Some very interesting stuff from the Rav in this tranche of translated comments from Chanuka.

It’s the continuation of this post, talking about the Greco-Roman ‘snakes’ in Israel.

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Haman did ve’samachta be’hagecha (rejoice on your festivals).

He took champagne, whiskey, he also distributed champagne to everyone. It cost him.

It cost him $10 million.

A million soldiers, and for each soldier he bought for $10, 10 bottles of champagne.

A person drinks champagne…

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[On Simchat Torah when Hamas was over-running the army bases]

All the officers were sleeping.

At 5AM in the morning, they woke them up, [and told them]:

They are already breaking through the fence!!

None of the officers could wake up.

Many of the officers said: We simply couldn’t wake up – we were drinking champagne all night. ve’samachta be’hagecha – we only went to sleep at 5AM.

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At 6.30AM they were already calling them: Look, 3,000 terrorists just cut through the fence!!

Everyone thought, maybe it’s 10 terrorists. The most it could be is 20 terrorists. OK, let’s say it’s even 70 terrorists.

70 terrorists, three people, three soldiers, each one has a revolver, each revolver has 20 bullets. 20 bullets times three is 60, and 10 [terrorists] will run away.

So maximum, maximum, they will break through the fence and maybe 7o terrorists, the most will cross over.

Three officers with three handguns will drive them away, will take them down, drop them down dead.

“Hashem will fight for you and you will remain silent.“[1]

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Nobody thought that it would be 3,000 [terrorists], and maybe even 4,000, and maybe even 5,000.

It was impossible to know.

All the kibbutzim were full [of terrorists]. It took three days to reconquer them again.

And 400 soldiers fell, just to reconquer the kibbutzim.

Instead of stationing one [soldier] there with a gun, so 400 soldiers departed.

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All of this is just because of the Xiomi!

This is something supernatural, this is something that doesn’t make logical sense – that there were no soldiers, and no army, and that they took everyone’s firearms away.

Everyone already knows the story: Maybe, someone will fire on some Arab by mistake, on some poor Arab, some innocent Arab, some holy Arab.

So, they took all their guns away from them, away from all the security teams, all the guards.

The guards [on the kibbutzim] didn’t have guns! They just came and shot them!

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Everything is because of the Xiomi!

Each person who has a Xiomi in their pocket, so he’s causing people to die.

This is what is written:

“Hashem will fight for you, and you will remain silent.”

And this is what is written[2]:

“For Hashem Your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you. So your camp will be holy! So that He will not see a shameful thing among you and turn away from behind you!!

A verse can’t just be erased!

If you try and erase it – you won’t succeed!

The Ammonites are trying to erase “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem” – they won’t succeed!

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“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, even their tenth generation shall not enter the congregation of Hashem, to eternity.”[3]

Why? Because the Ammonite and the Moabite is the peak of tumah (spiritual defilement), this is from ‘my people’ and this is from the father.

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Two billion people believe that ‘Oto HaIsh’[4] was born ‘from the Holy Shechina’.

Once upon a time, every floozy, every woman who suddenly got a ‘mazal tov’ for having a child after ten years of not falling pregnant, they used to ask her:

But look here, you don’t have a husband?!

[She would say] What’s the question? I got impregnated by the Shechina! I went for a walk in a field, I was doing hitbodedut, and I met ‘the Shechina’, some angel….

So here, one of the angels grabbed Lot and his wife, the second angel grabbed his two daughters, and took them out of the city.

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[And so, this is how the daughters of Lot could have told everyone, who knew that they had been rescued from Sdom by angels, that these angels also impregnated them. But they preferred to tell the truth, and called their children Moav (‘from my father’) and Ammon (‘from my people’.)

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Shemot 14:14.

[2] Devarim 23:15.

[3] Devarim 23:4.

[4] I.e. Yoshki, the founder of xtianity.

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I literally laughed out loud when I was typing this up, especially the remarks about Yoshki’s parentage.

But what’s not funny, is just as I finished putting this up, I got a phone call from my daughter who has been ‘off’ the smartphone for well over a year.

She has a simple Nokia.

And that simple Nokia this morning is no longer working, because the State of Israel has just pulled the 3G network in this country.

So, you either need a phone that support 4G minimum – or you have no phone.

There are Nokias that do that – I have one myself.

My husband bought it for me two weeks ago, literally, because no-one could  hear me anymore on my old Nokia (presumably, part of the plan for getting rid of the less damaging 3G, and the way more healthy-for-you simple phones.)

Sigh.

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The Nokia I have apparently supports internet, but I have no intention of ever, ever using it, or getting it set up.

I use it for calls and texts, that’s it.

Sometimes, people read what the Rav says about the smartphones and the Xiomis, and they get all snippy and self-righteous.

I just HAVE to have a smartphone for work…. I just HAVE to have an i-Phone for the kids’ school…for the neighborhood groups…to go and volunteer… to stay up with family abroad.

[FILL IN YOUR PARTICULAR REASON HERE].

But, each person that gives into this is strengthening the bars of the ‘digital prison’ for themselves, first of all – and also, for everyone else.

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I know a few people, BH, who gave up their smartphones.

They aren’t missing them at all, and can still function in the world 100%.

And the more people who do it, the easier it gets for more and more people to do it.

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I know it’s hard, I really do.

We are all caught in this bind, where ‘doing the right thing’, especially digitally, is getting harder and harder.

But really, it’s the same test the immigrants in NYC faced when they were told either break shabbat, or you are out of a job.

It’s the same test the Jews in Uman faced, when the Haidamaks told them either convert, or we’re going to kill you right here.

We are on such a low level, that our test of ‘mesirut nefesh’ essentially boils down to give up on Whats App and go back to watching ‘Friends Reruns’ on a PC….

And even so, so many of us are still finding even this too difficult.

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Tov.

You really want the war to end?

You really want the evil to go into retreat, and to finally be broken?

You really want to stop the steady stream of our young men getting killed and mutilated in Gaza – because as well as the 150+ dead, there are a couple of thousand with horrible injuries, including a lot with their hands and feet blown off – ?

You know what you need to do, spiritually.

May Hashem help us all to find the courage to clean all the tumah out of our handbags and pockets, ASAP.

May our camp return to being holy, once again.

And then, we can get on to the part of the verse we are all desperately waiting for:

For Hashem Your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to deliver your enemies before you.

Amen.