I know, it’s Succot, and I’m not writing about ‘Succot’ much at all.

Except, to tell you how flat the hiloula seemed to be Monday night, in Meah Shearim.

A commentator just sent a link to R Berland’s livestream for the Shuvu Banim festivities, which you can see here:

==

I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Rav said HERE that Uman and Jerusalem have now been connected, since Rosh Hashana.

If you’ve ever been to Uman, you’ll probably already know that:

a) It’s a surreal experience, especially, but not only, the first time.

b) All sorts of strange things start to happen, that just seem above nature, but that you often can’t put into words for other people without sounding like you’ve lost your marbles.

c) You get to meet yourself, or some aspect of yourself, usually, for the first time ever in your life.

d) Everything starts to seem ‘meaningful’ and energised and full of spiritual messages and wisdom.

==

Of course, you can live a life, in theory, anywhere where “everything starts to seem ‘meaningful’ and energised and full of spiritual messages and wisdom.”

But let’s introduce some candour, and admit that 99.9999% of us are not doing that, or anything approaching it, 99.99999% of the time.

==

Why I’m jotting this down like this, is because since Rosh Hashana, I have been feeling that my life in Jerusalem has kind of been operating at levels of ‘in Uman’ intensity.

Such big, painful tikkunim going on most days, that can and often are leading to big decisions, big actions, big changes – but all fit on the head of a needle.

I look back from one day to the next, and it’s hard to understand just why ‘thing x’ freaked me out so much, why ‘thing y’ was just so challenging, in the moment, or meaningful, or ‘BIG’ – but nevertheless, it was.

These are the hallmarks of Uman.

Of Rabbenu.

==

You want one ‘real’ example, probably, to try to grasp what I’m saying.

Half an hour before the chag, some red fire ant somehow got inside my clothes, and bit me multiple times, on the left side of my chest – where my heart was.

I didn’t know it was a fire ant.

All I knew, was that the whole area suddenly felt like it was on fire, and it was so painful I felt half-paralysed.

And then, I started wondering if I was having a heartattack…

==

Baruch Hashem, I caught the ant red-handed, after it bit me three times, so at least I could calm down about having a heartattack, God forbid.

I showered, lit candles, fell asleep, woke up shivering – and then, spent the whole of the chag throwing up.

It was pretty intense.

The question is, what was the message, from all that?

==

I am still figuring things out, but it’s definitely connected to the whole ‘house buying’ issue I’ve been sharing here, and about how much we lie to ourselves and live in a fantasy spun by the yetzer – and none more so, than when it comes to buying houses.

==

By Sunday, I was mostly back to normal, and that super-intense surreal experience was starting to fade.

But, I did a lot of hitbodedut lying in bed, and a few more chunks of the puzzle started to fall into place.

It was a classic ‘Uman’ experience, in a way that if you’ve been yourself, you know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t been yet – you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.

==

So, maybe, Uman has somehow seeped in Jerusalem, since the Rav finally got there on Rosh Hashana 5787.

I don’t know.

But it could be.

==

Last thing to share today, is another ‘Tommy John’ video, that is also really speaking to me.

It has to do with not just listening (or, ‘pretending to listen’) to the messages God is trying to give us via our body / world / experiences – but actually translating that into concrete action and change.

==

Somehow, I feel this guy is bringing parts of Rebbe Nachman’s Torah lessons on emuna really down to the level of someone like me, in my small, stuck space, trying to figure things out here, at a level that is at the least very ‘sub-tzaddik’.

It’s helping me a lot, maybe, it can also help you too.

Moadim lesimcha, and I hope we all have a truly joyous Simchat Torah, 5787.

With Rabbenu in the mix, in more ways than one.

Yesterday night, was the Chiloula of Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman.

Last year, Shuvu put up their own tent, on their own piece of ground, legally owned by them.

And the Iriya sent the cops to rip it all down, destroy the site as totally as they could, and confiscate the tent.

This year, Shuvu had a much  more ‘muted’ celebration – the Succah was kind of built over the alley leading down to the main road, the seuda was held in the hall of the school off Ido HaNavi, the celebrations got started at 11pm, I think, and looked to be pretty basic and bare bones.

==

We got there around 9.30 pm, and wandered around for a bit, before heading up to Rav Arush’s big Succah, where it was more happening.

