So, I went to Uman, BH, and I came back from Uman.

It was a tough trip with all the travelling, but it did me the world of good, and I finally had some time and space to start figuring out a few things in my life, again.

It’s been a rough while for all of us, especially in Israel, but not only.

I had reached the bottom of the barrel by the time I booked the trip to Uman, and I was literally feeling like if I didn’t go and get my batteries recharged by Rabbenu, it wasn’t going to be good.

Without going into all the gory details, for a change, let me just share a few of the insights that are generally relevant to most of us.

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1. We can’t let fear run our lives, or stop us from doing what we need to get done.

I was feeling more than a little ‘trapped’ in Israel, scared to go to Uman in case of ‘war with Iran’ kicking off again and possible airport closures. Who knows what tomorrow brings, right now?

But, then I realised I am letting fear run and ruin my life, and I really, really needed to get to Rabbenu. So I sat down, did a mindmap of worse-case scenarios, and decided if I got stuck out of Israel I would go to Italy for a few days, instead.

It’s been on my bucket list for a while, but I am not planning to go anywhere soon – so this was a kind of mental win-win, which helped me get over the ‘what if’ fear of leaving Israel.

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2) We can’t control anything, much, except our own responses and beliefs, so staying flexible is the key to staying happier.

I knew it was going to be a challenging trip, socially, as it’s the height of ‘lady season’ in Uman, between Tu B’Av and Elul.

I was on a coach with 110 other ladies, 90% of whom were trying to get married and find their bashert.

There were also a couple of grannies, a couple of mums with their batmitzvah daughters, and one teen who’d ‘won a trip to uman’ via her Breslov seminary.

That was my roommate at the Baal Shem Tov in Medzibozh, and boy, was she just thrilled to pieces to have an English-speaking old bag in the next bed over…

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So, I let her have the room to herself as much as possible.

She was actually very sweet and considerate, but no 16 year old girl would be thrilled with that arrangement, so I ‘made myself scarce’ as much as possible – and actually spent a few hours trying to catch some zzzs on one of the benches in the renovated Apter Rebbe beit hamidrash in Medzibuzh, that I mostly had entirely to myself.

I don’t know how many people sleep on benches in the beit hamidrash any more, but I felt I was doing some sort of weird tikkun – and the bench was so wide, and I was so tired from an all-night bus ride, that I really did manage to sleep.

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The next stop was Uman, via R Natan and the Kedushat Levi, so another 12 punctuated hours on the bus. A woman my age with her elderly mother asked me if I could move to the back of the bus, to the spare seat there.

Why?

Because it’s too noisy for my mother, she explained, with a look of quiet desperation in her eyes.

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Now, I know I’m a polite Brit, and therefore always the weakest link when it comes to these types of things. It’s one of the things that has been a big challenge for me, to be honest.

But, I’d decided that staying flexible was important, and so, if I was meant to get my tikkun this way, so be it.

The first five minutes, the teenage girls next to me played ear-splitting Rabbenu trance really, really, really loud.

I had another six hours on the bus with them, to Uman.

But then, a strange thing happened: the music calmed down, the music got way more to my taste – and then, they started having a really interesting discussion about why Rabbenu yelled there is no yeoush in the world!!!!

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Rabbenu wasn’t yelling for the people who were standing right next to him, listening, explained the 19 year old amateur rabbanit of the group. He was yelling for us, to our generation, far away, so we’d also hear him.

I literally got some of the best chizzuk and Torah of the whole trip from being in the back of the bus with those girls. The flexibility paid off, big time.

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So, when the organiser realised that the hotel she’d booked for the group couldn’t accommodate everyone and was looking for people to go elsewhere, I volunteered.

Most people were being really stubborn, there for the ‘social experience’, the achdut, the fun of chatting with other women until 3 in the morning.

Me? I am never really such a big part of that anyway, not least because so few anglo women ever seem to  make it out to Uman these days.

And boy, did I hit the jackpot, by agreeing to move:

A room to myself, in the best hotel in Uman, which was just a little further up the road from the main hotel.

The next day, quite a few of the ‘achdut-moaners’ had also decided to jump ship, fed up with the overcrowding and constant noizz.

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I’m going to skip a whole bunch here, about the lessons I learnt for myself, mamash over Shabbat. Maybe I’ll cover that another time.

In the meantime, the trip back to the airport was also full of tikkunim.

