Korach said Moshe was just a wizard – more comments from the Rav

Continuing the Rav’s awesome ‘megilla earthquakes’ shiur.

You can see part 1 HERE.

[Returning to the Chesed L’Avraham].

==

Here, he brings the cities, which sefira for which city.

Mearat HaMachpelah is the entrance to Gan Eden. Lavan, with his magical wisdom, wanted that Yaakov wouldn’t merit to be married in the Mearat HaMachpela.

Lavan wanted that Esav should also be buried [there]. The Ari says, that this was the prayer of Lavan, “he pitched camp with his brethren”. (Genesis 31:25). He prayed that he would succeed in at least infiltrating Esav inside, it’s the son of his daughter, he loved him deeply in his soul.

He was dafka a good young man.

==

It’s written about [Esav’s wife] Mahalat, that his sins were nMHaLu – forgiven.

And if [Esav] would have taken Dina [as his wife], so then, at age 98, he would have taken a child aged 8 – and she would have returned him in teshuva.

==

[The Rav returns to what was happening when the ground opened, in the desert].

Even now, by Korah, when the ground opened up, they [Am Yisrael] were not stunned by this.

They said, it’s just more magic.

Already 250 people got burned, and they weren’t shocked by this either. Even though they got burned up, they said, Moshe, he’s a wizard. You are killing the people of Hashem! This is Moshe, the greatest wizard in the world.

==

Korach explained to them that Moshe was a wizard, you know, like there hadn’t been since the creation of the world, and that would never  be again.

He can turn a sea into a desert, and turn a desert into a sea! He can move mountains! All sorts of different things, he can do. He can burn up 250, instantly. What, 100 wasn’t enough?! Fifty wasn’t enough?! Why did you burn up 250 people, important people, really legit people.

They were the princes. There was Elitzur ben Shedeur. The CHIDA said that because they opposed Moshe – this wasn’t worth anything.

If you are cholek [going against] Moshe, then you could be a prince, you could be a really important person, you can be someone with ruach hakodesh, even like Yeroboam ben Nevet…[not clear]… Said about him that he had no blemish.

But he went against David! So he will never come out of gehinnom.

If you cholek against the Tzaddik, nothing is going to help you. None of your ‘tzaddikut’ (piety) is going to help.

==

Lavan prayed that Esav would be buried in the Mearat HaMachpelah, like Yaakov.

And he succeeded, that his head was buried there, and there is the entrance to Gan Eden.

==

Now, we are learning in this parsha…

Now, it’s going to be exactly 12 midnight, in a little while. 2am is chatsot, and after this, we sleep between 2am and 7am, this is five hours. You can make it up, afterwards.

Did you finish Rashi, on Korach? Did you learn about Elitzaphan? Elitzaphan made problems. [Korach said]:

It just can’t be, that Hashem would say to take Elitzaphan [as the Levite tribe’s prince].

Korach said, here, I’ve uncovered Moshe’s lies, up until here. Here, I am no longer nullifying myself [to Moshe]. Moshe Rabbenu, he took the dumbest one, the dumbest one in the class.

==

[The Rav then starts talking about the leader of a new political party].

There is E., the dumbest one in school. He learned in the classroom opposite Micah Zonenshine, he said that someone as dumb as this, he’d never met in his life. He got zero [in all the exams], but his dad was very wealthy, and he used to donate to the school.

So then, they let him go up to the next class.

==

Ultimately, what does a person need, in order to be the head of the army?

They call this “Eight o four’, there’s a rule.

You come at 8am, you do nothing, and you finish at 4pm – and then you’ll automatically become the head of the army.

If you’re a baal teshuva, or the head of a yeshiva, then you already can’t be the RAMATKAL.

He used to show up at 7.55am, and he used to talk such nonsense, things that would be an embarassment for any child, even the dumbest kid in the class.

==

So, Korach said, this Elitzaphan, he’s the most backward, how is he meant to be the prince?! What sort of prince is he going to make?!

==

Translated and excerpted from Shivivei Or #461.

 

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A visit to Chaya

I’ll get back to translating the rest of the Rav’s ‘earthquakes megilla’, from two weeks ago, in the next post, BH.

Depending on my shabbos cooking.

That first earthquake in Venezuela, the 7.2, was centred on Moron = MERON.

The hints are flowing thick and fast, if you care to see them.

==

For now, I want to tell you about a visit I made to the hospital yesterday, to visit an older woman named Chaya.

Chaya was an immigrant to Israel from the former USSR 40 years ago, and while many of her peers chose to go to Am-er-ica, the goldene medina, Chaya decided to stay put.

She immigrated with her elderly parents, without a word of Hebrew, and as the only child and a single woman, she just got on with trying to make a living here, to keep her family going.

Baruch Hashem, she managed it.

She worked like an absolute dog, while her own mother stayed home with Chaya’s two kids, but today, she takes great satisfaction in the fact that she is leaving her two kids two apartments, each, when she croaks.

==

However, the rest of the story is not so happy.

Chaya was working so hard, she never really forged a deep relationship with her own children. She showed her love by making them exotic russian delicacies, that take hours slaving in a kitchen – but her kids, now grown up and with their own families – don’t like that sort of food, and find themselves having to force it down, to keep mama happy.

==

Chaya had some expectations of how life would like, once she finally stopped working so hard, and retired.

She’d be in her big apartment, surrounded by loving children and grandchildren, a bit part of the growing family’s life, and finally claim her place in the sun.

In reality, that hasn’t happened at all.

Chaya is incredibly generous – but also very strong-willed, and she wants things ‘her way’. Both her kids have been smoking since their early teens, but Chaya still doesn’t know this. She doesn’t know, how much one of her kids loves pizza – a ‘forbidden food’, because it’s a) not russian and b) not ‘healthy’.

Chaya would never dream of ordering a pizza in, when the kids come around.

Her relationship with them is based on her giving advice, and haranguing them for not doing things as well as they could be – and incessant worrying, that they aren’t sleeping enough, eating properly, getting on in life, etc etc.