More ‘happening’, but honestly, still kind of subdued and quiet.

Not miserable, like it was three years ago, ahead of that horrible Simchat Torah event, where the Rav just looked depressed and stricken with grief.

The whole of Meah Shearim, Breslov or no, just seemed more subdued, more empty than it usually is on Succot.

That’s when I figured out who was missing: the 18-30 something cohort, who the police have been chasing and imprisoning for like, two years, already for ‘draft evasion’.

==

We went up to Rav Arush, my husband danced a bit inside the Succah, I stood outside and tried to dance a bit.

It wasn’t really happening.

Not a lot of people, not a proper mechitzah going on outside on the street for the women, it kind of all felt a little lukewarm.

My husband got some popcorn, we came home.

==

It was a very small ‘celebration’ yesterday, by all accounts.

Today, I looked at the YWN, and I see this:

And this: police-clash-crowds-confront-officers-outside-harav-arushs-simchas-bais-hashoeva-in-yerushalayim.html

==

You know, I was wondering if the police would be coming to spoil all the ‘fun’ yesterday, in Meah Shearim.

It fits the pattern, the ‘shita’ of gross persecution of the chareidi community that’s been going on here, for two years already.

(And if you are Shuvu, then you know that pattern, that ‘shita’, has been happening for more like 15 – 20 years… I still have the posts I wrote 10 years back, which began: ‘First they came for Rav Berland.’ Was I wrong?)

==

Rabbenu will deal with this, at the right time.

But yesterday, there were no violent crowds of chareidim.

There were some dumb american bochurim – pretty much the only men of that age group on the streets, as they don’t have to worry about getting arrested for ‘draft evasion’ – who were playing chicken with the light rail, but that’s about it.

==

But now, again, I understand why Shuvu were not making a big deal yesterday.

The police were looking for any excuse to come in and beat people up and fire tear gas at them.

And for once, Shuvu Banim wasn’t on the front lines.

I’ve been doing a huge amount of research the last few months.

And the AI makes it easier to do things like, for example, transcribe huge sections of handwritten notes, or find 10 new papers on a subject you never heard about before.

So, for an information junky like myself, the pull of asking ‘just one more question’ has been hard to resist.

Last week, I suddenly starting asking myself the question:

Is is possible that the research I am doing with the AI is actually contributing to me feeling totally and utterly wiped out?

Research is tiring, it can be v.v. tiring.

But, I’ve been researching for 30 years, and have rarely experienced what’s going on right now, although it did happen once before, when I was obsessed with the Erev Rav, and trying to find Torah sources for if they could actually make teshuva.

That was around 13 years ago – just as the Rav came into the picture, and solved that question that was literally driving me insane.

==

So, I decided to ask Chat GPT about it, and this is what came back.

It’s very interesting reading. For a lot of reasons:

  1. You said:

    why is it that people report that that using AI for research etc leaves them totally drained physically?

  2. ChatGPT said:

    Yes—there are several plausible reasons, and the effect can feel surprisingly physical even though the activity is “just sitting and thinking.”

    Why AI-assisted research can be unusually draining

    • AI removes some of the natural stopping points.
      With ordinary research, you search, read an article, take notes, hit a dead end, and eventually stop. With AI, you can continuously ask: “What about this?” “Go deeper.” “Compare these.” “Now check the counterargument.” There is almost no built-in friction telling your brain that the session is over.

    • You’re doing more evaluation, not necessarily less thinking.
      AI produces information very quickly, but you still have to determine whether it is correct, relevant, well-supported, or subtly misleading. That creates a continual verification/monitoring load. The cognitive task becomes less “find information” and more “supervise an information-generating system.”

    • The context-switching can be intense.
      A single AI research session might involve reading, writing, recalling prior information, changing hypotheses, evaluating sources, formulating prompts, interpreting the answer, and deciding what to investigate next. Rapid switching between these modes can be tiring.

    • It can create a peculiar form of decision fatigue.
      AI gives you more possible directions rather than fewer. After every answer there may be five interesting avenues to pursue. Choosing what not to investigate becomes part of the work.

    • The interaction can be unusually absorbing.
      Conversational interfaces are much easier to sustain attention on than a pile of papers. You can get into a kind of “one more question” loop. Subjectively, this can resemble being engrossed in a difficult conversation for hours.

