Some thoughts on people who are ‘anti-Shuvu Banim’
Baruch Hashem, my husband mostly had a great time in Uman this year, despite a 29 hour return trip.
He asked me to do a little pidyon for him at the Polish border with the Rav, and I did, and it meant that my husband could endure the 11 hour wait to cross the border without going nuts, and by concentrating on the tikkun of trying to work on his patience, and accepting everything is from Hashem.
People around him on his coach, tho, (who weren’t Shuvu….) didn’t have the same equanimity, or mindset.
Lots of people got angry. Lots of people started telling themselves and their neighbours scare stories about ‘Baku #2’ – Baku being the small airport where a bunch of people got stuck, last Rosh Hashana.
My husband is an amazing guy – but I will tell you straight, that just being connected to Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, is not enough, these days, to really dig out all the bad middot every single one of us has. People also need to be connected to the Tzaddik HaDor, Rav Berland – and this brings me on to the real subject of this post.
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As the world continues to get crazier and crazier, with even ‘normal people’ now believing in aliens as standard, and mocking ‘creationists’ who don’t, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what is really true, and what really isn’t.
And also, who is really connecting to ‘truth’, and who really isn’t, even if they are well-meaning, sincere and knowledgeable.
The shortcut is this: Rav Berland and Shuvu Banim.
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Now, you don’t have to be standing on your chair cheering for the Rav (although if you want to, bevakasha, that’s fantastic.)
But, any time someone is ‘anti’ the Rav, or ‘anti’ Shuvu, I can tell you a million per cent, that something is ‘off’ with that person’s spiritual compass. It may be that only a little correction is required, a little bit of teshuva, to go back and re-evaluate information and ideas and experiences, and to reframe them correctly.
Or, it might be that the person is lost in the abyss already, believes ‘white is really black’ – and is sadly very far down the path of totally losing their connection to ‘truth’.
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In Uman, my husband caught up with an old acquaintance who used to be ‘quietly’ with the Rav, i.e. never openly, as that could cause them issues, but not ‘anti’. Now, that’s apparently changed. Without going in to too many details, apparently, they had a negative experience with some Shuvu Banim guys who weren’t acting nicely, and that was enough for them to throw the Rav over.
Let’s consider this for a moment, as I think it’s something a lot of people have had issues with.
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Let me ask you, have you ever had dealings with a Jew, or an Israeli who wasn’t ‘very nice’?
I certainly have.
I’ve met all sorts of Jews, some ‘very frum’, who have been total a-holes when it came to their middot, and were literally disgusting, horrible people who were responsible for some massive chillul Hashems.
Does that now mean, that I can and should go around dissing every Jew? Every Israeli? Or dissing the Torah that these people clearly are not following, when they act in disgusting ways?
Of course not.
There is the Torah, there are all the rules laid down by our Sages down the generations for how a sincere Jew should live – and then there are people with very bad middot who don’t follow those rules, and get overwhelmed by their negative traits and addictions, and act really badly.
If people followed the Torah’s rules properly – if they listened to our real Sages like the Baal Shem Tov, and Rebbe Nachman, and Rav Berland – then of course, they wouldn’t be acting like this.
But, to blame the Torah or the Sages for an individual’s bad behavior is totally ridiculous.
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I am so sick of all those hypocrites out there, who keep pointing their big, fat fingers at some of the off-the-derech teens in Shuvu, or some of the people with yucky middot, and keep trying to pin everything they see ‘wrong’ in Shuvu, on the Rav.
As though no other Jewish community in the whole world has off-the-derech teens, or yucky people.
Really, what planet do these hypocrites live on?
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I am in and around Shuvu a lot, and I know there are issues – but I can also tell you that there are issues absolutely everywhere in the world today, and that the Rav’s advice – about ‘giving in’, nullifying yourself, not answering back when people criticise you, trying to see God behind everything etc etc – all his advice has made me a way, way better person than I would have been otherwise.
The big difference is, that no other community has a leader that is actually emphasizing things like guarding the eyes, or praying for others, including those ‘on the other side of the fence’, or underlining the importance of not hurting another Jew, especially the Jew you are married to, or (trying to…) parent.
Do people always listen to his advice?
Totally not!