It’s really exhausting to be around.

==

Recently, Chaya’s stress levels exploded.

She was worrying about the war…about the future of the country…about her kids not living in a place with a security room…about her grandson not developing properly (in her own mind)…about how expensive property is getting…about people not getting their shots on time, or even, at all….

Long story short, Chaya’s stress levels maxed out, about three months ago.

And she crashed, physically.

==

All of a sudden, she couldn’t walk.

She couldn’t talk so much.

She couldn’t cook.

She found herself having to finally quit the job she loves so much (three years after retirement age here…), and stuck in a chair alone, in her too-big flat, casting around for some meaning, some purpose to life.

==

Like many people from the former USSR, and also, many people in the West, Chaya was raised with a strong belief that unless someone is ‘productive’, however you chose to define that, they are meaningless.

They are ‘freeloaders’, ‘useless eaters’, the language escalates up and up, even to the point of comparing so-called ‘unproductive people’ to ‘parasites’ and cancerous growths, leaching the life out of so-called ‘humanity’.

It’s a very hard klippa to overcome.

It’s communist and also capitalist.

It totally and utterly denigrates the value of human life, and especially, that inner dimension of human life, the soul, which achieves great things that cannot be measured directly via bank balance or hours spent ‘doing something’.

==

To give one example:

A person wracked with physical pain, who connects that pain back to God, and tries their hardest to accept their situation with love – that person is achieving such high things, spiritually, for their soul, for their tikkun, it’s hard to put it into words.

But our communist-capitalist system finds this idea anathema – that’s why all the big push for euthanasia. Get the co-called ‘useless eaters’ out of the equation, and stop them pointless using up resources, like food, housing, electricity…

They don’t say this bit out loud, but it’s an accurate, and incredibly disturbing and anti-human, depiction of the general push to brainwash us all into thinking if someone isn’t ‘productive’, in the communist-capitalist meaning of the word, then they have no right to continue to exist.

==

Back to Chaya.

Yesterday, the hard shell started to crack a bit, and she finally started to cry, about her disappointed hopes for her golden years.

It’s not that her family don’t care – they care very, very much. They are calling, they are visiting, they are offering practical ‘help’.

But the core of the problem is this: Chaya is essentially a stranger in her children’s lives.

Where all the ‘shared experiences’ should be, the conversations, the stuff done together, the meeting of minds, and the sometimes violent disagreements – none of that really happened.

The family visits and interactions all followed a strict formula, which was suffocating for her children, and not satisfying for anyone involved.

There were too many conversations you just couldn’t have. Too many topics off the table. Too much ‘rigid thinking’ and need for control, and yes, let’s say it, selfish behaviour, that treated the children as just an ‘audience’ for the star of the show, the parent.

It’s very hard to patch all that up now.

But it’s not impossible.

==

Yesterday, I spent an hour telling Chaya that the time for obsessively ‘worrying about others’ is over. She now has to focus on getting herself well again.

But, I can no longer make the delicious soup my children love so much!!

  • Buy them a pizza instead, I tried to tell her. She didn’t take the hint.

But, I can’t help them with the kids the way I wanted do!!

  • Just focus on ‘being’, instead of ‘doing’ and show them your love in other ways (outside of the kitchen…)

By the end, to her credit, she was starting to listen.

She is hopefully going to move out of the too-big, lonely, empty apartment, to one of her smaller places, with a little garden, where she can actually sit outside and still be part of humanity – even though it’s in a less des-res area.

Your kids love you so much, Chaya.

I told her.

Let them figure things out a bit more, without you ‘helping’ all the time.

==

My takeaways from yesterday were many.

First, easy to see when it strikes someone else and not you, lo alenu, but it was obvious that Chaya’s illness has actually been sent as a hidden blessing, to shake up a whole bunch of things that were actually just suffocating her, and everyone else, and making her very unhappy.

Like, that ‘big apartment’.

Like, that ‘super-satisfying job’.

Like, being a ‘success’, materially – a great cook, a good organiser, a very efficient financial planner.

==

For me personally, who quit my successful career 20 years ago, when I could see that my parenting totally sucked as a result, it’s also very validating.

How many years, I spent in the wilderness, watching a ton of my more ‘successful’ peers have their big houses, fancy vacations, important jobs.

While I stayed at home, having countless internal battles with myself, trying to work on my bad middot, lack of emuna and issues with my kids. (And, lack of money and ability to buy the ‘big house’, on just one salary.)

Now, I am so grateful that I picked that path, because you can always work like a dog again at any stage of your life.

But you can’t go back and be a good parent to your kids when they really need you growing up, if you wasted that time stuck in your work emails.

==

The last thing I understood, is how deeply ingrained this whole idea is of ‘being productive’.

It’s the same stick being used to hit the chareidi world over the head right now, that totally negates the value of spiritual endeavours, and the human soul.

Or to put it another way, the whole, entire reason we are down here on planet earth, in the first place.

It’s mamash a battle between good and bad, on so many levels.

==

I’m not judging anyone.

I’m not judging Chaya, she really worked like a dog for decades, to make sure her elderly, immigrant parents had a place to live, and food on the table.

She’s a remarkable woman, in so many ways.

And that’s why, God is giving her the chance to finally put her feet up, and to get to know her kids and grandkids properly – and most importantly of all, her self.

I hope she’ll accept the invitation.

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The Man on the Walls – English translation

So, Shimshon Weissman has come up with a fantastic ‘tool’.

You can  basically run any Hebrew text through his Claude-built pipeline, Ars Astronimica, and it will give you an English translation that is readable and pretty darned accurate.

(Of course, no 100% guarantee with this stuff, but that’s also often true with human translations too, especially where there is a wide margin to ‘interpret’ things.)

==

Me personally?

All the Rav translations I do here, I do them myself, but use machines to help me with the odd word or phrase I don’t understand.

I notice the difference – my translations have some ‘soul’, still, the machine translations have a knack of sounding ‘perfect’, but don’t penetrate the reader at all.