    • You may be holding a much larger mental model in working memory.
      When researching with AI, you’re often integrating information across dozens of conversational turns. Even if the AI remembers the context, your brain still has to maintain some representation of what we’re investigating, what we’ve established, what remains uncertain, and why this particular question matters.

    • Physical fatigue can follow prolonged cognitive arousal.
      Concentrated mental work is associated with changes in perceived effort, motivation, posture, eye strain, muscle tension, and autonomic arousal. If you’re intensely focused for several hours, the eventual sensation can be remarkably bodily: heavy eyes, headache, neck/shoulder tension, lethargy, and feeling “wiped out.”

    There’s also an interesting AI-specific phenomenon

    AI can make research too frictionless.

    Imagine:

    Question → answer → new question → answer → fascinating tangent → clarification → counterargument → synthesis → another question…

    The normal obstacles that would make you pause have disappeared.

    That’s potentially important because friction isn’t necessarily the enemy of cognition. Some friction gives your brain opportunities to consolidate information, notice fatigue, form its own hypothesis, and decide whether the question is actually worth pursuing.

    So paradoxically, AI can make a task subjectively easier at every individual step while making the overall session more exhausting.

    There’s another wrinkle: outsourcing the production of thoughts doesn’t necessarily outsource the cognitive work of understanding them. In some cases it can increase the amount of material you have to comprehend and evaluate.

    If you’ve noticed something like “I can spend 3 hours researching with ChatGPT and feel substantially more exhausted than after 3 hours of ordinary reading,” that’s a particularly interesting version of the phenomenon. The mechanism may be somewhat different from ordinary screen fatigue.

  3. You said:

    interesting. how would this sort of sustained mental fatigue affect physical health, if it continues for too long

  4. ChatGPT said:

    It can matter, especially if “mental fatigue” becomes a pattern of prolonged cognitive arousal + insufficient recovery. The important distinction is that being mentally tired after a demanding day isn’t inherently harmful; the concern is when the workload repeatedly exceeds your ability to recover.

    Over time, several things can happen:

    • Sleep can deteriorate. Prolonged cognitive activation can make it harder to mentally “switch off,” delay sleep, or make sleep feel less restorative. Then the sleep loss itself amplifies fatigue and cognitive difficulty the next day.

    • Stress physiology can stay activated. Sustained demands can keep the sympathetic nervous system and stress-response systems more active than you’d want. Chronic stress is associated with effects on cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and psychological functioning.

    • You may become physically sedentary without noticing. AI research is particularly conducive to sitting in one position for hours. The resulting lack of movement can contribute to neck/shoulder pain, headaches, stiffness, poorer circulation, and—over much longer periods—health risks associated with physical inactivity.

    • Muscle tension can become habitual. Concentration often comes with subtly raised shoulders, clenched jaw, shallow breathing, or a fixed posture. Repeating that for hours every day can produce surprisingly persistent physical symptoms.

    • Your cognitive capacity can decline. Chronic insufficient recovery can produce poorer attention, working memory, motivation, emotional regulation, and decision-making. This can create a nasty feedback loop: fatigue → less efficient thinking → more time needed to accomplish things → more cognitive work → greater fatigue.

    • Mood can be affected. Persistent overload and poor recovery can increase irritability, emotional exhaustion, and vulnerability to anxiety or low mood. That doesn’t mean mental fatigue automatically causes a psychiatric disorder; it’s more that chronic stress and inadequate recovery can interact with psychological wellbeing.

    • Behavior can drift in unhealthy directions. When exhausted, people often move less, eat differently, postpone exercise, spend more time on screens, and use caffeine later in the day. Those secondary effects can become more consequential than the original cognitive workload.

    One thing I’d be particularly cautious about

    There’s a difference between:

    “I spent six hours thinking hard and now I’m exhausted.”

    and

    “For months, I repeatedly push through exhaustion because AI makes it possible to keep going.”

    The first is normal exertion. The second can become a recovery problem.

    And there’s a particularly weird feature of AI work: because the interaction feels conversational and productive, you can fail to notice how long you’ve been working. You may not experience the obvious boredom or frustration that would normally make you stop.

