Even the arabs have yeoush

My husband takes a lot of cabs in the Holy City.

Most of them are driven by arabs, who live in East Jerusalem.

Strange to say, over time, my husband has been getting into more and more conversations with his arab cab drivers, and one of the things that is coming through loud and clear is that they also have yeoush about the ‘matzav’ – and also, just want all the war and fighting and uncertainty to stop, already, so the tourists can come back.

==

In our ‘theoretical’ world, where all the talking head wax eloquent about peace in the Middle East and all the abstract issues standing in the way, it’s easy to forget that bottom line:

99.9% of the arabs here want peace, and to live their lives, and make enough money to do that.

And that small percentage that doesn’t want that, is like the small percentage on the Israeli side of the equation, too, who for some reason seems to be committed to never-ending, non-stop, violence and war.

Who wants all this ‘war’?

You and me don’t.

The arabs don’t.

So, who really wants it, who benefits from it all?

That is the question.

==

Every day here, there are new stories of IDF soldiers with PTSD killing themselves.

The heart weeps, about the loss of life still going on, young men in their prime, men with families, with young kids, with spouses.

Killing themselves, because we have built a society that glorifies violence and war, and goes to great lengths to cover up the real impact of forcing very young men into positions of killing others or being killed.

==

Armies have known about PTSD since at least WW1.

The Powers That Be deliberately covered up the studies that showed that soldiers with ‘shell shock’ were not to blame for going to pieces, and that the process of being engaged in war itself was to blame for their severe mental issues, afterwards.

That didn’t fit with the ‘O, what a glorious war!’ government propaganda, so soldiers with PTSD were routinely punished – including being shot as deserters.

==

==

That was more than a 100 years ago, surely we’ve moved on since then?

No?

This is a website exploring military PTSD in the US army:

PTSD and the Military

==

Here’s an interesting snippet:

  • 80% of the Korean War veterans (‘50-’53) were found to have PTSD.

  • Between 15%-30% of U.S. veterans who served in the Vietnam War (with direct U.S. involvement between ‘65-’75) are reported to have developed PTSD. Additionally, due to the controversial nature of the Vietnam War, its veterans faced a great deal of criticism upon returning home. That said, recent decades have offered greater compassion and better mental healthcare to U.S. veterans, including those of the Vietnam War.

  • 12% of U.S. veterans from the Gulf War (‘90-’91) are believed to have developed PTSD.

==

According to this site, young men are much more at risk of developing military PTSD than older soldiers.

==

Let me tell you about a nice guy and his wife we hosted for Shabbat, a few years ago.

He was originally from the US, a ‘modern orthodox’, who decided to move to Israel and join the army.

He saw active service here, and lost two very good friends in operations.

The whole thing traumatised him so badly, he had to move away from Israel, and when we met him a few years ago, he was still finding it very hard to even visit the country for a couple of weeks.

He still loves Eretz Yisrael, loves Jews, is still religious – but, he clearly had untreated PTSD from his experiences (which he was still telling us all about, in gory detail, many years later…) and his way of dealing with it was to flee the country.

==

Most of the guys with military PTSD here don’t have that option.

So they stay – and the nightmares, irritability, shot-to-pieces nervous system, horrible feelings overwhelming panic, anger and fear, massive questions about the apparent pointlessness and fragility of life – all that stuff continues to drag them under, until and unless it’s properly dealt with.

And it’s NOT being properly dealt with, at all, because we built a society that glorifies war and violence, and that simply doesn’t want to talk about the huge psychological, emotional and spiritual effect of sending young men into situations, repeatedly, where they have to kill or be killed.

O, what a glorious war!

Until, that guy leaves the army, and then his relationships and life falls apart, because he’s violent, jumpy, suicidal, depressed, anxious, can’t function, and very possibly, is also addicted to substances…

But, O! What a glorious war!

==

Baruch Hashem, for the chareidim.

Baruch Hashem, that there is an organised bulwark in Eretz Yisrael, that is not buying the propaganda, and is forcing society as a whole to really think about compulsory army service.

If someone likes violence, has a tendency to like killing other people – be vakasha, the army is the right place for you, and you’re doing a mitzvah. There are people with a military mindset, it does suit them, I guess.

Or at least, that’s what they think, until the shine wears off and they begin to realise what they really signed up to.

==

But how can anyone seriously argue, that young men and women should be forced into these types of situations?

Instead of yelling about the chareidi conscription, why are we not yelling about the completely corrupt politicians and leaders who have failed us so badly, by ensuring we live in a situation of permanent, never-ending war?

Why aren’t we yelling about the very real lack of support for the demobilised soldiers, when they return home?

Why aren’t we yelling about all these poor, precious young men who are killing themselves because of COMPLETELY TREATABLE PTSD?!?!

==

Bottom line, no army really cares about the people who join it.

Not even the ‘most moral army in the world’.

And until and unless that changes, why would anyone keep thinking that war is the only solution to what is going on here, in Eretz Yisrael?

Clearly, there has to be another way.

Because even the arabs want peace.

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Rabbenu steps out of the shadows

The last few years, I think it’s safe to say that Rabbenu kind of went into ‘hiding’.

With the onset of ‘Covid’, the trip to Uman became way more complicated and difficult. Who remembers all the swabs, the ‘Vidoma App’, sitting on planes masked for hours and hours and hours?

Then, the Ukraine-Russian war kicked off, and the difficulties changed, becoming easier in some ways, but way harder in others.

Ukraine closed all its airspace to flights.

There were reports of Uman getting rocketed, of the hotels there filling up with refugees from Kiev, and other parts of the country.