In my experience.

It’s useful for getting the gist, for understanding the material, but for the Rav, there is so much more going on with his writings, than that.

==

However, for translating books like this – I think it’s very, very useful.

It’s literally opening up whole new vistas to millions of people, who beforehand couldn’t access the material or knowledge, as it was locked away in some old script that was impossible to read.

So, kudos to Shimshon!

==

He kindly translated the original Hebrew Volume I of ‘The Man of the Walls’ memoir about R Chaim Yosef Sonnenfeld, which the Rav has been quoting a lot from, recently.

I am sticking it here, as a PDF download.

The Man on the Walls Vol. I – Ars Astronimica

==

I haven’t read most of it myself, yet, I am planning to print if off, and do that properly beginning Shabbat, BH.

I know there is an Artscroll English ‘version’ of the book – it will very interesting, to compare how they differ. At some point.

==

In the meantime, I am doing my best to stay out of pointless machloket about whether Moshiach can come back from the dead…

If you’re a xtian, or have those tendencies hidden away within yourself, you believe he can.

That’s the bottom line.

There’s a whole discussion in the Gemara about it, and bottom line: moshiach CANNOT come back from the dead, and if he could, he would be King David.

Warping Jewish sources to justify eschatological beliefs is something xtians – and those with latent xtian beliefs – just love to do.

Me?

I’m staying out of it.

==

I’m also staying out of the machloket about blocking roads.

Although, I personally disagree with doing things like that, whatever cause a person espouses.

It’s interesting, that the leaders of the Kaplan protests, and the leaders of Peleg Yerushalayim are literally first degree family.

Hamavin, yavin.

==

The last thing to tell you, is that my friend was telling me how dati soldiers are being expected to sit in panzer vehicles with female soldiers, and it’s causing enormous suffering.

You sit in those things 24 hours a day, close quarters, even go to the bathroom in them, in combat situations when going outside can get you killed.

The Dati Leumi rabbonim recently released some terrible stories of what is going on, including one where a group of dati soldiers got given a female paramedic, to sit in their panzer with them.

One of the men started a physical relationship with the paramedic, and the rest of the unit was forced to endure them going at it, night after night, unable to flee.

It’s impossible to really describe the spiritual degradation this causes to ANYONE, religious or not, Jewish or not.

But, especially when there are individuals who are sensitive to the issue, and much more aware of the damage it does – it’s nothing less than spiritual torture.

==

Baruch Hashem, even not-religious wives of not-religious soldiers are starting to wake up, and complain that the army shouldn’t be forcing their husbands into close quarters with young women in a state of undress.

They shouldn’t be forced to sleep next to women, with no choice in the matter – and also, vice-versa.

There is also never any discussion about the potential for this to lead to sexual abuse of the women soldiers themselves, but for sure, this is a knife that cuts both ways.

==

This is not a ‘religious’ issue – that just sharpens it.

It’s an issue of whether operationally, a soldier in a combat role should be preoccupied with members of the other sex, while in dangerous situations.

Those guys in the tank – how ‘ready to repel enemies’ do you think they were, while trying to block out the totally degrading display going on, literally less than a foot away?

This is not how you run an army, fullstop.

And BH, even the not religious, even the ‘anti religious’, are starting to wake up to that, too.

==

But generally, I am staying out of all this machloket.

God is making things clearer and clearer, for anyone who really wants to see.

If for anyone who doesn’t – don’t waste your breath.

They’ll stay ‘convinced’ of their own lies, right up to the bitter end.

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Remember the 7th beggar?

He’s the guy with no feet, who actually equates to ‘Moshiach’, in Rabbenu’s Tale of the Seven Beggars.

I was discussing the Rav’s latest comments with my husband yesterday, when I suddenly got more insight into what the Rav may be hinting at.

Here’s the relevant passage again (but honestly, it’s all relevant):

Rabbi Shimon tells a story, from 1,000 years ago[3], that they went into the desert, when there wasn’t Waze, and there wasn’t GPS, and they got confused.

They made a mistake on the way, and they didn’t know how to get out of there (i.e. to leave the desert). It was already a quarter of an hour before sunset [of Shabbat] and they had another 500 parsaot to go.

They saw one person going along with crutches [also kab’in, in Hebrew], while they were travelling along on horses. He said to them: hold onto my belt, and I will fly with you, and within a second we will reach an inhabited place!

They didn’t understand what he was talking about.

They said to him, you are talking nonsense, us, we have horses, and you don’t even have legs! You are walking along with crutches!

[He replied] Grab on to my belt, and watch what happens!

==

They grabbed on to his belt, and within a second they reached an orchard. There were 300 students there, with benches, sitting down, and they were only reciting a single verse [over and over]:

“Haval havalim, amar Kohelet. Hakol havalim, hakol haval.”

==

It suddenly struck me, that guy on crutches is ‘Moshiach’, or at least, the Tzaddik of the Generation with the potential to become Moshiach, if the generation is worthy.

The lost dudes on the horses are you and me – we’re riding around on all our fancy gashmiut, embodied by the horses – but we are totally lost in the desert, and have no idea how to get out of there.

The timing is crucial: 15 minutes left before Shabbat begins, i.e. the 7th Millenia, geula, the world-to-come period of time.

And we have no idea how to get home, how to get to our safe space, before that deadline approaches.

==

Suddenly, someone on crutches, without legs – who instantly reminds us of another story by Rabbenu, called the un-PC title of ‘The Cripple’ – shows up, and starts calling to the lost dudes.

Follow me, just hang on to my belt, just hang on to me, I’ll get you out of here!!!

First of all, they kind of mock him in disbelief.

What, THAT guy?!? The guy with no legs? The guy on crutches, who isn’t even walking in this world?!?

==

Yes, that guy.

Who is so above the world, so not of this world, that he isn’t ‘walking around it’, immersed in gashmiut and the ‘reality’ of this world, the way we are.

He is way, way above all that.

==

But first, the lost dudes mock him.