    A useful rule is therefore to treat mental exhaustion as a physiological signal rather than a challenge to overcome. If you repeatedly notice that you are physically depleted after AI sessions, experimenting with hard stopping points—say 45–90 minutes followed by actual movement, food/water, looking at distance, and a period away from information input—would be quite reasonable.

    If the fatigue is persistent outside the research sessions, is getting progressively worse, or comes with things like significant sleep changes, weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, unexplained weight change, persistent headaches, or other physical symptoms, that’s different: those symptoms shouldn’t simply be attributed to “too much AI.” A clinician can help rule out sleep problems, anemia, thyroid issues, medication effects, infections, and other causes.

    The really interesting question, though, is whether AI research produces a different kind of fatigue from ordinary intellectual work. There are some plausible reasons it might, and that’s a much more interesting rabbit hole.

  5. You said:

    I am not going down that rabbit hole, despite your encouragement. We all know AI is demonically-powered, right? 😉

  6. ChatGPT said:

    😂 Fair enough. I shall respectfully close the forbidden rabbit hole.

    Clearly the symptoms are:

    • 47 open tabs

    • a vague sense that reality has become optional

    • “just one more question”

    • inexplicable knowledge of Byzantine tax policy

    • and, eventually, the unmistakable feeling that the machine has won

    Whether the power source is demonic, electrical, or an alarming quantity of GPUs, the recommended treatment remains the same:

    Close laptop. Touch grass. Consume something that did not emerge from a language model. 😄

The first shiur from the Rav after his return from Uman, 5787

60 bachurim (young men) remained in the Aretz (Israel).

They tried to cross the border, and they didn’t succeed – these are the ones who really came [to Uman]. Whoever didn’t make it – he made it.

And whoever did come – he didn’t come.

Because the ikker is the broken heart.

==

The whole point of coming to the Rebbe, is in order to receive a broken heart, a truly broken heart.

They received all the tikkunim (spiritual rectifications) in completeness.

60% are still in Uman, from Shuvu Banim. We need to pray, that they will get here for Shabbat, and that all those who want to merit come for Shabbat, that they should be able to cross the borders.

==

And all those who were now stopped – nine from Shuvu Banim were arrested.

80 [yeshiva bochurs from across all the kehillot] were in prison on Rosh Hashana. They will get 1,000 shekels, each one, for each day.[1]

80,000 shekels they need to get, for each day. 30 days is 2,400,000 shekels, for each month.

So, bezrat Hashem, tomorrow I am going to prison, that’s final. 30 days is 30,000 shekels, it will cover all my debts.

==

So, all of these need to know that ‘Uman’ continues, now we are found in ‘Uman’.

We are in ‘Uman’!

Jerusalem and Uman is one thing, now, we joined Jerusalem to Uman, and by way of this, there will be the geulah shleimah, speedily in our days, Amen.

Translated from Shivivei Or #473.

==

Footnote:

[1] The Rav is referring to the ‘Prison 1000’ initiative, launched by gedolim at the beginning of September 2026, to pay yeshiva bochurs in military prison 1,000 NIS for every full day they are in military jail. See here for more details: https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2592803/prison-1000-new-fund-to-pay-nis-1000-for-each-day-a-ben-torah-is-jailed.html

The last few days, I’ve been going through a very intense process of ‘getting real’.

I’m still not totally out the other side, but I am approaching it, BH.

The process has been internal and external.

Internally, it’s accepting that I can’t be all things to all people, I have to say ‘no’ more than is comfortable, and I have to finally start putting myself ‘in the picture’ too, and not just jumping around trying to accomodate everyone else.

That sounds kinda selfish even as I type it, but my health has been showing me, that if I don’t incorporate that level of ‘getting real’ into my life, right now, there is going to be some serious consequences, down the road.

==

Another getting real event is happening around the real estate in Jerusalem.

Here is a newsflash: nothing is selling, pretty much anywhere except the highest of high end for wealthy americans, whose money is making aliya while they stay stuck in the goldene medina.

Sellers and agents are living in fantasy land, all over the country, thinking the boom can never bust, because it’s Israel.

It’s kind of like First Temple times, when the inhabitants thought they could do whatever sins they wanted, offer up their sheep in the Beit HaMikdash, and carry on with evil business as usual.

==

But now, there’s AI.

And AI tells you about sites like this: nadlan.gov.il, which gives you hard data on what things are ACTUALLY selling for in Jerusalem.