==

After six months of war, the Jewish organised trips to Kiev resumed.

I know, because I was on the second one that went for women, over Rosh Chodesh Elul, when we trained into Ukraine over the Polish border and I spent two days worried sick I’d get turfed out the train in ‘no mans land’ because I kept having weird issues with my passport.

In the end, BH, that didn’t happen.

But I had so much collected PTSD from all that, I just didn’t go to Uman for almost three years afterwards, also because of wars and weddings on the Israeli side of the equation.

==

That ended last March, 2025, when God helped me to get back again.

And then, I went in November 2025.

And now, I just came back again.

And I can tell you with 100% clarity, that without Rabbenu and Uman, I simply would not have been able to stand up to the extraordinary levels of stress I’ve been under the last couple of years, in so many ways, not all bad.

I had literally hit rock-bottom before I went just now, and slowly, slowly, I am feeling more and more of my energy and joie de vivre returning, in many different ways.

Rabbenu is taking me in hand, and fixing me up.

And boy, there is a lot of work to do.

==

Point is: even though the trip can be gruelling, hours and hour on a bus, super-expensive, big queues, the ongoing ‘worries’ about war (although Israelis are way more passe about that now, with everything that’s gone on here, Uman is still a ‘holiday’ from the war zone, in so many ways.)

Even though all that is going on – look at this headline:

Despite war, record crowds head for Uman

Over 45,000 Israelis expected to make annual pilgrimage to Uman Ukraine, despite closed Ukrainian airspace, martial law, and a grueling journey across the border.

This kind of sums it up.

==

If they are saying 45,000 in the media, it’s probably more like 70,000+

And why?

Because so many Jews understand that Rabbenu is the only way to get through what is going on all over the world, at the moment, in relative peace and good health.

That is the bottom line.

And the people who already know the ‘secret’ of Rabbenu are not shy about telling other people.

==

My son in law is going to Uman for the first time ever, this year.

And it’s absolutely nothing to do with me.

Instead, one of his neighbours invited him to go with his group, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So, he is going.

And I am SURE, that he will be going back again, once he’s got over the miniot and the mind-tricks and fears about going the first time.

Whatever is stopping a person from going to Uman, that’s exactly what is stopping them from moving forward in every other part of their life, too.

==

Lack of money, lack of emuna, cynicism, pessimism, that ‘Uman is just make-believe and doesn’t work’, worries about the journey, worries about the war, fears about who they’ll get stuck with in the room, or on the bus, or maybe, that they’ll get caught with their ‘green / brown /white’ stuff at the border, so they’ll have to travel ‘clean’ for a week…

You name it, that exact thing is also stopping the person from moving forward in their own, so-called ‘real life’ too.

==

I didn’t go for three years, because I was full of fallen fears and despair.

Once that stuff started to clear, a little, I went.

Or to put it the right way around, once I realised what as stopping me from going was fear and despair, I decided I had to do the experiment anyway, because I didn’t want to spend my life in that fearful, despairing place.

It’s bad middot.

It’s huge klippot.

And Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov – that’s the only way to really smash these things to pieces, because we are in such a low generation, we just can’t do it by ourselves.

==

Here’s what I found on that new Wiki Rabbenu site I found HERE, that sums it up:

21 Pertaining to C”M #592: One time Rabbeinu z”l said the hardest and heaviest of all obstacles is only the mental (and heart) block.

One time Rabbeinu z”l said the hardest and heaviest of all obstacles is just the mental (and heart) block.

For without mental block (that is, when there is no doubt in the mind that he has to do this thing and his desires are strong), then even any kind of obstacles, his wife or other people in the world who are blocking, or money, or the sea etc. — they’d all be broken through with a strong will.

(Like people say, “Resolution can break iron” (ratzon brekht ayzin)).

==

So if someone doesn’t accomplish what he wanted through his resolution, it’s a sign that he didn’t honestly desire it.

For, “Ein davar ha`omed leneged haratzon/ Nothing can stand in the way of resolution!” Rabbeinu z”l said it in these words, “The main thing is the mental block.” (Der ikar iz meniot haMoach.)

==

(And like one time someone told Rabbeinu z”l, ‘I want to be a kosher person!’ and he replied (Vilstu ober veln?) That is, Will you truly wish it?

For if there is a strong will he will surely attain what he wants, only if he does not give up his strong will, for the main thing is the will. There’s nothing stronger than it.)

==

We need to be so very persistent right now, so very ‘strong’ in maintaining our desire to have emuna and good middot and optimism again, when everything is still so uncertain and often so difficult.

Rabbenu is the well-spring of that strength and emuna.

And the people who know that, are willing to move heaven and earth to get to him, particularly on Rosh Hashana.

Because once it’s broken over there, on the way to ‘Uman’ – it’s also broken back home, in your ‘real life’, too.

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The ground opened up – more comments from the Rav

Below, I’ll bring an update on some of the recent earthquakes…

In the meantime:

==

Excerpt of a shiur from 17th Av, 5786, Parshat Ekev (July 31, 2026)

[The Rav has been taking again about Korach, and his rebellion against Moshe Rabbenu. He says that the women should have prevented their husbands from taking part in it, following the example of On ben Pelet’s wife.]

[On ben Pelet remonstrates with his wife that he can’t sit out the rebellion because]:

I’m the first speaker!

She said to him: Go to sleep! Drink some champagne!

==

Once upon a time, the earth used to swallow [people].

Now, the ground is opening, and is going to swallow them.

Now in India, the earth opened, and a whole mountain fell down in China, on a whole city. A whole mountain! So, around a thousand people were killed there.

