Shana Tova!

How was your chag?

I spent mine looking after a heavily-pregnant kid, plus her off-the-derech oldest best friend from school. It was mostly very nice, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, in parts, that the friend was on the phone to her boyfriend in the room, and having arguments with my kid about getting a tattoo.

The friend has been such a good friend to my kid, in so many ways, and is a very giving, generous person. Just…. Some combo of ‘dati leumi education’ and whatever she experienced in her home has turned her off God and yiddishkeit, going back a few years, already.

She just doesn’t believe in the Torah, or in God.

And now, that path is leading her further and further away from being able to live happily in Israel, where she says all she feels is anxiety about bombs falling or people coming to stab her. She wants to go somewhere ‘quiet’ in chul, where the anxiety recedes and she can do whatever she wants, spiritually, without feeling the direct effects in her soul and state of mind.

(Of course, that’s my take on what’s going on. She just thinks Israel is irreparably ‘broken’, and that she needs to get out of here ASAP to start enjoying life again.)

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Her boyfriend is from a similar background.

A very ‘strong’ dati leumi background, more ‘chardal’, actually, that also wasn’t so in to the idea of their kids going to the army, post Gush Katif. So of course, he signed up happily two years ago – and is literally counting the minutes until he gets out, and can leave the country.

It’s been interesting, watching his ‘evolution’, if you can call it that, from thinking the secular-army life was going to be a-m-a-z-i-n-g and exciting, and meaningful, and all the things that secular life in Israel (or anywhere, actually) really is not, to understanding that the army is corrupt and horrible.

So now, what other option do thoughtful ‘secular’ people have to live a good life, except to leave the country and go find somewhere ‘peaceful’?

(Good luck with that.)

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So it was quite an eye-opening chag, in its own gentle way, as I could see via my kid’s friend how the options seem to be closing down here in the aretz, for secular people who want to ‘live a good life’.

The only answer, really, is to return to God, and find the ‘good life’ on the spiritual side of the equation, because it doesn’t exist on the material side of the equation anywhere in the world, right now.

Other secular family members here are still moving forward with trying to move to a warm bit of the USA.

They spent three weeks scoping it out having fled in terror from the latest bit of the ‘war with Iran’ (which can also be spelt: U-S-A), and now seem to be trying to convince themselves that ‘the good life’ can still be had in Florida, or somewhere.

Where there are no bombs, no ‘Iranians’, no sirens, no crazy stuff like that, no sirree.

And no God and yiddishkeit present in any real amount to be noticeable.

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I don’t know what’s going to happen next in either of these cases.

Clearly, if a person doesn’t value things like being able to eat kosher all over the place, wherever you go, being able to find a shul, living close to holy sites and holy kevarim, being surrounded by a lot of Jews, living somewhere where it’s still possible to hear your soul whispering to you, at least some of the time – then I can understand how the appeal of living in Israel can diminish, particularly after the last two years.

But are we really thinking that ‘the good life’ is available in the US, still, with prices through the roof, everyone obsessed with botox and ozempik (even in the so-called frum communities), and a growing undercurrent of serious antisemitism that (whisper this next bit) is actually state sponsored?

I guess, they’ll find out.

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In the meantime – I am so, so grateful that I live here.

And also, that my kids made it through the school system with their faith in God intact. And for that, I am giving the credit 100% to Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, and the many times we dragged our kids to Uman ‘for a holiday’, that literally turned things around for them in some huge ways, spiritually.

How can people raise kids who are in touch with their souls, not just ‘religious robots’, and really happy to be frum, these days, without Rabbenu?

I literally have no idea.

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The Rav did not get to Uman this year.

My husband heard the story from a gabbay there, and was told that the Ukrainians had removed the Rav’s ‘black visa’ from last year, but the State of Israel was protesting the Rav’s entry to Uman, as the Rav is on the State’s ‘black list’.

In the end, even this wrinkle was smoothed out – but too late for Rosh Hashana.

The last I heard, the Rav may try to go to Uman anyway, after Rosh Hashana, before returning to Israel.

I will update you.

But, it’s kind of obvious now, isn’t it, who has been keeping the Rav out of Uman the last few years…

And if you didn’t figure out still, that the Rav is leading the spiritual battle against the evil that’s taken over our Jewish community, I guess you’ll find this whole situation kinda perplexing.

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BH, we are going to have a good 5786.

At least, the people sticking to God are going to have the best 5786 they could have, in current circumstances.

The people who aren’t, are going to need ever-increasing doses of anxiety medication, and Plans B, C, D and E for how to find the elusive ‘good life’ somewhere else in the world, where they don’t actually live.

Because the grass is always greener, when you don’t have to deal with it, day in and day out.

I watched ‘the widow’ flashing the devil horn fingers while cosying up to POTUS on stage, and I didn’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, dafka the opposite. Israel can feel like a frying pan at the moment, with all the ‘stress’ going on here (or at least, portrayed as going on here, via the media).

But jumping out of the frying pan to the fire in chul just doesn’t seem like a good move to make.

It seems to me, we really approaching the ‘turning point’, at least, in our days. And the safest place to watch that play out, for a believing Jew, is Israel.

BH, all the Jews will fit into that category very soon, and without too much suffering to get them to turn back to God, and away from the anxiety meds and delusional thinking about ‘the good life’.

I really hope so.