You gotta be kidding us!! You can’t even walk, while we at least have our horses…

‘Horses’ being the symbol of all the honor, status, money, even Toyrah learning, whatever.

==

But the guy on crutches, the hidden tzaddik, he doesn’t give up so easily.

What do you care, if you just hold on to my belt for a second?! What’s the big deal?! Either it will work or it won’t, but what have you lost by trying?

This means, just stay close to the True Tzaddik however you can. Say one of the prayers. Spend 10 seconds reading some of his comments, or his books. Try to follow some of the teachings about talking to God for an hour a day, or overcoming anger.

Even just ‘want to want’, to be in the circle of the True Tzaddik, hanging on to his belt.

==

And then what happens?

Whoosh!

In the blink of an eye, the lost dudes reach the Pardes, and they are surrounded by 300 avreichim all repeating that nothing in this world really counts for anything.

The coda to this statement, is that the only thing that really counts in this world is the ability to learn Torah and do mitzvoth and good deeds, and work on improving our souls, while we are in a body and have the ‘free choice’ to do that, or not.

==

And then, the Rav moves on to Eretz Yisrael being unconquerable; open miracles God did and will do for His chosen people – and big hints that the earth is about to start moving again, big time.

==

Rebbe Nachman never actually wrote the story of the Seventh Beggar, of the Moshiach.

He said that Moshiach himself would have to do that, once he finally came.

So, it’s just interesting, is all I’m saying.

==

UPDATE:

The Rav gave a much more detailed version of this shiur, with way more explanation of this story, on a different occasion recently. The Ravberland.com site are translating it, but take a look at this:

https://ravberland.com/en/blog/the-secret-of-hevel-havalim-the-power-to-transform-into-a-body-shining-like-the-

Even more to think about.

==

Also interesting, for different reasons, is this strange story from 2016, that I just came across now, when looking for something entirely different:

https://israel365news.com/310069/sanhedrin-appoints-high-priest-preparation-third-temple/

Even though it’s a story from ten years ago, it’s all over evangelical channels on Youtube from 2025, as ‘proof’ the plan to rebuild the Third Temple, under Trump, is continuing as it should be….

You cannot make this stuff up.

 

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Eretz Yisrael can’t be conquered – more comments from the Rav

Shiur from motzae Shabbat Korach, June 13, 2026

Whoever draws close to Rabbenu (Rebbe Nachman of Breslov) is not to be found, at all, in this world.

Like we read at the kiddush, about the ba’alei kavin[1], that a woman is three times kav, each woman merits to be a ba’alei kavin, which isn’t trod upon planet earth.[2]

It’s forbidden to tread upon planet earth, and so, they are called ba’alei kavin. This was the meeting of King Shlomo, who met…[missing in original].

==

Rabbi Shimon tells a story, from 1,000 years ago[3], that they went into the desert, when there wasn’t Waze, and there wasn’t GPS, and they got confused.

They made a mistake on the way, and they didn’t know how to get out of there (i.e. to leave the desert). It was already a quarter of an hour before sunset [of Shabbat] and they had another 500 parsaot to go.

They saw one person going along with crutches [also kab’in, in Hebrew], while they were travelling along on horses. He said to them: hold onto my belt, and I will fly with you, and within a second we will reach an inhabited place!

They didn’t understand what he was talking about.

They said to him, you are talking nonsense, us, we have horses, and you don’t even have legs! You are walking along with crutches!

[He replied] Grab on to my belt, and watch what happens!

==

They grabbed on to his belt, and within a second they reached an orchard. There were 300 students there, with benches, sitting down, and they were only reciting a single verse [over and over]:

“Haval havalim, amar Kohelet. Hakol havalim, hakol haval.”[4]

==

There is no ‘world’.

The world doesn’t exist, at all.

Moshe said:

“Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan, to go in and dispossess nations greater and more powerful than you, cities great and fortified up to the sky.”[5]

Truly, it’s written in Devarim chapter 9, that Moshe said truly, it’s impossible to conquer Eretz Yisrael, you are correct. This is in ‘shemayim’, it’s mamash in shemayim!

Eretz Yisrael is not found here in our world, this is an error.

You’ve seen Eretz Yisrael in an atlas? You weren’t looking properly!

==

What happened now, in the Parsha?

The mountains decided to move[7].

I don’t know, you don’t read the parsha. You can read it, also you, the parsha! The mountains moved. I don’t know, you’re against the parsha. It’s good that you don’t read it, don’t read, it’s not for you.

The mountains went out like a bridge and groom [that become joined together]. There was a wedding there, it was a holiday, where two mountains got married, there.

A million Amorites were hidden away in the caves, and the  mountains came together, so they became tomato paste.

And there was a waterfall, which was made from a river of blood. (I’m against these things, you can tell the police’s Chief Prosecutor that I am against this.)

But read the story!

It was greater [a miracle] than the splitting of the sea! At the splitting of the sea, the sea split, and here, the mountains started to move, and to join together!

==

And so, David cursed the Mountains of Gilboa:

‘No dew, and no rain.”

Why didn’t they open, [when the Philistines came to murder Shaul and his sons.] There are devourers, open up!!

In ‘Sha’arei Tzedek’ [in Jerusalem] the ground opened up in the carpark. Three cars fell into it. The ground, when it wants to, it opens. The ground moves, the ground opens.

You are walking along, and suddenly you fall over – this is because the ground moved. It rose up against him. You are thinking a not-good thought – so boom, you trip on the stairs. You break your head.

The earth moves every second, it moves by itself, it contains lifeforce.

==

The Carmel and the Tavor jumped in the air [in order to have the Torah given upon them].

Rabbi Natan brings this down in Likutei Halachot, Heksher Keilim, Yoreh Deah, part 1:4. The mountains jumped in the air, Everest jumped in the air – it’s 9 kilometres tall.

==

It’s written that Alexander the Great went up three thousand kilometres high [on the back of an eagle] and saw that the earth was half a sphere.