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We had to leave at 3am… Everyone was getting messages from Israel that the country was back on high alert and ‘war with Iran’ could possibly kick off again, stuffing up the airport…Even the teenage girls had had enough ‘social’, and many of them were hogging two seats to themselves on the coach now, which meant that I got stuck sitting next to someone I didn’t know…

She turned out to be a really interesting BT who’d spent a few years as a tattoo artist in India and smoking a lot of pot, before she realised how totally and utterly pointless and meaningless her life was…

We had a really interesting conversation, and she gave me a lot of chizzuk. I actually enjoyed that bus ride the most.

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Meanwhile, Kishinev airport was a big mess.

We’d all got there early, for a change, but they were expecting everyone to rush in two hours later, so only opened one counter for the flight.

As a polite  Brit, I knew I had no chance.

Here was the perfect test, to put all my ‘anger techuva’ into motion, whilst still trying to not be a total patsy, and see where I’d got to.

I joined the back of the mass of people not even pretending to form a queue. Tempers were flaring, people were tired and hungry, there was no aircon in the airport, even though it was really, really hot…

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Then, an older Israeli woman appeared and decided to ‘adopt’ me as part of her strategic pushing in action.

Let’s queue over there, she told me, I think they are going to open that counter soon.

So, I did.

And a bunch of hairy arsim also bowled over there, and of course, pushed in front of us.

But then – the counter was apparently for the flight going to Turkey, so after 20 minutes, the old lady shrugged her shoulders and tried to push in elsewhere, while the arsim followed suit.

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I stood there, with my suitcase, just trying to ‘accept’ that I was going to be last in the queue, obviously.

Why are you standing there? Someone from my bus shouted. You also need to get on the plane!

I sighed, started walking towards the back of the queue again – and just at that moment, they opened the new counter.

Of course, I got crushed by the stampede of hairy arsim and even the older lady again, who rushed back in front of me, because they were ‘before me’, and that status sticks, even when you go to five different queues, the toilet, and to have a smoke outside, in the meantime.

But the point was – I was ONLY 12 people from the front of that particular line.

For me, in that situation – this was an open miracle.

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How quickly, all the pious discussions about ‘having emuna’ and ‘accepting with love’ can disappear, when stuck in a hot airport waiting to fly home…

Even for the most externally ‘frum’ people.

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On the plane back, I had the last test of flexibility.

Of course, I got given a middle seat. Of course. Seat ‘B’.

I get there, and see that Baruch Hashem, I would at least be flanked by two women, a young Russian teen, and an older chareidi woman. Just as I sat down – the older chareidi woman disappeared, and got replaced by some 60 something large guy with an obvious smokers’ twitch.

My heart sank.

But OK, Hashem, everything You do is for the best, so OK!!!

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No snoozing next to that guy, instead 3 hours of trying to make sure my leg or arm doesn’t accidentally touch his.

Quite the test of endurance after a 12 hour journey, a three hour checking-in nightmare, and not even any chocolate to see me through it.

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After two minutes, the smoker went to the toilet. I have no idea where he went after that, but he never came back.

Just before take off, I shifted over the aisle seat and had a relaxed trip where I could even put my feet up.

The flexibility had paid off again.

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Life is kind of angry and annoying-making for most of us, at the moment.

No-one does well with uncertainty, and uncertainty is all we have at the moment.

It’s human nature to try to double-down and flip into ‘control’ mode to limit the damage.

But, we can’t.

We have to learn to let go, and let God.

Now, more than ever.

Because who really knows, what tomorrow brings?

And isn’t God doing everything for our very best? If we only take a deep breath, see everything as a test of middot, and a big spiritual tikkun, and do our best to let God guide our lives however He sees fit?

Very easy to write, very, very hard to do, in practise.

And without the help of Rebbe Nachman, probably, out of reach for most of us.

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The last general lesson learned was this:

3) Nothing is going on, ‘online’ that any of us need to engage with.

I just took my dumb-phone to Uman, and was out of ‘online’ contact for 6 whole days. It was bliss. I stayed in touch with my family via text and a few short calls.

I got home, checked ‘online’, and saw that it’s all the same old bollocks, all the same nothing, hevel hevelim. I literally missed nothing at all from being offline for six days, and instead, I actually gained my time, headspace and ability to focus better, again.

How much time we all waste, caught up in Whats App groups and pointless ‘news’.

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If you didn’t go to Uman yet this year – make your plans.

If you’re a guy, go for Rosh Hashana.

If you don’t like Rosh Hashana, go now instead, or book to go straight after – but go!

War or no war, money or no money – don’t let fear run your life!

I got my batteries recharged in Uman this time, and I learnt so many things that are giving me energy and motivation to move forward again, and to try to resolve stuff that’s been stuck and making me miserable for a very long time.

It’s not an easy trip, but you get the tikkunim there, so you can have a much sweeter life at home.

It’s the deal of the century.

But don’t just take my word for it, try it for yourself.