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Living life with emuna

Shavua tov!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and a lot of praying, the last couple of days, on how to deal with ‘life in 2023’.

Very  long story short – it boils down to understanding that God is behind absolutely everything, without any exception to that rule.

If God wants my car hacked into, God forbid – then that is what will be.

And so on and so forth, for all the other ‘potentially scary’ stuff going on all around.

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The corollary to this is:

If God doesn’t want something to happen to me – it can’t, no matter how much other people or circumstances may be trying to make that occur.

And as 99% of what happens in this world is a function of our relationship with God, and our ongoing attempt to make teshuva, improve our bad middot, pray, do good deeds, reveal God’s Kingship in the world and learn Torah, etc, the more I put my time and effort into these spiritual endeavors, the better off I will be, on so many levels.

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Tachlis, after spending a day looking at manual transmission old cars, I realised that I can’t just side-step the challenges here, by trying to ‘buy’ my way out of them.

Once I realised that, I moved some pictures of tzaddikim into the new car, and I spent a fair bit of time praying very sincerely that God should keep me, and everyone else using the car and driving the car safe.

And also, everyone else safe on the roads, in whatever way that needs to happen.

I am also having in mind now ‘hackers’, when I say my tefillot haderech, and also saying that prayer with a lot more kavanot.

This approach has cheered me up immensely.

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Something else I realised, is that all this ‘soul hacking’ stuff has been going on since time immemorial – at least since Ancient Egypt, and probably way before.

Just back then, their ‘tech’ was much more spiritual and not as crass as the tech we have to deal with today.

R Avraham Sutton actually wrote a book about all that, called Spiritual Technology.

Point is: while there are some very challenges things going on right now, they are not NEW in the way they appear to be.

I am thinking of that rabbi from the Gemara, who the witches were trying to cast spells on, using the dust they would gather from under his feet.

He said let them gather the dust!! If God doesn’t want their spell to succeed, they can’t harm me!

This is the paradigm I need to be operating out of, going forward – focussing way more on spiritual solutions, and bringing more of the practical teachings of Rabbenu and the Rav, BH.

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I hope you have a good fast.

And we’ll pick things up again next week.

 

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A good Rosh Hashana

Shana Tova v’metuka!

We are now officially ‘on the other side’ of Rosh Hashana 5784, and it seems to me, there will be a lot more sweetness this year then it currently still appears.

There’s a Breslov custom to do vidui on the eve of Rosh Hashana, at the grave of a real Tzaddik, where you go through as much stuff you can remember from the past year, and try to atone for it, before Rosh Hashana begins.

If you’re in Uman – you do that by Rabbenu.

But here in Jerusalem, a lot of the Rav’s people – the wives and kids and others who didn’t make it out to Uman – go to the grave of Shimon HaTzaddik.

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It’s been the minhag for me and my kids to go to Shimon HaTzaddik for a few years now, so Friday morning, we all piled in the car and headed out to Sheikh Jarrah.

Rav Natan Sternhertz, Rebbe Nachman’s main student, actually wrote a book where he set out many of the ‘sins’, alphabetically, to go through.

A lot of that book is geared more towards men, but it’s still a great ‘jumping off’ point, and I find every year that God draws my attention to some other part of the text, where I suddenly remember what a cack job I did in that area, the last 12 months.

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In previous years, some of my kids have been more, and less, into doing vidui at Shimon HaTzaddik.

One year, one of them even skipped it, and that led to yet more ‘avodat hamiddot’ for me, right before Chag, to try not to judge them to harshly, or feel aggrieved and upset about them exercising their God-given right to free choice.

It’s their life, after all, and they will have to abide by the consequences of their decisions.

But this year, I have to say it was a very uplifting, emotional experience for all of us.

By the end, all of us were crying a bit, realising just how flawed we actually are, and how much patience and love and compassion God continues to show us, year after year, when He gives us yet another chance to do a bit better, and to fix a bit more.

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Then the Rosh Hashana whirl-wind descended.

I was having the family of one of my kid’s friends come stay for two days, while the father was also in Uman.

They have a sweet 9 year with Downs Syndrome – and he needs a lot of love and attention.