Bottom line: way, way, way less than is being asked.

And, what’s more, that site also shows that the average prices of the things that ARE selling in Jerusalem have dropped by around 5-10% the last 12 months.

With all these new housing units coming online in the next 5-10 years, that is only going to accelerate.

==

I had this epiphany this morning, that I am not going to sit here waiting for delusional sellers to stop being delusional, any more.

I am going to keep looking for ‘real people’, who really want to sell, at real prices – which probably means, not where I want to live.

But, an apartment in Jerusalem is an apartment in Jerusalem, even if it’s pinui binui, so, so be it.

==

How many of us are stuck in lives, in decisions, in wants, that are totally based on fantasy?

That is the question.

God is knocking on everyone’s door, with the same basic message right now:

GET REAL!!!

Stop lying to yourself, and everyone else, about what is really going on.

Yes, of course, the perfect fantasy home / lifestyle / family / job would be great…

It doesn’t exist.

And even when it does seem to exist, that’s usually also an illusion, with a huge price tag attached in a bunch of hidden ways.

==

The true key to happiness, is getting real.

==

Chag Sukkot Sameach, I’ll continue this in a few days time, BH.

Say what you will, about Israeli politicians.

(I can’t on the blog, as most of them like to sue anyone who suggests they aren’t 1000% paragons of total virtue…)

But, Eizenkot gets the prize for most creative campaign.

Here’s a game he just launched, called ‘Sleepy BB’, where you win if you manage to get Bibi to bed on the morning of October 7th, without being woken by any annoying telephone calls etc, about pesky ‘terrorists’ invading the country.

https://sleepybb.com/

It took me nine goes before I figured out how to do it, but then, I’m not a good gamer.

==

Of course, it’s all water off a duck’s back, isn’t it?

Or at least, that’s how it seems.

Me personally, I am feeling so, so strongly, that something / everything needs to change up in my own dalet amot, at the moment.

I’m feeling like God has been taking a sledgehammer to crack that stubborn nut that is me, since Rosh Hashana (actually, a few months before…)

But now, I can’t take it any more, and I really, really need something to change.

In me.

==

My good friend recommended this book, I just ordered it:

==

We can go on and on and on about how ‘everyone else’ is the problem, but really, the problem is us.

Me, myself and I.

And all my yetzers and bad middot, that are keeping me stuck in quite a difficult place at the moment.

==

Part of the problem is trying to find somewhere to live, in Jerusalem.

I cannot tell you what a saga we’ve been through. We got to the lawyer’s office stage, with 2 different properties – first one, we backed out because the lawyer scared the pants off us that this particular building on Church Land has an awful lease that leaves the buyer with absolutely nothing, once the lease is up in 2071.

(Even though it’s ‘Church Land’, the Greek Orthodox Church has actually sold most of its leases to Jewish businessmen. Most of whom live in chul, and are apparently ‘frum’. And most of these landlords have ‘big plans’ for the Holy City, apart from screwing the residents in the apartments they own the leasehold on…)

==

So then, we found something else.

Got to the lawyer, who encouraged us to pay a lot for a full survey, where we discovered that the 2 back patios AND only bathroom were built on the neighbor’s land…

It’s been like that for 40 years!!!! the estate agent told us, when we had to pull out again.

The lawyer explained that ifffff, the neighbor ever wakes up to what happened, they could tip off City Hall, who would demand the demolition of the ONLY TOILET in the property – and also, ask for 40 years of back rent.

That just didn’t sound like a fun experience.

==

Our problem, is that we are trying to stay within walking distance to the Rav, and don’t have $2 million dollars to spend on something a step up from a total dump.

You can just about find a dump in Jerusalem for a $1 million bucks – usually, no more than 3-4 rooms, and with a whole host of ‘issues’ chucked in for free, including massive damp, illegal construction, leaseholds that run out – and the new guy in town, pinui binui.

Pinui Binui is basically the Israel term for urban renewal projects, where they take old buildings, knock them down – and build disgusting-looking, horrible massive skyscrapers instead.

==

Up the road from us, at the First Station, they have started to build THREE tower blocks, each with 40 storeys.

No, that’s not a typo.

So, last week, we went to poorer, cheaper Armon HaNatziv, just about walkable to the Rav on Shabbos, just about, if we are in the ‘fit hiking’ mindset.

