The last few days, I was feeling not so happy, and also pretty ill.

Migraines, not sleeping, eyes funny, stomach issues, anxiety, ‘suppressed anxiety’, despair, worry – all of it.

Until yesterday evening, when I sat down with my husband and I told him:

I can’t carry on like this much longer…. If things don’t improve soon, I am going to go nuts.

That’s when he told me some very wise advice:

Rabbenu says to ‘look at the bad’ for an hour a day, in hitbodedut, and the rest of the time to be happy!

Even when there is a ‘war’ going on.

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Today, I got in the car and went down South with a friend, to the Baba Sali’s grave in Netivot.

I have barely been out of Jerusalem for three months, since all this started, and I used to drive all over the place, a lot.

I was surprised to see just how many people are out on the roads down South.

How ‘normal’ Netivot actually felt, and the outskirts of Sderot

Life is continuing.

And it has to!

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I did some writing at the Baba Sali, and this is what came out:

How we win this ‘war’ is by continuing to live life. 

Continuing to get married. Continuing to help people. Continuing to do mitzvot. Continuing to visit Kivrei Tzaddikim.

That’s how we win.

There is no despair in the world, and life is still very, very good.

The news is all government-controlled propaganda – just turn it off.

The glass is half-full.

See the good in your life and don’t fear anything, or anyone.

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Yes, there are a lot of difficult things going on.

My street is full of cars right now, as one of my neighbors is sitting shiva for a son killed in Gaza.

But, I realised yesterday, that if I keep going around ‘collecting’ everyone else’s difficulties and pain, it is going to bury me in a heap of sadness and despair that I just can’t get out of, and continue to do what I need to be doing in the world.

I will continue to do my tehillim for the soldiers every day, continue to pray for the evil to be destroyed, do whatever mitzvot God is putting in my path – but with simcha!

How is it going to help anyone, if I get so miserable and ‘down’, even when life is still so good, in so many ways?

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At the end of the day, every single person is on their own path.

Every single person is making their own choices, and dealing with the consequences of those decisions, for good and for not so good.

And every person being killed in this war, their soul chose that for them, before they were even incarnated this time around.

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My friend was telling me about a headteacher of a Talmud Torah with a bunch of his own kids, who left to go to the reserves.

His Talmud Torah is now falling apart, and can’t continue.

You are patur from serving in the reserves over the age of 40, or if you have six (? maybe four?) children of your own.

Everyone in Israel has gone ra-ra crazy about going to the reserves, but at the end of the day, I personally don’t think they are doing anyone a favor, if they have a bunch of their own kids that no-one else can raise as a father, or if they are doing something genuinely ‘useful’ –  like teaching and learning Torah.

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Tov.

May Hashem keep all our soldiers safe.

May He bring them all back home safe and sound immediately.

May He destroy all our enemies totally – and without any more loss of Jewish life.

And most of all, may He open our eyes up, to understand that living in Eretz Yisrael as Torah-observant, happy Jews is the best, and pretty much only, way we ‘win’ this war, really.

That’s why there is so much effort being made to try and break us, and keep us all miserable, stressed-out and despairing.

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It was interesting, how many of the ‘bring them home’ banners down South seem to have been ripped off the railings by the side of the road now.

I don’t think they were taken down for political reasons.

They were taken down, because the faster we get back to ‘normal’, regardless of what else is going on, and go back to living life, and serving Hashem happily, the faster this nightmare disappears.

Regardless of what is going on ‘in Gaza’.

People are getting sick and tired of being manipulated, scared, upset, depressed.

People are getting sick and tired, of being treated like brain-dead idiots by the puppets who apparently rule us.

And that means that the real victory is actually much, much closer than any of us think.

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Switch off your computer now, and go do something soul-affirming.

Cook something nice for your family, take a walk, phone a friend, sit in the garden and say some tehillim.

Something good, something holy.

Life is still good.

Remembering that, even in the middle of all the ‘crazy’, is how we win.