He didn’t that it was a complete sphere, he thought that it rested upon elephants, and the elephants stood on turtles, and the turtles upon other turtles, and like that without end.

One person argued with an astronaut who said that the earth was in space. She said no, that just can’t be, because planet earth rests on turtles, and the turtles upon elephants, and the elephants on turtles, and the turtles again on more turtles, and on more turtles, and so on, without end.

This is ‘infinite space’.

==

So, the mountains jumped in the air.

“Why do you leap/skip [with envy], O mountains of peaks?”[8]

In order to receive the Torah, the mountains have feelings.

==

Why was the earth cursed? [At the time of the sin of Adam HaRishon.]

Because it should have moved a bit. Adam was going to eat from the Etz HaDaat – move somewhere!! And then he’ll fall down and break his hand, he’ll break his leg, and make teshuva!

What did the earth do [that should be cursed]? What did it eat? What did it drink?

==

[In Parshat Korach] the earth opened.

It opened it’s mouth. You – you should shut your mouths, don’t open them. A person needs to always have his mouth shut…

==

So, the earth each time can move by itself.

It sees everything that a person does. A person goes to eat from the Etz HaDaat – move, a little bit! Make an earthquake, and he’ll fall over, he’ll break his hand and his leg.

==

So, [at the giving of the Torah], the mountains jumped in the air.

All the mountains, across the whole world. The Andes, the Pyrenees – this is Spain and France. There are the Apennines, these are in Italy. The Alps are France, and in Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. The Alps follow the Carpathian mountains – this goes until Ukraine, the Alps.

The highest mountain is 5 km, and this is the border between Switzerland, Italy and France. They are still fighting about it even today – Mont Blanc, the white mountain.

There, they are having a fight until today, about who owns the summit.

==

We took the summit.

By the Jews, it’s not a problem, to take the summit. That’s it – the Hermon is ours. Snir and Sirion.[9]

Who is interested in this, in these names [that were given to Mount Hermon]? But, the Hermon is the barometer. If the summit is in our hands, it’s a sign that Hashem forgave us, and Hashem will give it to us forever.

==

“Cities great and fortified up to the sky.”

So, the great mountains and fortifications are in shemayim.

Jerusalem is [the sefira] malchut. Tsfat is [the sefira] netzach. Tiberius is hod.Shechem is yesod.

The Chesed L’Avraham explains about each city, which sefira it is.

It’s impossible to conquer Eretz Yisrael [via natural means].

==

The Rebbe [Rebbe Nachman of Breslov] said without firing a single shot.

In 5708 (1948)  in Tiberius, suddenly everyone ran away. I woke up in the morning on Wednesday, and there wasn’t a single Arab. They were my good friends, I liked them.

Now, when I travelled [to the Ukraine], I took with me an Arab [doctor], dafka, a very pleasant Arab. I don’t know what they want, from these Arabs.

So, the Shabak said you can’t travel with an Arab. Maybe, he’s going to blow up some Consulate, he’s going to blow something up in America.

They kept us waiting two hours in the airport, because of this Arab. In the end, in Kishinev, they didn’t let us in. He yelled out ‘Free Palestine!!!’ they went crazy.

When they came to conquer, they also yelled out ‘Free Palestine!!!’ – this is not just today.

==

Translated and excerpted from Shivivei Or #461.

==

I took away from this shiur, that we can expect some more big earthquakes to start again soon…

TBC

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Mishnah Sotah 3:4 (also discussed in the Gemara on Sotah 20a)

Rabbi Yehoshua said: רבי יהושע אומר: רוצה אשה בקב ותפלות מתשעה קבין ופרישות

In English: “Rabbi Yehoshua says: a woman would rather have a kav (a small measure of sustenance) with tiflut (closeness/intimacy with her husband), than nine kabin (a much larger measure) with prishut (his abstaining/keeping his distance from her).”

[2] It’s not clear to me what the Rav is actually saying here.

[3] See Tikkunei HaZohar, 103b.

[4] “Vanity of vanities, says Kohelet, everything is vanities, everything is meaningless.”

[5] Devarim 9:1.

[7] Bemidbar 21, Parshat Chukat – when the mountains came together and crushed the Amorites to death, who wanted to ambush Am Yisrael.

[8] Tehillim: 68:17.

[9] See Devarim, Chapter 3.

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The Uman antidote, and some thoughts on staying real

Yesterday, my bad mood broke.

You know how that happened?

BH, I went and booked myself a trip to Uman. 

Sure, it’s more expensive than it used to be. Sure, it’s more difficult travelling, in some ways. Sure, who knows what’s going on with the airport being open, the airport being shut.

Yadda yadda yadda.

The point is, I was starting to feel more than a little ‘trapped’, and it was taking me a long time to figure out that as usual, Uman is the antidote to the fear and the bad middot and the lack of emuna, that’s underlying all that.

It’s not for a while, but even just booking it is working the magic, and I am starting to feel happier and a little more optimistic, again.

==

That has always been one of the special qualities of travelling to Uman, that whatever is holding a person back in their actual life, they have to get over that to get to Uman, in some way.

It could be money issue (I paid on tashlumim – when you chunk it into 6-12 monthly payments, it’s affordable for pretty much anyone.)

It could be relationship issues.

For most people, it usually boils down to all those inner fears, worries and ‘demons’ that are keeping them so stuck in their real, actual life, too.

Like, what’s the point?…It’s too complicated…It’s too expensive…Who is going to do [fill in the blank] if I’m not around for a few days…What if I get stuck there for weeks…Uman doesn’t work, to solve my issues…There’s a war going on in the Ukraine, it’s dangerous…

That last one is kinda a joke for Israelis at this point.

I was telling my brother in the US, how nuts the world is that I booked a trip to the Ukraine to give me a break from ‘the madness’…

==

Point is, whatever the yetzer you manage to break, that’s holding you back from going to Uman, somehow, that same yetzer starts to diminish in your ‘real life’, too.

It’s actually the journey itself that’s doing the heavy-lifting work, not so much arriving at the final destination.

