘Tel Aviv South’, ‘Tel Aviv West’, Bnei Brak, Petach Tikva. They tell you exactly where it’s meant to fall, because they calculate according to its speed and its direction. They know exactly where it’s going to fall, they know everything.

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Now, tonight, five rockets fell [from Lebanon].

And it’s forbidden to fire back! Trump doesn’t allow it. If Trump is with them,  so they are happy that Trump is with them.

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Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or, #454.

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The Rav is lighting the Shuvu Banim bonfire at 6pm TOMORROW NIGHT – Tuesday, in Jerusalem.

That’s what it says on the Shuvu line, I can’t tell you anything more.

BH, we’ll have a good L’ag B’omer wherever we happen to be tonight, and Rebbe Shimon will do his thing, this year more than ever, to ‘sweeten all the judgements’.

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