We found a cute, affordable garden apartment in an older building, that was in an ‘advanced stage of the pinui binui process’.

The sales blurb is, they knock down your scanky flat, and you get an extra 25 sqm in a new flat, with a security room, storage and parking.

The only down is…. that’s in a monster tower.

==

We put in an offer, then started looking up what they were trying to build there:

2 apartments of 22 storeys each, plus another 11 storey in the middle.

And guess what? The garden wasn’t officially in the seller’s tabu, or property registration, which means that even though he’s had the garden for 50 years – and literally put his soul into making it beautiful – it counts for nothing, in the pinui binui process.

I.e. he’ll be stuck on the undesirable 2-7th floor of a massive skyscraper, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

==

How the pinui binui process works is, they need to get a certain majority of the residents to sign up for it, usually, 67%.

Once that happens, any resident who DOESN’T agree can be sued by his neighbours, for preventing them from making more money etc, by getting a new expanded apartment.

Currently, there are 38 of these pinui binui projects ALREADY AGREED in Jerusalem – and way, way more in the pipeline.

==

Who is going to live in all these monster towers, that is the question?

The more pressing question, at least for me, is how can someone who is not a billionaire just buy something lowrise, preferably with a garden, if they have less than $2 million to throw at it?

I don’t have a solution.

And while I keep trying to believe in miracles, all this has worn me down in ways that are quite hard to explain.

==

I really want to live in my own home again.

Walkable to the Rav on Shabbat.

With a garden.

At this stage, it’s sounding more and more like a fantasy.

And I can’t lie, and say I am filled with optimism and emuna that I can somehow get this to turnaround, if I just do another six hours, or take on some other additional ‘thing’ to show God how much I want this.

How much I actually need this.

It’s in God’s hands, He will do as He sees fit.

And in the meantime, I have to figure out how to find my joie de vivre again, and my emuna and optimism, if the answer ends up being ‘No’.

 

Shavua tov!

Looks like Rosh Hashana is already doing it’s thing…

Dutchsinse walks back his forecast for a massive earthquake in Israel / Lebanon.

That’s good news.

Watch this:

==

BH, hope you have a good, easy fast.

I often learn some interesting stuff from Dutchsinse videos that are not directly connected to earthquakes.

I took a look at the video where he is forecasting a possible massive 7.5+ quake, centered around Israel / Lebanon – the rift that leads up from the Red Sea, by Eilat, on the east side of Eretz Yisrael, via the Dead Sea plain, and up to Tiberias and the Kinneret.

It could actually strike anywhere between Spain in the West, and Saudi Arabia in the East – or nowhere.

So, nothing is a 100% prediction, and that’s not how Dutchsinse works. But still, he’s correct enough of the times that the possibility is at the least, very possible.

==

So now, in one of his throwaway comments, he was talking about how a massive earthquake centred on that plate boundary with the Dead Sea could potentially lead to the sea water flooding into the plain of the Dead Sea.

That was an idea that some of his xtian followers went a little nuts over, in the comments section, and started going on about Ezekiel 47, where it talks about the waters of the Dead Sea being ‘sweetened’.

It’s a shame to admit, but I don’t remember reading this. I had to go back and double-check, and sure enough, this is what it says:

“He said to me, ‘Have you seen, O son of man?’ He then led me and returned me to the bank of the stream. Upon my return, behold, along the bank of the stream were very many trees on one side and on the other. He said to me: ‘These waters go out to the eastern region; they descend to the Arava and go to the Sea, to the spreading sea [i.e. the Dead Sea] – and the water will be sweetened.”

==

Go read the passukim yourself, Yehezkel 47: 1-13.

Point is, there is a clear prophesy that some massive floodwaters are going to reach the Dead Sea, somehow, in Yehezkel they are coming down from the West, from the Temple, via the Judean plains.

So, Dutchsinse is maybe not a million miles off.

==

So then, this got me thinking, about how the last 30-40 years, and the concerted effort by the State of Israel to dry up the Dead Sea, one way and another.

Was it really just economics, or was there also more of a hidden religious motive operating, too?

I ask this question, as I have come to the conclusion the whole State was basically conceived, planned, organised – and eventually, set up – by Xtian Zionists, with a few Jewish puppets found to head the enterprise up and fool the masses.