But is that the Rav’s ‘fault’ – or the problem of the individual?
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Compounding all this, is that about 15 years ago, Shuvu Banim got hijacked by a group of people from choshuva families in Meah Shearim, who basically operated as a corrupt mafia, in so many ways.
Including, keeping the Rav himself prisoner in his own home, manipulating his close family members, and using the Rav as a ‘cash cow’, operating a ‘pay-to-play’ scheme where anyone who wanted to see the Rav had to pay them for the privilege.
All this is set out clearly in OIAG 1 and 2, but long story short, when the Rav couldn’t take it anymore, after 10 years under ‘house arrest’ by this mafia, he escaped.
And then the ‘mafia’ told him if he didn’t come back and continue acting as their ‘cash cow’, they were going to start spreading horrible rumours about him in the press.
They were as good as their word.
And, because these choshuva families are actually just the ‘frum’ branch of the choshuva families who run the corrupt State of Israel, it was no problem at all to get the State involved in persecuting the Rav at the international level, too.
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Why am I telling you this?
Again?
Because seven years ago when I was writing OIAG, and putting out my findings, I had to deal with a bunch of naive people who simply couldn’t believe ‘the government’, or ‘frum people’ would lie to them, about anything.
They simply couldn’t believe, ‘the government’ would persecute religious people, just for being religious.
They simply couldn’t believe the media, especially the so-called ‘frum media’ would lie, over and over and over again.
They couldn’t believe the crazy idea that there is an evil Jewish ‘mafia’ who have basically insinuated themselves into the leadership positions of every real Jewish power base, frum or not – and who don’t hesitate to ‘rub out’ their opposition in any way open to them.
They simply couldn’t believe it.
And now?
After Covid, and October 7, and ‘Houthi drones’, and arresting yeshiva bochurs, and never-ending demonstrations against ‘frum parasites’…. Now?
Are you still going to believe all the lies about the Rav and his community?
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The birur is getting harder and harder.
Me personally, as soon as I know someone is anti the Rav, even a tiny bit – I already take what they say with a huge grain of salt, and I stay away from their ‘influence’.
If they could be wrong about something as ‘big’ as the Rav…. Who knows what else they are totally wrong about, regardless of how put together, sincere and ‘right’ they may actually sound on other topics.
The late R Alter Chaim David Stern, Z’l, told us years and years ago:
The last test before Moshiach is Rav Berland.
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I give everyone a bracha, they should pass it.
And in the meantime, I have the feeling that all those lashon hara pigeons are coming home to roost, very, very soon.
For the people caught on the wrong side of the equation, it’s going to be a very difficult time.
Especially when ‘the aliens’ show up, and anyone who is outside of the circle of the True Tzaddik is going to have to deal with them, spiritually, all on their own.
It’s going to make Poltergeist look like a walk in the park…
תמיד אעמד איתו, וגם כל יום ולילה אומר לאל ״אני עתה אתחבר לנפשות רבי … אליעזר ברלנד בן עטיא ברלנד, תשמורני זכותו״
It’s good to bind yourself to all the ‘tzaddikim ha amitim’, as per the Arizal’s instructions, and then specify as well someone in particular. And, especially before hitbodedut. I recently read something that when you don’t bind to tzaddikim, you can be thinking you are getting kosher inspiration in your hitbodedut, when actually the process has been ‘hijacked’ by shedim. It really made me think, of people i know who ‘prayed on stuff’ and came to false conclusions. We need so much help, spiritually. Without the true tzaddikim, we would be totally stuffed.
At some point, everyone has to face the truth that the biggest klipot attach themselves to the highest levels of kedushah. Once someone understands this fact, and the spiritual rationale behind it, he’s able to be at peace even in the midst of it. It’s not pleasant to witness, but at least, the da’at makes it tolerable.
Rivka, I am having a hard time understanding the rav’s statements and stance regarding the measles shots he’s been talking about recently. What can you tell me? From someone who feels she knows the “truth” about all childhood shots plus the Covid ones, I have a hard time believing that the rav doesn’t see this same truth. Maybe I know nothing but I’ve put my whole being into discovering all these truths the past 13 years and it’s a huge rabbit hole where you can’t believe anything the media, medical establishment, government, etc say about them. They’re not there to help society but to thin them out and make them weak and sickly. How can I understand what the rav is saying? He spoke about it the last two nights at the aravit. It didn’t seem like he was saying you could take them and still be protected like the Covid ones, he was saying you must, no?