Let me just pause now, and salute all those parents with Downs kids, and kids with autism, and all the other conditions that require so much constant care and attention from the parents.

By the end of chag, I was so impressed with the mother – and also the rest of the family – and very humbled by the amount of grumbling and whining I’ve done done the years about my own parenting pressures.

But the kid, the naughty, sweet kid, brought so much light into the home over the chag.

It’s hard to describe this properly, but if you’ve ever spent time with a child with Downs in a relaxed environment, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

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So on the one hand, I went into chag totally consumed by ‘here and now’ issues of making sure beds were made, and food was ready, and cakes were made.

(Boy, were cakes ever made. We were six adult women in the end, and everyone made at least two cakes…. It was the ‘sweetest’ Rosh Hashana I ever had.)

And on the other hand, I went into chag feeling pretty sad that the Rav hadn’t got to Uman, and that there is talk of wars and big earthquakes hitting Eretz Yisrael – I will give more details of this when I get the Rav’s actual words to read, and then BH I will translate what was said.

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Miraculously, I got ready in time for someone to drop me off at the Rav, on Ido HaNavi, for Friday night.

I hadn’t expected to go, so it made things even more of a ‘rush’ than usual, and the first five minutes, I have to admit I just felt a lot of sadness.

It felt like the ‘bad’ had won out, yet again.

But then I clapped a bit with the Rav… sang a big…. jumped a bit with the crowd of mostly women and very, very few men there.

And I started to cheer up.

The Rav himself looked radiant – mamash like he hadn’t just spent the last week travelling all over Eastern Europe, trying to pass through the border to Ukraine – and the vibe in the crowd was actually very joyful.

Some calm descended inside my turbulent soul, and I went back home in a much better mood than I came out.

God is deciding all this,  I reminded myself.

And God is doing everything for the best – including for the very best for Am Yisrael.

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Before Chag, I’d had a chat with my husband.

He went to Uman via Kerestir, in Hungary, and then the Baal Shem Tov – and he was travelling more than 32 hours, before he actually got there.

After what happened with the foot, the leg, the back, last year, we were both pretty nervous ahead of time that all the travelling could cause more problems, God forbid.

But he told me, he was doing fine, thank God, and that Uman was the busiest he’d ever seen it.

(Official figures say 47,000 men got to Uman this year…. and it’s probably still underestimating the total by a lot. Crazy – in a very good way.)

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Meanwhile, all the usual cr*ppy disinformation sites – including Daniel Amram’s Telegram channel, which I’ve come to the conclusion has turned into more ‘controlled opposition’ at this point – were running scare stories trying to make it sound like something awful was going on in Uman.

There are huge tailbacks at the borders!!!!

(Obviously, these people never shopped at Rami Levi, if they think that’s news.)

There are huge amounts of trash being left on the pavements in Uman!!!

(Like you’d get at any venue or ‘festival’ when tens of thousands of people are there – and that’s the excuse the Ukrainians use for squeezing a ‘tourist tax’ out of every visitor to Uman on Rosh Hashanah….)

A Ukrainian policeman is beating up Jews with a baton, for breaking the curfew!!!!

(And here? Why, policemen beat up Jews with batons all the time – and they don’t even need a pretext.)

But the bottom line is this:

Uman was awesome this year.

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All the travellers’ mesirut nefesh, time, effort and money is fixing things for all of us.

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Back in Jerusalem, I went back to the prayers on Ido HaNavi Shabbat morning, when there was no shofar to hear in any case, so it didn’t matter that I was sitting outside, half-way up some crowded alley.

I did my Shmoneh Esrei…. I did my Mussaf…. and the prayers really spoke to me this  year.

There was so much stuff in there about the ‘fake malchut‘ hatching conspiracies to destroy the Jews and entice them to serve idols, to tear them away from God.

But how in the end, God’s dominion will be clearly and openly revealed, and the kavod of Hashem will spread out to all corners of the earth… 

It gave me so much chizzuk.

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In the meantime, the ‘quiet space’ that I’d tried to carve out for myself to recite Mussaf turned into another test of middot.

