Last Thursday, I told one of my friends in Bet Shemesh about the Rav’s ‘push’ to say more tehillim.

My friend is Chabad, not Breslov.

She has five small kids at home – all under her feet more than usual, especially with the war.

But she was feeling sad and apathetic last week, so I told her do something! Even if you just say a couple of tehillim, you’ll start to feel way better, that you are doing something positive to get this situation turned around!

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Yesterday, she called me and told what had happened.

Even though she was totally exhausted Friday night when she finally had a bit of peace, she told me she spent an hour just saying some tehillim.

You can’t even begin to calculate the mesirut nefesh involved with her doing that, it’s off the scale.

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Sunday morning, her husband decided to go and exercise for the first time in six months.

He  took his bike – and was involved in an accident that threw him up into the air, where he landed on his head, with not even a bike helmet.

BH – he is totally, 100% fine.

My friend is 100% sure it’s the merit of the tehillim she said.

But there’s more.

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Like most of us in Israel (maybe, all around the world today, who knows….) she’s been finding it hard to sleep at night.

A lot of us have had a subconscious fear of terrorists breaking in at night, and murdering us in our beds, God forbid.

But after that accident happened, my friend told me that she now understands that God doesn’t need a ‘terrorist’ to kill anyone – it could have happened even with something as simple as taking a bike ride.

And now that she’s understanding that ONLY God decides if she lives or dies, she is feeling like a whole weight just lifted off her, spiritually.

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I know this kind of sounds strange – but you get peace of mind from accepting that if God wants you dead, there is nothing you can do change that, except making teshuva and praying a lot.

(And even then, nothing is 100% guaranteed.)

But the truth sets you free.

And the truth is, only God is running the world.

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This morning, I got an email asking me this:

I have been reading your blog here and there and Its a bit confusing the messages from the Rav.

Firstly saying a whole book of tehilim is not really so possible with a busy household and I would like to believe that my avodah right now is making sure my Husband and kids are being taken care of properly.

Secondly, getting rid of an iPhone I do believe is a big problem and have really been asking Hashem to help me with this. But then again if we didn’t have internet we wouldn’t be able to stay connected nor be able to see his messages.

And Yet the Ravs right hand man […] has whatapp and posts things that the Rav says. So if we all got rid of internet we wouldn’t have email or pidyon or anything of that sort.

Also the Rav has his own website so I don’t understand the messages.

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This is what I sent back:

I understand what you’re saying, and sometimes it is confusing.

For me, I kind of see the Rav as a ‘coach’, at least in terms of this discussion. The coach is trying to help you do the v best you can do – he’s going to demand 100%, all the time – even though no-one can give 100% all the time in reality.

But the people who come the closest to that achieve the most on the track – and also in life, spiritually, and generally.

Re: internet, we are currently all stuck with it, until God breaks the klipah. but I have never had a smartphone…. ever. so it’s possible to do without one still and still be ‘in the real world’. but v difficult, for sure, and requires a big – HUGE – amount of mesirut nefesh.

B’hatzlacha….and keep praying.

Whatever you can manage with the tehillim is amazing, even if just a couple a day.

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Tachlis, 99.9% of us are stuck having to use the internet at the moment, until God finally rescues us from us.

But the question is, if we’re going to accept and even ‘enjoy’ our subjugation to this, or if we’re going to keep fighting it with every ounce of strength we have.

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For example….I got rid of the Spotify app a few weeks ago on my PC, even though I had the Premium version, that was meant to let me listen to downloaded songs ‘offline’.

But then, something changed, and it just wouldn’t let me listen ‘offline’ any more.

(My PC is probably being hacked a lot, honestly, there’s a lot of weird things that happen, like my mouse moving all by itself, and then opening folders by itself when I’m online….)

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Point is, even though I got stuck having to have wifi installed in the house during Covid, when everyone had to be online all the time – I am still ‘fighting it’ every step I can.

I still unplug the router immediately I finish online, every single time.

So, there was just no way that I was going to accept the  new reality of Spotify only streaming (at least to me…) online.

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My kids think I’m a little crazy.

(Although one of them also just has a Nokia, and the other one keeps trying to ditch the smartphone, but is finding it very hard.)

What can I say?

Whatsapp is probably the single biggest ‘trojan horse’ for smartphones in the frum community at the moment…. But when more of us find the spiritual koach to explore different ways of doing things and ditching Whatsapp, that will change.)

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Point is – I have no choice but to have wifi.

I have no choice but to be ‘online’ in some ways, like all of us.

But I am still fighting with every bit of strength I have, to protest the internet cage I’m currently trapped in.

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Each person knows their own battles.

Each person knows their own tests.

But every tiny bit of mesirut nefesh – self-sacrifice – we do right now is mamash doing enormous things in shemayim, to lighten up all the horrible stuff that is happening, and help this to start turn around the sweet way.

It’s not an all-or-nothing situation.

If you can’t do a whole book of tehillim every day – at least do one! Every single day!

Or do a Tikkun Haklali.

Or make a commitment to try to get the whole book done by a certain day…

Whatever is going to work for you, but the point is to not just turn over and go back to sleep, but to make some effort, some mesirut nefesh.

With the tehillim.

With the tznius.

With the internet and smartphones.

Because whatever ‘small’ thing you do, really make a huge difference to the outcome for Am Yisrael.

And for yourself, most of all.

And may we just hear good news.

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BTW, my daughter is still binge-watching old episodes of Friends, as part of her coping strategy.

Long story short… the last few weeks I have been hearing so many one liners (and horrible canned laughter) from Friends.

Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing in Friends) went into cardiac arrest and passed away yesterday.

This tweet is from 2021:

Could I BE Any More Vaccinated? Get your shot and then get your shirt. Shop the entire collection at https://t.co/WzJDsPVqFX Only available for a limited time pic.twitter.com/M2G8hbNV23

— matthew perry (@MatthewPerry) May 24, 2021

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Yeah, don’t tell me.

We can never really know why these things happen, and who are we to judge other people?

Whatever.