BH, a lot of people got to Meron today.

The Rav got to Meron, a few of my family members got to Meron – all on buses, and with a definite ‘down vibe’this year, as the Erev Rav have effectively taken all of the joy out of Lag Bomer.

All week long, we got bombarded by messages on Koh Hai, and via the media, how those ‘dangerous, irresponsible’ religious people who make a bonfire for Lag Bomer are going to set half the country on fire….

How those ‘dangerous, irresponsible’ religious people who go to Meron are going to push and shove another 5 million people to death, unless, they are carefully corralled like cattle, set against a stop watch, and prevented from doing anything that would make Lag Bomer at Rashbi the joyful event it was, before Covid.

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Getting to Meron was never easy, before Covid.

It was usually hot. There were always crowds and queues, and not enough toilets.

You were tired, squashed and thirsty.

BUT – when you got to the Tzion, there was (too loud) happy music; there were people lining up to give you free food and water by the side of the road, free ice lollies… There was a carnival atmosphere (maybe, now I think of it, an OTT ‘carnival atmosphere, with hundreds of frum charidees blaring loud speakers telling you how they were the best address for the tzedaka you came to give, in the zchut of Rashbi.)

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There is no doubt, that Hashem has arranged all this, because something had gone a little ‘wrong’ at Meron, in terms of who was running it, and all the money passing through various hands, in various ways.

At the same time, there is also no doubt that the ‘stick’ Hashem used to dismantle the joy of Lag Bomer in our failed State is going to have to answer for a great deal…. when judgment day finally rolls around.

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I spent yesterday around a small bonfire lit in the hills overlooking Shechem.

Even with the fire and the obligatory loud ‘Rabbi Shimon’ playlist, I wasn’t feeling a lot of ‘joy’ this year, I’ll be honest.

I was feeling thoughtful, and yearning for all the evil to finally break, and fall apart, and burn up.

This morning, I came back home and learned a mother got shot to death by a ‘terrorist’ whilst in labor, on the way to give birth, on the other side of the city of Ariel, the side that’s generally considered to be the ‘safer’ side of the Shomron, as it’s literally five minutes away from Rosh Ayin, and 15 minutes from Petach Tikva.

My daughter told me she cried a lot of yesterday night, and was still crying this morning.

I sighed a big sigh, and thought to myself: they still managed to get their korban, for the 33rd day….

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Apparently, the army saw that ‘terrorist’ coming, and flagged him as a potential ‘terrorist’.

But then, did nothing to stop him going and shooting that poor woman to death in her car.

All these ‘terrorists’ were released by our wonderful government a few weeks ago, as part of the deal to get all the hostages back to Israel.

Remember?

Israel released literally thousands of terrorists…. before the hostages came back.

How does that make sense?

(If you aren’t a ‘conspiracy theorist’….)

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In the meantime, my daughter told me that she is starting to worry about Trump.

This daughter is way more mainstream than me, but the last few months, as more and more of the pieces have been slotting into place, she’s starting to realise that I’m not the crazy lunatic she thought I was (at least, not as much as she thought I was…. ;-))

What’s going to happen with Trump? She asked me.

I have no idea.

But, I am a good student of history, and I can tell you there is a set pattern that recurs every few decades, of a ‘Pharoah arising’ that doesn’t remember the Jews.

That guy then starts waging a campaign of persecution against his country’s particular Jews, which has the same aim of getting rid of them, one way or another.

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In Alexandria, 38 CE it was state-sponsored eradication of civil rights and destruction of synagogues, plus a ghetto, and no more Jews allowed into the country.

The Jews who remained were in such a bad state, many of them ‘converted’ to become pagans, to try and regain their materialistic standard of life – including Philo’s own nephew, Tiberius Alexander, who helped Titus destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, as his second-in-command.

France and England taxed their ‘King’s Jews’ almost to death, accused them of blood libels, burnt them in castles and churches, and stam, outside in the market place, drowned them… and also, finally, expelled them.

When the Jews left, they had to leave their property behind.

That was a great way of the Kings ALSO cancelling their financial debts owed to the Jews, and ALSO enriching themselves further, by acquiring the Jews’ property for the crown.

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Something similar happened in 1492, in Spain.

Something similar – but even worse – happened in Germany in the late 1930s….

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It couldn’t happen here, it couldn’t happen today….

I’m not so sure.

There’s a blueprint, a pattern, that you see repeated again and again throughout Jewish history.

Long story short… I’m also worrying about Trump.

That freemason-billionaire who was maneuvred especially in position, who has a big national debt to deal with, who they went all out to make the ‘Q-tard’ campaign for, so otherwise sane people keep explaining away the red flags as ‘8D chess’.

Or something.

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Ultimately, everything is God.

That’s the bottom line.

Wherever we live, whatever we are doing with ourselves, every single one of us has our own teshuva we still need to make, for many different things.

What that actually means, tachlis, what that actually requires – each person has to do their own cheshbon hanefesh, and to think for themselves.

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So, now the music is back on, and I’m trying to make Shabbos.

I’m trying to ignore all the madness still going on, but it’s seeping through the cracks, nevertheless.

We don’t live in a vacuum, after all, in an hermetically-sealed environment, where sad news about dead Jews can’t infiltrate, no matter how much we’re trying to ignore it all and just get on with life.

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BH, all this turns around for the good, very soon.

BH, all the people who made a huge effort to get to Meron again this year, even though they have taken the joy out of the event, sweetened stuff for all of Am Yisrael.

And BH, this time around, the pattern will be disrupted by sincere, mass teshuva, before it plays out the way it always plays out, when Jews get too complacent, and too disconnected from what we’re really down here to do.

Bezrat Hashem.