Shavua Tov!
First up, the Rav’s Prayer against Lashon Hara – from last week
Ribonu shel olam, Who can do anything, and from Whom nothing is withheld, give us the merit to not speak lashon hara.
And not to believe lashon hara, because a covenant is made with the lips, and this is a decree from above – that a person will believe all the lashon hara that he hears, after Adam HaRishon believed the snake, that [Hashem] ate from the Tree of Knowledge and created the world.
For this is the most difficult decree, even harder than immorality, and more than avoda zara, and more than spilling blood, because the words immediately are transformed into deeds.
And the moment that we accept upon ourselves not to speak lashon hara, the awful disasters will stop.
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Like, the two children who drowned in the sea at Netanya, and the child who drowned in a mayan (spring) in the Negev, and the three children who were killed in Bet Shemesh[1], and the wife of Rav Chaim Zinger, and Moshe Tzanani, and Eliyahu Mashaal, and Erez Ravia, and Avraham Hananya, and Eliyahu Meirav – and other important avreichim, and important and dear young people.
And everything is because of the sin of lashon hara, that has struck roots amongst everyone, without any remedy or cure.
And the moment that the holy community will accept upon itself, from the smallest to the greatest, to stop speaking lashon hara, immediately, all the strange deaths in the community and in Am Yisrael will stop.
Amen, netzach, selah v’ed.
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I have been feeling kinda strange all last week, just quite tired still, but also, super-busy every single day, with lots of ‘real life’ stuff, mostly good, BH, that is keeping me off line.
Mostly.
I was talking to my friend about the Rav’s prayer to get off the internet, that I was saying every day solidly for about three years, up until about two years ago. When it really started to kick in, and I started to develop a real life ‘offline’ again, in a bunch of different ways.
She told me her experience, which is when she says the prayer to stay off the internet, even when she starts surfing Youtube, she can’t find anything interesting to watch.
It’s very powerful! She told me. Perhaps a bit too powerful!
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In the meantime, looks like the failed state has done its best to kill Meron again this year.
3 bonfires with 200 people each, because of security concerns. Puhleese.
Does anyone still believe them? About anything?
I heard the Rav is lighting quite early in Jerusalem on L’ag B’omer, and I also heard that he said that wherever the Rav is – that’s where the Rashbi is also hanging out.
Which made me feel a little better.
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You can see very clearly the ruach hakodesh here, because every single year, even when the State was doing it’s best to close it, like it’s done every year since ‘Covid 19’, for different reasons and using different excuses, the Rav has encouraged people to make every effort to go.
This year – he didn’t say a word, pretty much. At least, not in any of the shiurim I’ve been reading over the last few months.
There were no Shuvu buses arranged, no sign ups, no words from the Rav telling people to make every effort to go.
Just a story from World War II, oft repeated, that in 1945, the Rebbe who was lighting the main bonfire in Meron refused to light for hours and hours…. Until word finally reached Eretz Yisrael that Hitler had just killed himself in his bunker.
I don’t know what the Rav is hinting too, with that oft repeated story.
I guess, we’ll find out.
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The last thing to say, is that everyone I know seems to be going through quite an emotional rollercoaster at the moment.
It seems to be more than just a very natural reaction to the ‘end of the war’ – which looks like it really has ended, even though they keep trying to get it restarted.
Again, this demonstrates the Rav’s ruach hakodesh, because he said that Leah Zinger’s death ended the war with Iran and last week, he said that Avraham Hananya’s death last week finished the war in Lebanon.
It’s touch and go, we all know that.
And we all know, the Evils don’t give up that easily on their plans. But in the meantime, in the same way we saw Covid 19 fizzle, when they wanted to keep it going for ever and ever, looks like ‘the war’ is also fizzling out here.
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By ‘here’, I mean Israel.
I have a feeling the Jews in the diaspora may be getting their own encouragement to make some of the sincere and massive teshuva that’s been happening here, the last few years. Because God doesn’t give up on anyone, anywhere.
My mum sent me pictures of the crime scene on Golders Green Road, shot from her window. She was locked down for eight hours (!) in the house, until the police finally let people leave their homes again.
It’s not ‘simple’ wherever you happen to live at the moment.
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All this is very tiring, of course.
And on top of trying to process the bog-standard PTSD of ‘being in a war for three years’, there seems to be more, deeper stuff, coming up and moving through, for most of the people I know at the moment.
All we can do is hold God’s hand, keep chipping away at the bad middot, and keep finding productive stuff to do ‘in the meantime’.
Until God finally gives us a few more clues about what’s really going on here.
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BH, I have more stuff to translate from the Rav this week, so look out for that.
And go celebrate L’ag B’omer however you can, this year!
The more they try to crush Meron, the more it just really shows the rest of us how very special and important, spiritually, it actually must be.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] From the Biton family. They were killed as a result of the shul in Bet Shemesh sustaining a direct hit from a rocket.
