Without rehashing the whole article, you can go back and read more below: Doing a pidyon nefesh before Rosh Hashana ==== Bottom line:  [E]veryone undergoes a certain amount of suffering. There is no such thing as a person going through life with everything going exactly according to his desire. What comes out of these teachings […]

More updates from the Rav

In case you haven't realised already, "the news" is lying to you. Sure, there is some truth mixed in to all this, because without the element of truth, no lie would last long. And this particular 'lie' has lasted 75 years and counting.... (At…

A book of tehillim every day

In the shiur yesterday, the Rav asked that every girl and woman 7+ should try to say a whole book of tehillim a day. ***UPDATES BELOW*** For non-Hebrew speakers, that's an even bigger ask - see if you can team up with some friends and divide…

The morning watch

I woke up today to the loud sounds of war planes overhead. It was before dawn, there were lots and lots and lots of them. A few minutes later, the 'Allahu Akhbar' chants started up from the mosques close to where I live. They'd turned…

Update from the Rav

I was just at the tefillot of the Rav tonight. He spoke for 30 minutes, and at times seemed close to tears. What I understood him to be saying about the situation was: It's the most serious time for Am Yisrael, they are really trying…

The spiritual fight back begins

This morning, before I wrote that last post, I was feeling pretty down. ***Excerpts from the Rav's shiurim updated below - scroll down.*** After I wrote it, I started to feel a bit happier, but still not great. Then, one of my Breslov…

The only protection

Things are pretty bad here in Israel right now. Jerusalem is quiet, thank God. Things are still being 'sweetened' here. But what happened yesterday is awful beyond words. Do you think it was just an 'accident', a 'security failure'? Please…