And every day, the ground opens up – every day!

They just think about anarchy and lawlessness[1], so then then ground opens up.

==

They say:

“You have killed the people of Hashem!”[2] – You killed them!!

Who killed them?!

Moshe!!! You are the greatest sorcerer, you killed them!!!

==

So, it’s written in [Mishlei 14:a], “a woman’s wisdom builds the home’.

This is the wife of On ben Pelet, [who told her husband]:

Drink champagne, go to sleep!

[He said to her] But, what’s going to be with the tefillin?[3]

-You are patur (exempted)! Everyone is going against Moshe, you are patur from tefillin!

Now, everyone got swallowed up by the earth.

==

[The Rav now starts discussing the daughters of Tzelophad, and how they made a point of stating that Tzelophad was not part of Korach’s rebellion, and also, not part of the group that worshipped the Golden Calf and so he should still have an inheritance in the land.]

The ikker is that the women should learn with their husbands [what happened to those men who worshipped the Golden Calf].

Some of them bowed down to it, some of them kissed it – their lips swelled up. And some of them had hirhur (thought of) worshipping it, in their hearts. They ‘agreed’ [in their hearts to worship the Golden Calf], so then they died in the plague.

This is the Gemara – Yoma 67. Now, go and learn Yoma, before Yom Kippur, finish it. On the way [to places] you can finish the whole of Yoma.

==

One woman asked [Rabbi Eliezer], what was these ‘three deaths’?

He said: Whoever was witnessed [directly worshipping the Calf], so by the sword. Whoever kissed it, their lips swelled up [so they couldn’t breathe and they died]. And whoever just thought in their hearts, [they died from the plague of Hydrakon – an illness described in the Gemara].

==

And so, [the daughters of Tzelophad[ said: He wasn’t part of Korach’s group![4]

What does Korach’s assembly have to do with this?! We’re taking about an inheritance!

He said: No, whoever was part of Korach’s assembly, he won’t receive an inheritance [in the land of Israel]. Even someone who just thought it in their hearts.

So then, everyone was swallowed up by the ground.

But whoever just thought it in their hearts, they still weren’t swallowed up – [because] he didn’t say anything.[5]

==

Translated from Rasisei Tal, #81.

==

First, a note on the earthquakes.

You remember how exactly when the Rav started talking about the ‘ground opening up’, the very next week the latest round of massive earthquakes began, including the one in Venezuela, on June 2024?

We are so used to the Rav’s ruach hakodesh, that sometimes, maybe often, it passes us by, just how many times the Rav says something that no-one is talking about – and then it happens.

You saw that here in real time on the blog, no massive earthquakes going on for months, the Rav talks about the earth opening up to swallow people and boom! The next week, the massive earthquakes begin again.

==

If you go HERE, you can find a Wiki page that lists the big earthquakes of 2026.

On August 10th, last week, Columbia was hit.

August 14th, Shabbat in Israel, Indonesia was hit, and there was also a tsunami.

==

Dutchsinse called it correctly:

==

In this video from 2 days ago, he talks about Mt Sinabung also getting hit – that happened last night, after he finished streaming.

So now, he’s saying 75% chance of a massive earthquake in the next 10 days, back over in Venezuela / Columbia / Equador / Brazil area.

So far, nothing more about America’s West Coast… so far.

==

In the meantime, the antisemites are now accusing Israel of deliberately burning down Lebanon’s forests.

I don’t know what’s really going on.

But seeing what happened to the forests here in Israel last year, I highly doubt ‘Israel’ is doing the burning, if it’s manmade.

And it may well not be manmade fires, but rising methane as the plates move – there is a huge earthquake fault zone throughout Eretz Yisrael, stretching up to Lebanon and Syria.

The area is actively volcanic, particularly around the Golan Heights… (with all it’s ‘dead’ volcanoes from 50 billions years ago. Ahem.)

So…

We’ll wait and see.

But the ground is for sure opening again.

==

UPDATE:

After weeks of forest fires, or whatever is going on, the earthquakes are also starting to hit Spain:

Google translated from the Spanish, HERE.

If earthquakes start to show up also in Bordeaux, then we’ll know we’re really on to something.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I.e. people just think about going against the moral code of the Torah, as brought down by Moshe Rabbenu.

[2] Bemidbar 17:6: “The entire assembly of the Children of Israel complained on the morrow against Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘You have killed the people of Hashem!’”

[3] I.e. he argued that he couldn’t sleep so deeply that he would miss laying tefillin on time in the morning.

[4] Bemidbar 27:3: “Our father died in the wilderness, but he was not among the assembly that was gathering against Hashem in the assembly of Korach, but he died of his own sin; and he had no sons.”

[5] But the men of that whole generation still died in the desert, without entering Eretz Yisrael and receiving an inheritance in the land.

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Interesting stuff, from Rabbenu

So, I was looking online for Rabbenu’s Parable of where we ‘work for free’ and ‘eat for free’.

That search brought me to Wikisource page, where there is a ton of new Breslov stuff that I haven’t read myself before, in both the original Hebrew / Yiddish with a passable English translation.

You can see that site HERE:

It’s called: Kuntres haHosafoth, in English ‘the Pamphlet of Additions’.

I will cover some of the really interesting stuff about R’ Simcha and R Yehiel Michel of Zlotchov in a future post. For now, here is the full story of ‘we work for free’ and we ‘eat for free’, with my comments at the end.

==

78 Regarding the nonsense of needless toil for livelihood…

Regarding the nonsense of needless toil for livelihood, Rabbeinu z”l said in these words:

This is a big secret in the world: You eat for free, you also work for free (Es iz a groyse sod in der velt: men est umzist un me arbet umzist).

