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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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)).

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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.)

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(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.)

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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.