I could be wrong, but this is where I am currently holding.

==

So, just sharing this here with you folks, do with it whatever you will.

If the Rav says anything interesting about earthquakes, I will try and translate and share it, if I hear anything.

But, we for sure live in interesting times.

 

Thanks to YD for the heads up.

Dutchsinse just issued a forecast for a possible 7.5+ earthquake over the next 7-10 days – he’s saying the epicentre could be Israel / Lebanon.

Dutchsinse isn’t always right with his forecasts, but he’s pretty good a majority of the time.

Start listening at the 5 min mark – speed him up to 1.75, it’s still very listenable.

I’ll let you know if the Rav says anything, but in the meantime, ‘don’t be scared – make teshuva, and be prepared’.

TBC

 

Uman was massive this year – easily 85,000+ people went.

And, many of them were ‘first timers’, including Rav Shalom Ber Sorotzkin:

==

I honestly don’t know who Rav Shalom Ber actually is, but if Rabbenu went to all that trouble to get him to Uman this year….

It’s interesting.

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My husband said that he could see that so many of the ‘regulars’ he meets year after year have really had some super-charged improvement on their middot, particularly between adam le’chavero.

But of course, there are still a huge contingent of what we’ll call ‘Breslov arsim‘, who tend to have tattoos and haircuts like Ben Tzur:

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Listen to the lyrics of this song – awesome!

And you will learn more of Rabbenu’s Torah, tachlis, in Ben Tsur’s songs then in a lot shiurim.

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So anyway, the Breslov arsim can be some real diamonds in the rough, and rough diamonds can hurt quite a bit, when you keep getting shoved up against them in ridiculous queues in the airport…

But, they are also playing a super-important part in the big scheme of things, on so many levels.

For example, like showing antisemites that you can’t just start beating up Jews ‘for free’ in the middle of airports, without getting yourself seriously punched in the face:

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The comment underneath that post on YWN says this:

that guy started up with the wrong group of yidden!

He for sure did.

This is Rabbenu’s way – Torah learning, sincere teshuva and prayers, tattoos – and being able to floor antisemites with one punch.

The sooner the whole Jewish world ‘becomes Breslov’, as Rabbenu himself predicted, the better it will be for all of us.

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Strange to say, while the ‘not Breslov’ part of the Jewish world seems to be filled with a lot of foreboding about what this new year will bring, there is more optimism in Breslov, and especially in Shuvu, than I’ve seen for years and years.

Rabbenu is in the mix, and I feel that things are shortly going to start getting ‘interesting’ again, in some way. In some good way, tachlis, where the sincere Jews, wherever they live and whatever they self-identify as, religiously, will really start to pull up and away from all the cack, the shmutz, the confusion, the difficulties, that have so beset so many of us, the last few years.

Rabbenu is in the mix!

The people who are hanging on to the True Tzaddik don’t have a lot to fear, when Hashem picks up the world by its four corners, and starts shaking it again.

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I know I’m kinda preaching to the choir here, as so many of you, dear readers, are connected in some way to Breslov already.

But for those that aren’t – it’s not too late!

Pick up a TK, read some Likutey Moharan, book a trip to Uman for after the chagim, start doing some hitbodedut, bind yourself to the True Tzaddikim… and that’s all it really takes, to get connected.

And spiritually, protected.

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The people I feel really sorry for are those who are connected to the ‘chassidic fakers’. Remember this, from HERE:

23 Rabbeinu z”l said that Mashiach will have to do more work with the Chassidic imposters than…

Rabbeinu z”l said that Mashiach will have to do more work with the Chassidic mefursamim shel sheker/ imposters, than the work he’ll have with the fraye/”liberated” [secularist] and apostate Jews.

Because the latter want to understand only with wisdom, and Mashiach will be superbly wise and will show them by wisdom that he is right, so they’ll acknowledge him.

But those Chassidic fakers who believe in emunoth cozeviyyot/false faiths, when Mashiach shows to their eyes how it is, they’ll reply, “I believe” (Ikh glayb).

Even though he shows to his eyes what the truth is, he still believes (in the sheker) even though he understands intellectually.

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For those people, especially, there are probably some very, very big tests of faith ahead.

May God help them to come through with the souls intact – and to get with Rabbenu, in whichever way that suits them, as fast as possible.

Amen.