And he told the following story about this: There was a mighty charitable man, one who hosted wayfarers (he was particular in the mitzvah of hospitality), and whoever entered his home, their every request was filled: food, drink, sleep, everything like a king, cheerfully.

And because of this all people knew of him, and everyone went to him and would leave with their desires satisfied.

==

Not far from him lived also a very rich man, but a very stingy, who gave not even a slice of bread to a poor man.

One time a poor man — who had not eaten several days — heard about this rich man and his big generous heart, so he pounded the pavement to get to him to revive his hungry lifeforce, but “batar `anya azla `anyutha” (a mountain of poverty follows the poor man), for it so happened he came specifically to the house of this stingy rich man.

But he thought he’s the aforementioned rich man, and he started bowing knee to him with pleading and begging and all kinds of respectful expressions etc.:

“Aren’t you the great charitable man whose generosity of heart is inestimable” etc. etc., so that he would give him food.

And this stingy man was surprised by this, and understood the poor man thought he’s the charitable one, and told him:

“It’s true, I want to give you food, but first do a little work, then they’ll let you eat.

==

He started doing several kinds of work for him, cutting down wood or drawing water.

He worked for him several hours till he got quite worn out, then he showed him the aforementioned charitable man’s house and told him to go there and there they’ll feed him.

And he thought it’s the house of the charitable man whom he’d been serving, that after he worked for him, at the other house is where they’ll feed him.

==

As soon as he entered, servants greeted him, took him and washed him, and immediately brought a table with all kinds of food and tasties, all with great respect, like a servant to his master.

In the middle of the meal he said, “It’s true I worked and toiled hard, but this is worth it!” (Emes take zikh angeharevet, ober es iz keday.) The charitable rich man said to him,

“My dear beloved, where did you toil? Behold, you didn’t work by me!? (Mayn guter froynd, vi hat ir zikh angeharevet? Bay mir hat ir dokh nit geharevet?)

==

He told his about the rich man who worked him.

He told him,” You worked for nothing, and also you eat for nothing. Where you worked you didn’t eat, and where you eat you did not work. 

(Yedidi ir hat ge’arvet umzist, un ir est umzist, dart vu ir hat ge’arvet hat ir nit gegesen, un dart vu ir est hat ir nit ge’arbet).

==

Rabbeinu z”l concluded: Poeple work for nothing, and and they eat for nothing.

Where they work they don’t eat, and where they eat they don’t work. (Men arbet umzist, un men est umzist. Dart vu men arbet est men nit, un dart vu men est arbet men nit.)

==

The parable is this:

Man, for his livelihood or other needs, he toils and works in that which he thinks his livelihood or other needs depends on.

But really it’s as mentioned above; all is from Hashem Yithbarakh, and when the time comes (or when he accomplishes by his prayer or trust), then anyway it comes easily to his mouth, literally.

And when he’s a fool and works with all his strength and toil, it’s all for nothing, for the work doesn’t help him at all, because where he works, in that place he doesn’t eat (varum dart vu er arbet, est er nit), for nothing comes from it (varum es lazt zikh gar nit oys darfun acharey kol ha`avodah), and if he didn’t work, he’d also be given (for the giver, by him no work is needed), and like written in the Zohar (Num. 11″8): “Shattu ha`am welaketu/ The people went about and gathered it” — in shetut, folly, meaning with the mann (Manna) there were great men of faith and trust who didn’t toil at all for the mann, it just fell in their mouths; and people lacking emunah, toiled and collected all day, and in the end there was only an “`Omer per head (Ex. 16:16), like the one who didn’t toil.

And it’s brought in the books, that even now it’s the same regarding livelihood, that according to what’s allotted for a man to prosper that’s what he’ll prosper, whether he does oppressive work all day or doesn’t work, rather for a trivial reason Hashem Yithbarakh summons him his livelihood.

And whoever has strong and courageous trust in H’ and does not want to decease from serving Hashem Yithbarakh at all, and holds firm in faith and trust that Hashem Yithbarakh will sustain him, and is resolved to stand in all kinds of trials in this — definitely Hashem Yithbarakh will finish for him according to his will.

==

Like we see, that one can sit all day in a store and sell nothing, and when the time comes, in a quarter hour he profits for the whole time.

This is also how it usually goes, that when one needs something, and toils for this by someone by whom he thinks he’ll attain it, and in the end nothing comes out of it (lazt zikh oys gar it) and he worked for nothing, and Hashem Yithbarakh helps him from a different place, from somewhere he didn’t expect and didn’t occur to him at all that from that place his salvation would come to him (un Hashem Yitbarakh helft im fun ayn ander art, vas er har gor nit ayngefalen az fun dart ken kumen zayn yeshua).

So may Hashem Yithbarakh save us soon! Amen so be His will.

==

Ad kan, from Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman.

How does this tally, with what I wrote yesterday, that we can’t just ‘use emuna’ as an excuse to do nothing?

(I’d like to invite you to consider this for yourself, maybe do some hitbodedut yourself, to understand the specific message made specifically for you…)

==

For me, this is the message I take away from the above parable:

God created a world, where we have to act, we have to ‘do’, we have to pray, we can’t just sit there surfing, or staying paralysed and miserable in bed all day.

We have to eat.

We have to breathe.

We have to drink.

We have to do mitzvoth, and most mitzvoth require some material aspect, some cash.

And those mitzvoth definitely include caring for spouses and children, putting food on the table and roof over the head.

