From where I sit, I see so many of us are running out of steam for all this.

I just got an email from a good friend in the US, who was telling me about all the scary ‘pro-Palestinian’ stuff (aka: ‘anti-Jewish) going on there…. And the never-ending traffic jams from ‘construction’ that seem to have been timed to appear, like clockwork, across the planet.

Here too, there are never-ending traffic jams.

It started three years ago, and it’s never stopped.

They are digging up the whole country to lay the cables for the 5….. g, to make everything a ‘smart city’, where you can get fined for drinking your milk past its sell-buy date.

Lovely.

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I am yearning for peace.

I am yearning for ‘calm’.

But it doesn’t look like that’s coming any time soon, so in the meantime, I have to figure out some other coping strategies to ensure I have the endurance, patience, stamina and emuna required to keep going.

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Yesterday, I got in the car and went for a long drive, while I was doing a six hour hitbodedut.

Probably like a lot of people, I have had my house full of people for 4 years now, one way or another, and even though my youngest is 20, with all the crazy expense involved with even renting a place these days, she’s still at home.

(And even though my oldest is married, BH, she’s also at home way, way more than I thought she would be, with her husband. This is a complement, I know, and I’m very grateful. And at the same time, sometimes, I need more ‘space’.)

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So, driving by myself in the car, where I can pick the music or the silence, and I can set the aircon as high or low as I want, or not, suddenly struck me as a great blessing.

I’ve just finished a course on using healing crystals, and at some point, I hope to start writing way more about it. As usual, the whole subject is mixed up with ‘avoda zara’ stuff, and it needs a lot of birur, but not for nothing there were 12 gemstones on the Kohen HaGadol’s choshen.

And done right, I think it can be very useful, and help a lot of people.

Point is – going to stones shops across the country has become my ‘escape route’ and ‘retail therapy’ at the moment.

So I ended up in the industrial area of Rehovot yesterday, pawing through buckets of green aventurine, as part of my six hour hitbodedut.

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On the way home, I took a left into Mazkeret Batya, where I’ve never been before but it was right by the side of the road.

When we first made aliya, my husband brought me a book about the pioneers of Mazkeret Batya, a small group of observant farmers, who fought so hard to keep the shmitta year in the land.

The ‘Baron’s Men’ were having none of that, and basically crushed them.

So many of those early pioneers in Mazkeret Batya died from malaria, and from other illnesses (which probably stemmed directly from a broken heart.)

The ones who lived saw most of their descendants leave the religious way of life they’d fought so hard to maintain.

It’s a sad story.

And I felt a bit teary as I drove down ‘Rothschild Boulevard’ in Mazkeret Batya, where many of the first houses have been preserved (like in Zichron Yaakov, but way, way less touristy).

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Eretz Yisrael has always been acquired with yissurim.

Always.

That’s how you know you’re actually acquiring it, and not just squatting here until the next squall chases you away to Cyprus, or America, or Thailand.

It’s so worth it.

But it’s still, sometimes, so painful.

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So, my patience is about zero per cent.

My energy is about zero per cent.

My optimism is about 3% (up from zero per cent, last week).

And in the meantime…. there is still quite a long road to travel, it seems, until ‘the madness’ ends.

Only the hitbodedut, the TKs and the Rav is keeping me going.

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I just wanted to end with a couple of random things.

1. My phone has been playing up for weeks and weeks.

There are some people it just never lets me call, ever. Then, there are some people that it sometimes lets me call. Then, there are people who are trying to get hold of me, and it’s not letting them call me, either.

A few other people without smartphones are also having this problem.

I don’t know if it’s part of the ‘push’ to get everyone on brain-frying 5…..you-know-what and off the nokias.

Is anyone with a smartphone also experiencing this?

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2. I’ve been thinking a lot about how all the ‘abusers’ in the world love to yell so loudly about the laws of lashon hara.

This is how they shut down all the victims of the pedos, all the people getting scammed by the rebbes-with-palaces-paid-for-by-charidee, all the whistle-blowers, how were trying to warn the public about the manufactured ‘psak from Bnei Brak’, and also, others who are trying to point out some of the myriad wolves in sheep’s clothing, including the missionaries, still targeting the Jews in so many ways.

I learnt the laws of lashon hara really, really well.

More than once.

There is an obligation to say the bare minimum to warn people properly of potential danger, potential abuse.

The listener is forbidden from *believing* what they are told 100%, unless they themselves have first-hand evidence.

But, they are also obligated to take action to *protect themselves*, in case the information is true.

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And here’s the bit all the abusers who keep ranting about ‘gossip’ and ‘lashon hara’ always forget:

There is an obligation to warn a fellow Jew about some potential danger they may be facing, in order to help save them from harm.

The listener is *forbidden* from believing what they are told 100%, and the teller has to be very careful not to take this as licence to say whatever the heck they want – but it’s an OBLIGATION to warn people of danger.

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And lastly, information that is known by more than three people is not considered to be ‘lashon hara’, as it’s already in the public domain.

What I do here on the blog is comb through stuff that was already published, and just join the dots.

You want to tell me less than three people are reading Wikipedia….. that’s up to you.

But it’s interesting to me, that the people yelling the loudest about ‘gossip’ and ‘lashon hara’ are the ones with abusive tendencies themselves.

That’s how it is.

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Shabbat shalom.

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PS: It looks like the Wikileaks online dump yesterday was connected to this:

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Julian Assange has finally been freed.

I also find that remarkable – and quite strange.

Remember, it’s ‘St Trump’ who pushed to extradite him to the US, so he was kept in Belmarsh prison in the UK, in horrible conditions, for five years.

St Trump is probably the biggest ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ to sit in the White House…. ever.

He’s for sure ‘coming back’ – that’s why they engineered all this stuff against him, so his ‘base’ will believe in his credibility again, after he locked everyone down and initiated ‘Operation Warp Speed’.

I dread to think what he’s being primed to do in his second term as President.

Keep asking God to show you what’s true.

If you do that, this stuff gets way, way, way easier to figure out.