==

Someone asked me last week if the Rav has mentioned Uman Rosh Hashana 5787 yet, the last few months.

To my knowledge, he hasn’t.

It could be that we are still bit too early for him to be talking about it, but I recall from previous years, especially with the madness going on, that the Rav has been encouraging people to make plans to go for months and months in advance.

This year, so far, he isn’t doing that.

==

While I was thinking about all this, it struck me that since the Rav’s own last trip to the Ukraine, where he was let in to the country, but still didn’t get to Uman, he has kinda stopped talking about Moshiach coming imminently.

I don’t know what all this means, btw, and I am personally so sickened by all these Youtube ‘prophets’, that I don’t want to even begin to speculate.

But, in my own dalet amot, while I was trying to figure out the last couple of weeks why I’ve been feeling quite bleak about the future of Eretz Yisrael, it struck me that my belief that Moshiach is coming imminently has receded dramatically now.

No more using ‘Moshiach’ as a mental crutch, who will magically sweep away all the crud, all the evil in the world, while I sit on my couch and watch more pointless Youtube prophets.

So then, that left me grappling around for an answer to how does this all resolve itself, then?

And honestly, I still don’t know how to reply to that question.

Other than to say, Ein Od Milvado, and whatever God decides, will be.

==

But tachlis, back in my small spiritual space, the recent implosion of ‘Rivka HaTzaddika’, combined with the Rav’s recent emphasis on everything except the coming of Moshiach, combined with my own sense of just feeling exhausted by this whole mad process we’ve been going through for years…

That’s been causing a lot of the bad mood.

And I’m hoping, that Uman will provide at least some of the koach required to get on top of all this again, develop some new, fresh emuna in the goodness of the world, and of life, generally, and to reboot, and move forward happily.

==

Which segues me in to the last thing I wanted to write about today, which is the ‘dead internet’, and how more and more people I know are ‘mind-melding’ with Claude and other AI chatbots to write emails, term papers, online content, ‘news’, and who knows what else.

Just when I thought the fake world couldn’t get any more fake, I started getting emails from very different people, who suddenly all sound the same, i.e. punctuation-perfect ‘fake Claude’.

Initially, it was kinda funny.

Especially, when a certain psycho I know started sending out ‘Claude’ emails, which were totally unlike hs real personality, and yet, still managed to convey a sense of angry demento.

==

In this fake world, staying real is getting harder and harder.

Between the censureship, the bots, the ‘AI generated content’ (like, just look at all the thumbnails on ‘Rabbi videos’ now on Youtube. Identikit cut-and-paste, often with some big lion, in lurid colours that makes everyone look like they should urgently up their heartattack meds.

Yuck.

Point is, also totally cutting off from everything ‘bad’ is a form of ‘unreal’.

Maybe, a person can totally disconnect from the war in Israel, and the huge suffering it’s causing here, if they live in chul.

Maybe, they continue happily sniffing the roses, oblivious about the sirens going on, the soldiers dying in one ‘bizarre incident’ after another, where Hezbollah apparently always knows which tank the senior commanders are travelling in, and how to take it out…

Maybe, people in chul can just limit themselves to worrying about which branch of organic oatmeal to buy, and what colour their gel lac should be, if they really want it to match their sheitel…

But, I’m not a person in chul.

I literally ‘feel stuff’ in the air, when we’re hit with mass casualty events, as happened a couple of days ago in Lebanon. I was teary all day, and I had no idea why.

It’s only when I did my one minute round up of what’s going on in Israel, that I started to realise I’d picked up the sadness of those soldiers being killed.

==

Like many people here, I’ve had to try very hard to go numb, the last couple of years, to try to deal with what has been overwhelming, never-ending stress and worry.

That’s been a very necessary coping strategy, and staying off the news, and away from the ‘bad’ has been very helpful.

At the same time – it can’t be a permanent mindset.

The real feelings have to be acknowledged and processed at some point, the fake ‘reality’ has to be engaged with, when there is a little strength to do that again, not least, because Rabbenu taught that a Jew’s job in this world is to see what is lacking in his world, and to pray on it being rectified.

That’s our job, our responsibility.

Regardless of where we live.

==

The last three years, I probably aged at least 10.

The sleepless nights and ‘stress’ do that to a person.

I would love, in theory, to have nothing else to worry about except what brand of organic oatmeal to buy, or where to go on my next glatt-kosher holiday.

But that’s not real.

It’s not real for anyone, anywhere.

We are down here to work, to strive, to feel our hurt, and to ask God to heal it. Our pain, and the pain of those around us.

Sure, it’s a very fine line, a very exacting balancing act, between feeling the pain, and getting swamped by it.

I get that.

But, if Moshiach isn’t coming any time soon, after all, God forbid, then the question becomes more urgent, of what can we ourselves do, to improve this cruddy world we currently live in?

To start to stand up for good and holiness and God?

To start to uproot the evil habits, thoughts and behaviours hiding away in the crevices of our own hearts and minds, that make our patch of the world darker than it was designed to be?

If Moshiach isn’t coming any time soon to fix the mess – how is that going to change how we act and react to what is going on?

==

It’s a big question.

I’m still chewing it over, thinking it through.

And I invite you to join me in that important, and sometimes painful, process.

Each person has their light to share.

And the world needs that light now, not in another 200 years.

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Don’t we all want a real answer to this question?

You know things are strange in the world when yucky American politicians start to sound a little bit sensible…

Look at this

==

Rebbe Nachman taught that the Moshiach will come, without a shot being fired.

In the meantime, it tears the heart, to hear of yet more young men killed in South Lebanon.

So, what is the plan?

Really, what is the plan?

Never-ending, never-stopping, war, with more and more beautiful souls being killed, while no-one cares to enlighten us plebs as to what ‘the plan’ actually is? Or if, it even exists ?

==

If more and more and ‘war’ isn’t stopping the war and the ‘security problem’, then maybe, just maybe, there IS a different way of securing Israel’s borders, that doesn’t boil down to who has the biggest gun….?