==

If someone wants to pretend that ‘the strength and might of their right hand’ is what made them their money, or got them their stuff, and they think it didn’t get given to them from Hashem – that is totally not the case. It’s all from Hashem.

However, on the other side of the equation, there are people who think they are on the spiritual level of just sitting somewhere doing six hours of hitbodedut a day for food to appear on their table, instead of doing some basic hishtadlut about ‘getting real’, and really checking themselves very, very carefully, if they aren’t just using ’emuna’ as an avoidance crutch to avoid dealing with their own responsibilities.

==

For the people who genuinely are at this level of trust and bitachon – God will send whatever they need, straight to them.

But, that doesn’t mean ‘riches’.

It means, ‘enough to eat’, and hopefully, also ‘a place to live’.

And often, not much more.

==

BTW, there is a whole discussion in the Gemara about the level of trust required to be receiving sustenance like this, and it boils down to someone who is at the level of the RASHBI.

If that’s not you, then you have to create more of a gashmi vessel to catch Hashem’s bounty.

==

Rav Berland recently explained, that the reason people can’t ‘catch’ all the bounty God is sending down to all of us, all the time, 24/7, is because their bad middot are making holes in the vessel.

Anger…lewdness…jealousy…hakpada – self-righteous anger about other people’s ‘imperfections’…holding grudges…worry and anxiety…sadness and depression…playing ‘fake’ and not being your true self…

All these things are making holes in the vessel.

==

That’s also something Rabbenu hints too, above, when he says this:

A mountain of poverty follows the poor man

What’s really making that guy poor?

His bad middot.

His belief, that he can’t spend the million bucks he’s got tucked away in the bank, ever, so he has to stay ‘poor’. in his actual, real life.

It’s his mindset, his ‘bad attitude’, his false emuna, that he’s already on the level of the RASHBI…

==

Really?

God wants to shower abundance down on every single one of us, once we have our priorities right, spiritually, and we fix the holes in our vessel.

==

Last thing: so why do so many yucky people seem to have so much money etc, in this world?

There are two answers to this, that I can think of – feel free to share more, if you have them.

  1. Evildoers get paid out in this world for any good deeds that they do.
  2. Money is actually a curse.

If you see how people with money act – entitled, fussy, full of bad middot, pride and unrealistic expectations of what they world ‘owes them’ – you understand very quickly, it’s not a blessing.

Always more to say, but we’ll stop there for now.

Shabbat shalom.

==

PS:  I read the article now, that one of the commentators put in the comments section yesterday:

https://www.shuvubanimint.com/en/blog/parshas-shoftim-the-secret-to-overcoming-fears-through-the-power-of-emunah-faith

It resolves a lot of the things being discussed here, as the Rav somehow manages to do so many times.

Highly recommend reading it.

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Why we can’t use ’emuna’ as an excuse to do nothing

It’s taken me years and years, to realise that real emuna, Breslov emuna, was never meant to be used as a ‘crutch’, to enable a person to duck taking responsibility for themselves, and their actions, and their bad middot.

At this stage, I think there is an arc that has to be traced, that sort of has to flow through ‘fake emuna’, in order to get to the real deal, after a huge amount of work on the real, underlying bad middot and lack of emuna, that are making most of our problems for us.

It says that a fool perverts their own way, and then blames Hashem for their issues.

I see that happening all over the place.

I’ve experienced that happening to me, myself, in a bunch of different ways. And that’s what I want to discuss a bit here, to open the subject up.

==

A few years ago, me and my husband both decided that doing six hours of hitbodedut every day was the ideal solution, to the problem of him hating his job, and especially, the yucky bunch of narcs that had gathered around him.

I’ve written a lot about this experience elsewhere, from different angles. To sum up most of where I’d got to, it boiled down to this:

  • Nobody can expect, or trust, someone else to make basic decisions for them on how to run their life – not even the Gadol HaDor.
  • We have free choice, and it’s assur to try and give that free choice away to anyone else.
  • Everything that happens to us is 100% deserved – so we can’t ‘blame’ the sticks God uses to beat us and get our attention. But, we can sure validate ourselves that these ‘sticks’ are yucky, and doing horrible things to us. Which leads to the next point:
  • We have to take responsibility for trying to protect ourselves, care for ourselves, and improving our own situation in life. We have to do our basic histhadlut, and anything else is fake emuna, a way of trying to use spirituality to run away from the work God actually put in the world to do.
  • And at the same time – everything is only a present from God. The two are connected, but our effort is not what solves the problem. We work for free, and we also eat for free. (This is one of Rabbenu’s famous stories).

==

So, what’s the update now?

The update now, is that the more I’ve been recognising ‘C-PTSD’ symptoms, and particularly something called ‘avoidance’,  the more I see how they can segue perfectly in to developing a fake emuna approach to life.

And also, a “I’m always the permanent victim’ approach to life.

Because victims don’t need to take responsibility for the mess their life is in, right? They don’t need to acknowledge that their own behaviour and bad middot is what is keeping them ‘stuck’ in a very narrow space, keeping people away, keeping them miserable and unhappy.

Permanent victims always blame everyone else for the problems they have, and also – they blame God.

==

I understand this, I really do.

My life has also not been a bed of roses for a whole bunch of reasons, and I also was lacking a lot of basic stuff, growing up, not just financially, but in a bunch of other ways, too.

For years and years, until I hit Rabbenu and Breslov, I simply couldn’t find a way out from under all the garbage I’d inherited, literally and figuratively.

Regular, daily hitbodedut was the ladder leading out of the routine depressions that could drag me down to the bottom of the world, and dump me there for months at a time.