I am waiting for the written version of what he said. I was there, and what i believe he said was that it’s ‘assur to rely on miracles, you have to carry a gun, you have to get vaccinated’.
Context: no one in shuvu, including the rav, carries a gun. I guess you can extrapolate what you want, from this.
And also remember, the govt will use any pretext to arrest and persecute the rav again. Or anyone else in a leadership position, who gets in their way. Rebbe nachman teaches stay away from doctors. And the rav holds firmly by every word of rabbenu. But – Rav Natan also teaches that God is so great, that even after a person goes to a doctor, God can still heal them. Dont fall into the troofer panic mode, either. God is controlling everything.
This is the link to the written Hebrew version. It says Rabbeinu said children need all their vaccinations. I wonder if those in his days were without aluminum and mercury and actually did help ward off smallpox for him to even say such a thing especially as he didn’t trust doctors. Measles is a regular childhood disease and wasn’t deadly unless the child had something else and didn’t get treated for it (like pneumonia) but nowadays the measles shot sheds on others and it’s a terrible version which can even paralyze people who change the diapers of a recently vaccinated baby from the shedding. Older kids can catch it from the older babies who just got it. With such a serious issue, I don’t understand this statement from the rav. More harm can come to people from taking it than from not taking it. Wouldn’t that be spilling blood more?
I really need statements like this in regular language so I can understand exactly. Why does everything have to be in riddles, even important issues?
I don’t understand the issue, honestly.
Do hitbodedut, ask God for the answers, follow what your hitbodedut is telling you.
The stuff about what Rebbe Nachman said was referring to pakin – pox. Rabbenu never said the word ‘vaccines’. I debunked this five years ago. The Rav is sweetening things with all his statements, and if people want to ‘understand’ then they are going to get stuck, because you can’t use the Rav like an Urim and Turim, and then not do your own spiritual work to figure out what God is trying to tell us all, individually.
If you had someone telling you clearly about every single thing you needed to decide about – where would that leave free choice, the only reason God created man in the first place.
You will get ‘clear statements’ about what to do in your hitbodedut, individually tailored to you, exactly.
You won’t get them from the Rav – and you didn’t used to get them from Rabbenu, either, about day to day stuff.
We have free choice and hitbodedut, and I don’t think we are meant to be following dictates from other human beings, blindly, like frum robots.
That’s never been the Breslov path.
I know that Hashem showed me every truth I know for a reason and I need to follow the path Hashem has set out for me. I believe though that the tzaddik can tell you left is right and right is left and then there’s no reason to follow your own logic or truth/hitbodedut when the tzaddik directs you otherwise for he truly knows what has to be. So, at that point that you are listening to the tzaddik, your own hitbodedut answers would also not be trusted. Therefore, I totally don’t get why the rav says anything about them. I’m meant to ignore the words of a tzaddik? He’s not just a human being. If the rav told me personally to go do something I’m personally against, I would work on nullifying myself to the point where I can follow his words with simcha and know I’m doing the right thing which was “wrong” according to everything I know.
It’s very similar to encouraging my men in my family to go to Uman when I am dead set against ever leaving EY. It goes against my heart and logic and I am not totally there with accepting it with joy yet I did encourage them. Personally, I am happy I am not a man because I don’t know if I could have left EY.
https://www.shuvubanimint.com/66601/
Thanks for the link.
Now I’ve read what the Rav says, he seems to be saying opposing things about taking the vaccines.
This is the Rav’s way. Free choice remains – a rabbi can’t tell someone what to do about this stuff. Each person has to take the responsibility for their own decisions, especially about something as important as this.
I am not intending to ‘trigger’ a big debate about vaccines, bur rather to add information that not all of us may be aware of. When the Rav spoke the words he said, it was specifically about the measles vaccine (and no other vaccine), paraphrasing what is written in אבניה ברזל (Avaneha Barzel), §34, from the words of Rabbeinu about the pox vaccine at that time — 7 children in Israel had recently died from measles, two of whom were in Shuvu Banim.