Maybe, we should give diplomacy a chance, while we’re waiting for Moshiach to come and really resolve this, because the current way of fixing the problem has only been making it worse, for the last 40 years.

Of course, without giving up an inch of the Holy Land.

==

I just keep remembering how the USSR seemed it was going to last forever, until one day, it was gone.

It imploded under the weight of its own lies and evil.

That thought cheers me up, when the matzav continues to depress me.

 

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Reality check: it’s been really stressful in Israel, the last 3 years

How can we, who have been living in Israel through all the madness of the last few years, really explain what it’s been like to those who haven’t?

How can we explain, that even simple things like trying to get a short break somewhere green for a day or two, has been so hard to accomplish, for so many years?

How we can talk about the bus stops, that for two years were plastered with posters of the hatufim, and now are still plastered with stickers of the thousands of fallen soldiers, each one a world in itself, now no longer here, in our world?

How can you get someone in Lakewood, or Monsey, or London, to really understand what a toll it’s taken, to be living under the threat of sirens, for years and years?

Even when you know we are being bombed from close proximity, and that most of the sirens are just smoke and mirrors, there is still that nagging fear at the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, your building will be the one blasted by the mysterious plane, this time around.

==

There’s also a million-and-one ‘little things’ that have been so stressful the last few years.

Like, ridiculous as it sounds, I can’t order a package from Amazon, with any certainty it will get here. Between this and that, one thing and another, I have had 5-6 packages go awol now, and ‘the war’ is a convenient excuse for the postal service being so very crap.

The kids have been in and out of school, (not mine, my two are grown up already) – but my friends have had weeks and months with kids at home, under their feet, all pretence of ‘routine’ out the window.

I was talking to one of my friends yesterday who was trying to plan a short three day holiday up North in the summer.

She told me, I can’t plan anything. My husband is scared of drones coming across the border, and no-one knows, if the war will be over, or still going.

You can’t book a flight out, except via ElAl, and who knows if the plane is actually going to take off, even if you can afford the ridiculous ticket price? Who knows, if you fly out, if you won’t get stuck for months outside, unable to fly back in?

==

How to explain all this to Jews in Monsey, Lakewood and London, who have no idea how difficult day to day life has been here, for years?

==

I am currently feeling quite under the weather, nothing serious, just snot and a headache.

I know it’s a detox from all the ‘stress’ of the last few months. And, I also know that I am coming through this situation in pretty good shape, in great part thanks to the daily hitbodedut, Rebbe Nachman and the Rav.

But there are so many others, who are literally cracking from the strain.

Otherwise healthy people, who just can’t take the ‘stress’ of what’s been going on any more, and are developing all sorts of yucky illnesses and diseases.

How to explain, to someone in Monsey, Lakewood or London, what it really meant, to get no sleep for two months solid, woken up in the middle of the night by sirens and the noises of people running to bomb shelters – even if you yourself didn’t buy into the bombs?

==

Everything God does is for the best.

Including all this that’s going on. There’s a huge wave of teshuva engulfing Eretz Yisrael, and not even the politicians can head it off.

At the same time, having emuna and seeing God’s hand behind everything doesn’t negate the need to actually deal with, and process, the enormous strain we have all been under.

It’s not a good thing to ping immediately back to ‘business as usual’, even if such a thing is possible. Each of us needs to take some time to really let all the stress, all the difficult emotions, all the fear and despair, of the last few months out of the system.

Not to dwell on it, but also not to ignore it.

==

I know Jews in chul have their own tests, and that no-one gets a free ride in this world.

But, I also know that Jews in chul really have no idea, of the million ways life has been particularly difficult here in the Aretz, the last few years.

Of course, there is still so much to be thankful for, and so much good, mamash.

We Jews are amazing, that we’re still here, still going, still planning for the future, still moving forward, despite all that has happened and is still happening.

But, we still have to take a few moments, a few days, a few weeks, to really process what just happened here.

And to feel the pain of it.

And to feel the ‘difficulty’ of it, and to understand we’ve been through the fire in Eretz Yisrael, mamash, the last three years.

==

So it is, that I am struggling to accept mussar about having emuna from well-meaning Jews in Monsey, Lakewood and London, who let’s be honest, would not last five minutes here, in Eretz Yisrael.

It’s been a hard ride.

And it’s not over yet.

And the people who don’t live here, have no idea of the real level of emuna it’s required, and still requires, even from the chilonim, perhaps especially from the chilonim, to stay here.

==

Me?

I love Israel, I love the place, the country, the people, the history, the kedusha.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to lie, and say it’s been easy the last few years.

It really hasn’t.

And for sure, the Jews that continue to live here have earned a much higher spiritual level than those who live outside.

That’s the bottom line.

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All the shefa is in Jerusalem – more comments from the Rav

Excerpt of a shiur from June 4th, 2026 (Sivan 19th, 5786)

So everyone should say the ‘Amens’.

Don’t give up on a single Amen! “The land is very, very good!”[1] All the shefa (bounty) is here!

In the parsha, it’s written that the Land is the best in the world. All the shefa comes down to here. “Like the dew of the Hermon that descends upon the mountains of Zion.”

How does the dew of the Hermon come down on the mountains of Zion? Usually, the dew of the Hermon comes down on the Hermon! But this is how it is with Shuvu Banim, everything is printed backwards.

==

Where is the dew of the Hermon? On the Hermon, no?

So why is it written “upon the mountains of Zion”? Rather, in truth, the dew descends upon Jerusalem, all the shefa comes to Jerusalem.

We are stupid, we don’t catch on to this. It’s like they are pouring a million gold coins upon a person – but he has a hole. He has a hole in his pot, a hole in his sack. Everything is pouring out.

==

A person comes, Hashem pours down here a million golden dinarii.

Rain, dew – the dew, He pours down here. Everything comes to Jerusalem, and from here, it is distributed to the world.

But, if we’re bringing Hashem vessels with holes in them – a person walks around with his eyes open, so then he makes a hole in his vessel. Or, he speaks lashon hara, or he believes lashon hara.