But, the additional work was to figure out who and what is really causing these depressions, in the first place?

That was my bit of the equation to solve, with God’s help – and it couldn’t be skipped, or magicked away with ‘fake emuna’, and hakol le tova.

==

Let’s fast-forward to 2026, when recently, my husband found himself experiencing the same sort of ‘down’ he’s gone through before at work, when clients turn out to be yucky people who don’t want to pay him for work he’s already done.

This is the third time we’ve had this happen.

The first time, we lost our big house in Modiin, because we couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments, when my husband’s main client ‘went bankrupt’, and couldn’t pay him for six months’ work of work.

That first time, it was a huge shock to the system – but it got my husband into a serious learning schedule for the first time ever, as he tried to recover and find a different job that would let him also learn a few hours in the morning.

It took many months – but God helped us, and that happened.

We bought a new house, in what was then cheap Gush Etzion. My mortgage was grushim. Then – my kids started being horribly bullied in school, we ended up being socially ostracised for being too ‘frum’, and especially, too ‘Breslov’, so then we moved again, to a yishuv close to Ashdod.

==

We bought another, more expensive house, that I hated right from the start, despite how ‘new’ and big it was.

My husband hit some more problems with ‘narcs at work’, and so decided to go self-employed. That was working fantastically – until his dad died unexpectedly, which sent him into a tailspin where he just wanted to run away from ‘the world’ again, and especially, all the crazy people inhabiting it.

This, we now know, is called ‘avoidance’. It’s a key pattern of people who have C-PTSD, who have been very hurt by the people closest to them.

But back then, it just looked like doing six hours of hitbodedut every day, instead of working, was the answer to our prayers.

Except…

It didn’t really work.

And we went bankrupt again, lost the house again, PLUS, were pushed to move to Jerusalem. (Thank God, btw. In hindsight, this was probably one of the biggest blessings we ever had.)

==

Without rehashing everything, I spent years and years raging against the ‘false rabbis’ that had misadvised us.

And then, I realised something: I was responsible for what had happened to me, and nobody else.

It was my own bad middot that led me to gravitate to those ‘false rabbis’ in the first place. It was only after that huge clean up process, that we could get anywhere near Rav Berland, who has proven to be such a blessing to us, in so many ways.

But not because he tells us what to do. In fact, I try very hard to avoid asking the Rav questions these days, as the answers typically just confuse me more.

Why?

Because the Rav is teaching anyone who is willing to learn the lesson, that our own free choice is the biggest gift from God, the main reason we were created, and cannot be given away to anyone else. Not even the Gadol HaDor.

==

So, 2026 rolls around, we’ve been picking up the pieces again the last few years, bought a place ‘off plan’ in Katzrin, that we are now trying to sell in order to see if finally, some how, we can find something small of our own in Jerusalem.

So of course, the same test rolls around again: yucky horrible clients that don’t pay, and a feeling that everything is ‘meaningless’ and pointless.

==

What’s the fix, the answer, the teshuva, this time around?

To blame the clients? To go AWOL into ‘fake emuna’, where we barricade ourselves in a beis hamidrash and live in a dumpster?

Or, to finally take a long, hard look at the bad middot, the unhelpful behaviour patterns, the false beliefs, that are causing this situation to re-occur?

Bad middot include playing ‘nice guy’ all the time, because you are scared of confrontation. Or, acting like the suffering martyr, all out there for ‘everyone else’, because really, you are ruled by fear of looking bad and feeling guilty. Perhaps, the kindness to others is a control strategy, to keep them onside and pliable.

Bad middot also includes ‘avoidance’, where we run away into bad habits, addictions, surfing, being online ALL THE TIME, in order to ‘escape’ from reality.

And that avoidance can also lead some people to try to run away into ‘learning Torah’, or ‘working hard’ – which sounds like it’s coming from a really good place, but not so infrequently, actually isn’t.

We can’t ‘avoid’ ourselves.

Our own responsibilities.

Our duties to ourselves, the people we love – and to God.

Not even when it’s labelled as ‘having emuna’.

==

Obviously, this is not just a ‘men at work’ problem.

It’s also a ‘women with their families’ problem.

Instead of ranting at kids, spouses, God, the landlord, the neighbours, the work is also to figure out, what are my own bad middot, that are causing God to show me a ‘mirror’ so full of crazy, self-absorbed, lying-to-themselves suffering martyrs?

For example.

I am grappling with all this myself, still, I’m still trying to move out of ‘permanent victim’ state myself, to understand where my own ‘avoidance’ and anger and C-PTSD reactions are causing me the real problems in my life.

This is hard, but actually very empowering, because once I stop blaming everyone else, I have to knuckle down to taking responsibility, and asking God to help me fix what is still so very broken.

Because, it’s a partnership.

==

Xtianity says – leave it all to God, He’ll fix everything, and you just have to ‘connect’ ,then carry on doing any sin you want, because Yoshki will take of that for you, no worries.

But Judaism, at least, Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, say for sure, we can’t do this without God. But God also can’t do this, without us, and our efforts and prayers and spiritual and material hishtadlut.

Breslov Judaism teaches that each of us is responsible for fixing the world, by fixing ourselves, and our own bad middot and lack of real emuna.

Yes, God is doing absolutely everything, for our ultimate good.

But if you just can’t stand your life at the moment, or parts of it, then you have to get real, look in the mirror and ask that hard question:

Why is God arranging things like this, at the moment?

What is He trying to show me, or teach me, about what I myself need to change or work on, to get out of the pit I’m stuck in?

==

I do an hour of hitbodedut every day, and believe me, I am still quite a way off from having all the answers to that question.

But, I’m getting there slowly.

With God’s help.

 

 

 

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Fires, volcanoes and earthquakes

As usual, you learn more from one short Dutchsinse video than 3 months of surfing anything else.

I’ve been thinking for months, that all these ‘wildfires’ all over the world, including in Wales (!) where the rain almost never ceases, is due to methane rising from the ground, as the plates shift tectonically.

Dutchsince, around the 20 min mark in this video, is basically saying the same thing.

==

What’s really interesting, is that the ‘ancient’ volcanic fields across the West coast of North America, from Canada to California, are all surrounded by massive fires at the moment, and have been for weeks.

Around the 4 min mark, he also shows some of the buildings literally falling down in the recent Colombia earthquake.

Scary stuff.

God is shaking the blanket again, for sure.

==

I have no idea if Mt Etna is going to implode and cause a huge tsunami here.

That honestly sounds very improbable, and Dutchsince, who I have been following for years and years, is not discussing that as a real possibility.

But, he IS talking about the West Coast of the US, plus Indonesia and New Zealand, being candidates for a big quake, soon.

Based on his forecasting method, not on wild guesses – and his forecasting method isn’t 100% correct, nothing is, but he’s got a good track record of being mostly right, most of the time.

==

Whatever is going on in Europe, we’ll have to wait and see.

Bordeaux and Spain are also having massive wildfires.

I am willing to bet good money, those fires are occurring in and around volcanic fields that we’re taught are ‘milllllions’ and ‘billllllions’ years old.

Really?

They can’t be older than 5786 years…

If people understood that, they would probably be paying far more attention to where those fires are happening, and what seismic activity is known to have gone in the past, even if they call it ‘ancient history’.

==

So, hold on to God and the True Tzaddikim, as the blanket starts shaking again.

And let’s see, what happens in the USA now.

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The Burgher and the Pauper Part 9, plus…

Well, this section also took me a while, but then ended up being quite funny.

After literally a week of fighting the AI animation whoopsies, some of which were really too awful to include, I finally came to the conclusion that there is no perfection in the world, and I just have to embrace the imperfection, more.

As long as it doesn’t spoil the story, or detract from the spiritual message or viewing enjoyment, not having it ‘perfect’ is OK.

That’s the only way to move forward, also with animating the Burgher and the Pauper, and also, with life generally.

==

As promised, I will share some of my own thoughts on this, after you watch Part 9:

==

Let’s take yesterday.

What happened yesterday?

Me and my husband showed up at the Kotel for a ‘prayer atzeret‘ for the Rav, that just didn’t happen. Apparently, they moved it to next week sometime, but as me and my husband are with Shuvu, but not really ‘of Shuvu’, we had no idea.

We’re out of the loop on most things, even though we live in Jerusalem and my husband goes to daven on Ido HaNavi every single morning.

Now, I could either have got miffed about this, fallen into ‘victim mode’, started casting around for people to blame, somewhere to vent the frustration, the embarrassment at looking like half a tit, because I wrote stuff on my blog that was just plain wrong.

OR

I could take a deep breath, actually enjoy the fact that I went down to the Kotel with my husband to say some TKs, and then found a cool Kosher Korean restaurant in the Old City that I didn’t even know existed.

Yes, I took the second choice.

Baruch Hashem.

We had a really good night, in the end, and nothing, at all, was ‘wasted’, or a reason to complain and feel sorry for myself.

==

I don’t want to overload this post with too much different stuff, so let’s keep the conversation about letting go of being ‘the victim’ for the next post.

Let’s end here, by saying that God is giving each one of us a massive test at the moment, to choose ‘real’ over fake, and to choose ‘real emunah’ over just mouthing words like I only trust in Hashem, when that’s clearly, obviously, not true at all.

There are so many bad middot hanging out under the label of holy-than-thou fake piety and false emunah.

But we’ll start unpicking all that tomorrow.

Unless of course, the ‘end of the world’ happens to kick off today with the Solar Eclipse, as predicted for the 48 millionth time since I’ve been reading geula blogs…

I guess they can’t always be wrong.

At least, about everything.

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Some more thoughts on Groundhog Day

I have to admit, that I’m still feeling a little ‘down’ at the moment.

I’m not 100% sure why. Of course, there are a million things I could point to that aren’t going my way, but that’s nothing new, and we all have some version of it. Mostly, my life is full of blessings and brachot, mamash.

But when I was sat at the Rav yesterday for the prayers, a feeling of sadness started to creep over me, or maybe, I just recognised it, for once, instead of batting it away with all my chores and ‘stuff to do’.

In Uman, I feel I finally reconnected back to that bit of myself that has been feeling pretty lost, for a long time, in the mad world we live in.

Mad, and at the same time, so predictably the same, in so many ways.

==

More elections…more Bibi…more ‘viruses’ on the horizon…more fake threats to humanity, from a place of very real human malice…more pretending…more wasting our life on stuff that really doesn’t matter very much, or at all…more ‘war with Iran’…

==

A bit of me just wants to kick free of all this, but can’t.

We are all stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’, on some level, repeating all the mundane, apparently pointless details of life, until we finally work it out, and work it through.

I spent some time reading the Wiki page for Groundhog Day just now – strange to say, as I have so many other things to do, and it doesn’t sound very spiritual, or ‘uplifting’. And yet, even there, I found some spark of something holy, that is kind of helping me make more sense of what I’m feeling at the moment.

It was talking about how Bill Murray’s character goes through the five stages of grief after a big ‘shock to the system’, as defined by Kubler-Ross, namely: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally – acceptance.