The spies believed lashon hara, so there were two churbanot (the two Temples were destroyed).

A person believes all the nonsense – but it’s assur to even listen! So then he makes a hole in his vessel, and the vessel pours everything out, all the shefa.

==

But everything comes down to Jerusalem, all the shefa.

[Yehoshua bin Nun and Calev ben Yefunnah] told Am Yisrael: “The land is very, very good!” It’s here, [all the shefa]. It’s written in the parsha, and in Ekev it’s written: “you will lack nothing there”[2].

Nothing is lacking here, here, there is all the shefa in the world. You don’t need to go and live in Harish, and not in Bet Shemesh. A person whose wife was born there, this is something else. But all the shefa descends here.

Why do you need to go and live in Bet Shemesh, or in Harish, or in Hevron?

Also not in Hevron, there is the Mearat HaMachpela there, you can go there and say 7 Tikkun Haklalis in an hour, and then come back. You don’t need to live in Hevron.

==

The Tribe of Gad went to live on the other side of the Jordan, to live on Mount Nevo.

So, they descended into tarbut ra (lit. bad culture, a bad environment). Not a trace of them remains.

A person needs to live where the Tzaddik lives, the Tzaddik lives in Jerusalem.

==

So, each person needs to say the Amens [during the davening].

This brings down all the shefa. And, there should be no talking during the Amens, not during yehei shmaya raba.

And, there should be no rolling under cars.[3] No one should leave their child by Highway 1[4], the kids are rolling, they are making it a ‘sport’.[5] They are rolling under wheels!

They used to do this on Rashbam St [in Bnei Brak]. Even my Nachman rolled under a car. The car stopped very suddenly, and everyone fell over in the bus [that had to make an emergency stop]. Everyone received a blow to the head, and the driver also got a blow to the head.

And afterwards, the children enjoy all this.

==

So, they need to stop ‘rolling’ onto Highway 1!

Each person needs to take their son with them. Whoever can’t have their son pray next to them, he should pray at home, and listen in via the window.

==

Excerpted and translated from Rasisei Tal Newsletter, #72.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bemidbar, 14:7.

[2] Devraim, 8:9.

[3] This week in Karmei Tzur in Gush Etzion, a six year old was killed when his bimba rolled under the wheels of a bus, Hashem yerachem. The Shuvu Banim kids use bimbas a lot, as Ido HaNavi, where the Rav davens, is at the bottom of a steep incline that the kids love to race down. The Rav gave this over two weeks before the child was killed in Karmei Tzur:

Tragedy in Karmei Tzur: Six-Year-Old Boy Killed in Bus Accident Near New Home

[4] This road passes directly at the bottom of Ido HaNavi, and is one of the main highways leading to the Old City.

[5] It’s literally like being in the middle of some Olympic bobsled competition, except with bimbas and tarmac, instead of ice chutes.

==

Ad kan, from the Rav.

Now that we’ve got to this point, after all the years of arguing with SOOOOO many people about ‘Trump Moshiach’, the ‘tuv she be Esav’, the guy that was sent to ‘save’ Israel – and the world! – from the baddies, what is left to say, really?

What’s interesting to me, now, is how many of the people who were tooting Trump’s horn for years and years very vocally are now pretending they ‘knew he was bad news’ all along. A clown, a joker, a fake.

That’s the bit that actually disturbs me the most.

Anyone can make mistakes, anyone can get fooled, especially in our world of lies. But, to brazenly pretend they ‘knew it along’ when they clearly, obviously didn’t?

That’s demonstrating a very worrying level of ‘lying to myself’, and everyone else, about what is really going on.

And if you can lie to yourself about calling out Trump, when you really didn’t, then you can lie to yourself about a whole bunch of other mistakes and issues too, and simply gaslight anyone who tells you different.

(There’s a reason that’s a key narcissistic trait…)

==

So, it’s interesting what’s going on.

At the micro level, of watching people who swore blind Trump had an army of ‘white hats’ about to arrest all the pedos, etc etc etc, or really did get his ear shot off!!!!, now squirming around pretending they had nevua all along, that they just knew he was bad news.

Halavai.

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Iran stopped the war – more comments from the Rav

These are from last Monday night.

Excerpt of shiur from June 7th, 2026 – Monday night

So we said that yesterday the war started, you can already get up for chatzot, you be awake the whole night.[1]

And now, in the end, they announced that all our plans [for people to get up for chatzot] came to naught, they were nullified. The Iranians said that they want [a cease fire], that they are stopping the war.

Their rockets are finished, they fired ten rockets at 12 midnight, and there was a siren. At six in the morning, they fired another ten rockets, and the Yemenites also joined the party, the ‘symphony’, because it’s a symphony.

It’s a fireworks display. They weren’t prepared for there to be a fireworks display, they heard that Shuvu Banim are standing on the rooftops and want to catch the rockets. They didn’t agree to this.

So, they stopped the war.

==

Excerpted and translated from the Resisei Tal Newsletter, #72.

==

I haven’t checked the news today before posting this up.

Yesterday, we were on track, supposedly, for more ‘peace in the Middle East’, but each five minutes the story changes, so who knows what is really happening?

Rabbenu teaches that ‘knowing nothing’ is actually the highest level, so that’s a silver lining to this state of perpetual ‘know-nothing-ness’, that we all find ourselves right now.

I find myself drifting away into my thoughts a lot at the moment, or to be more accurate, drifting back into my worries, when I’m supposed to be having a chat with my husband or doing something else.

It’s not just the war.

My parents are currently homeless, and it’s not proving so easy for them to find new rented accommodation in the UK. I am worrying about it, even though that doesn’t really help much.

==

Tov, best to get back to the day, and the ‘real world’, of sweeping the floor, a little, working on some more research, a little.

May we just hear good news.

==

FOOTNOTE:

[1] There were a number of sirens Sunday night across Israel, but not in Jerusalem, which only had sirens Monday morning.

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