Something about that procession rang a big bell for me.

==

The ‘denial’ about how hard things have been the last few years was taking a lot of energy to keep up.

So a few months ago, it morphed into anger – such anger, that I was having to read the Rav’s anger prayers all the way through every morning before I even got out of bed, just to (try to…) keep a lid on it.

That stage lasted three weeks, or so.

And then, it morphed into ‘bargaining’ with God, about what I was prepared to do, and stop doing, to get my own personal madness to stop..

I got to Uman in that state.

And I seem now to have moved forward, into the feelings of sadness and occasionally, even a little depressed and ‘paralysed’ by it all.

I hope this stage doesn’t last too long, but now I’ve seen this procession, I can pick out the forward movement in all these negative emotions and bad middot, so it’s not troubling me the way it was.

==

We’ve all been through so much, the last seven years.

Seven years, since ‘Covid 19’ started, and the mask finally got ripped off our ‘wonderful’, G-dless, modern world, where the essence of the human being, the soul, has just been so deliberately degraded, dumbed-down and coarsened.

In so many ways, Covid 19 did us all a favour.

I used to feel way, way weirder and ‘alone’ before the scamdemic, the loony in the corner trying to argue with people that something is very, very wrong with the world.

That the soul dimension was lacking.

Now, BH, I have that problem way less than I used to. And the war in Israel has also helped to fast-track the spiritual awakening that has been going on here, hidden underneath the surface, but so real, nevertheless.

==

So on that front, Covid 19 and the war did us all a favour.

But, there is a part of me that is yearning to rest under my fig and under my vine, and that stage just seems so very far away, still.

The key to reaching it appears to be ‘acceptance’.

Accepting, that God is running the world, that God is doing everything, that God is only good, and that this whole fake world was just set up by Him as a sort of film set, for us to come down and finally figure out our bad middot, and lack of emuna.

==

I still have my work cut out for me.

We all do.

But strange to see, reading the plot of Groundhog Day gave me a derech again, where I’m headed:

Out of the sadness about everything that’s gone on, and everything that hasn’t, towards simple acceptance, that God is good, and the world is running exactly the way it should be, appearances not withstanding.

It’s a big ask, honestly.

==

And probably, I can only get to this level of deep acceptance when God gives it to me, as a present.

And until then, my job is to not get too confused, or too depressed, and to just work on ‘accepting God’s will’, with the big things, and the small things, and to make as much teshuva as I can, and to do as many good deeds as come to me, while I’m waiting.

Just like ‘Phil Connor’, in Groundhog Day.

 

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Atzeret for the Rav to get to Uman: 6pm Tue at the Kotel

The Rav started talking about Uman again, only very recently.

The main message is: everyone needs to go to Uman, regardless of what is happening with the Rav and Uman this year.

I have to say, the Rav’s perseverance and refusal to get yeoush about getting to Uman is remarkable, and really a living lesson, in just not giving up.

It’s something I am trying very hard to internalise myself, not always so successfully, as yeoush so often feels like the right response to all the crud we sometimes have to wade through in life.

Repeatedly.

==

There are some days, weeks, and even months, that just feel like ‘Groundhog Day’.

You know, like this:

(not shmirat eynayim)

==

Tov.

In the meantime, the lesson is that we keep getting to do things over and over and over again, until we finally do it ‘right’.

However long that is meant to take.

==

So, we have another atzeret for the Rav, to BH get to Uman.

6pm, this Tuesday, at the Kotel.

BH, I will be there.

I hope you will be there too.

==

PS: If you can’t get to Uman yourself for Rosh Hashana this year, but want to sponsor one of the Rav’s long-term Torah learners to go, please get in touch.

Usually, someone else helps this guy buy a ticket, but this year, the well has run dry.

 

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The Turks put every rabbi in jail – comments from the Rav

Shavua Tov!

More interesting comments from the Rav.

Enjoy.

==

Shiur from 29th Tammuz after Tikkun Chatzot

The Turks [in the time of the Ottoman control over Eretz Yisrael] put every rabbi in prison.

The Alexander Rebbe came, the Tolna Rebbe came – everyone was put in jail. Give us 30 thousand grushim!!!

The Shelah was in prison, from the 11th of Elul until the eve of Rosh Hashana, and so, everyone is buried in Tiberius, because here [i.e. in Jerusalem] – it was impossible to be here.

The Pasha, the Governor, immediately he put the rabbanim into prison. Bring a redemption [and then I’ll free you.]

They loved pidyons..

==

So this Allenby, he arrived with the book the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – they were distributing it.

Before you get to Eretz Yisrael, you should know that this is the most awful people in the whole world, the most dangerous. They want to conquer the whole world!

He explained there that all the Congresses, they were about how to conquer the world. YEAR the First Congress began, 1897, there were around five Congresses up until the Shoah, maybe seven Congresses.

They [the antisemites] said that everything was about how to conquer the world. That the Jews did everything, they were gathering there, they were making plans, because the banks belonged to the Jews, to Rothschild, everything belonged to Rothschild.

==

This Rothschild, he worked for Yaakov Mi’Galuna.

There was R Yaakov of Galuna, he was on the level of the Baal Shem Tov. Whatever he blessed [the blessing occurred].

He learned kabbalah for seven years, for seven years he learned the pshat. And so on, until he died. He was always with the seven years. [He learned] the whole of the Etz Chaim, all the kabbalah, all the sephirot.

Keter, chochmah, bina, da’at, chesed, gevurah, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, malchut.

And after this the four worlds, atzilut, briah etc.

==

Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or #468.

==

 

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