Five seconds after I started praying,  a woman with an enormous stroller and five small kids showed up, and arranged her kids’ little plastic chairs in a semi-circle with me in the middle of it.

“And so, instill Your awe, O Hashem our God, within all Your works…”

(Duvey, give Chana the Bamba. Duvey! Come back and give Chana her Bamba!!)

“And so, grant honor, O Hashem, to Your people…”

(Ima, I really need the bathroom….Can you wait a little, chamood?….No, Ima, I need NOW!!!)

“Holy are You, and awesome is Your name.”

(At this point, one of the kids steals the small fold-up chair I’d brought with me to sit on, and I had a massive battle with myself to carry on talking to God, doing the Mussaf of Rosh Hashana, and not just dropping everything to chase my chair down the street.)

“You have chosen us from all the peoples…”

(Does this belong to anyone? Does this jar belong to anyone?) – from the corner of my eye, I could see it was my jar of kombucha, that I’d brought with me from home. Some toddler had ‘found it’ where I’d stashed it under my now missing chair, while I prayed.)

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Tov.

I decided to just try and ignore everything and everyone, and to accept God’s dominion in my life, at least for the next few minutes.

If God wants me to have the chair, I’ll have it.

If He wants me to drink kombucha before the long walk home, I’ll drink it.

If He wants me to keep getting bashed by strollers, my feet trod on by small kids, and continually elbowed by a teen praying and swaying so enthusiastically she doesn’t even feel what’s going on here – fine by me!

When I was done, I found my chair two feet away, and the kombucha had survived it’s mugging as well.

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On the way back home, I was pondering on why the prayers at the Rav so often hit buttons that can lead to some very bad middot surfacing.

But it came to me pretty fast, that this is the whole work to do down here.

We can’t ‘disconnect’ our prayers on Rosh Hashana from our real experiences and reactions as people.

And at the Rav, the two things go firmly hand-in-hand, giving you a clear picture of where you are really holding.

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The next day, I went to hear the shofar blowing at the Sephardi shul up the road.

It was much ‘calmer’ – but in many ways, a little ucky.

One of the main old guys singing the prayers in turn lives with a xtian Phillipino woman, and has a child with her.

He dresses chareidi, but doesn’t keep Shabbat or kosher….

I had a real fight on my hands the whole time, to not keep judging him harshly for being a disgusting hypocrite.

As soon as I heard the Shofar (enough….) I got out of there and came back home, before the urge to ‘judge harshly’ totally overwhelmed me.

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After Chag, my husband told me he’d had the best Rosh Hashana ever, over there in Uman.

I felt the same way, about my Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem.

In my home, where it really counts, there were no arguments this year, no ‘tension’, no eruptions, no harsh words.

And my house was literally packed to the rafters with people (and cake….)

BH, all of Am Yisrael will have a good 5784.

And all the ‘evils’ plans to harm the good people of the world will unravel, and come to naught.

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The Lamed Vav Tzaddikim

There are 36, and some say 72, ‘secret Tzaddikim’ in whose merit the whole world continues to stand.

This isn’t ‘happy clappy’ Breslov.

It’s not even ‘chassidut’.

It’s straight Gemara.

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Sanhedrin 97b; Succah 45b:

There are no fewer than 36 righteous people in the world who greet the Shekhinah in each generation.

Although as mentioned, the precise number of these ‘hidden tzaddikim’ is disputed in the Gemara.

From Chullin 92a:

“A homer of barley, and a letech of barley” (Hosea 3:2) – [this refers to] 45 righteous who cause the world to be sustained …

30 in the land of Israel and 15 here [in Babylonia]. 

Abaye said: And most of them can be found in the synagogue, under the upper room [i.e. among the unhonored masses].

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The Baal Shem Tov is also meant to have said this about the 36 hidden tzaddikim sustaining the world:

“Just as there are 36 hidden tzaddikim, there are 36 revealed tzaddikim.”

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Point is, while the details and numbers are disputed, the fact these hidden Tzaddikim exist, and that the world is sustained in their merit, it not up for argument.

One of the commentators here made the classic ‘Korach’ argument that essentially ‘all Am Yisrael are holy’, and they don’t need ‘Tzaddikim’ exalted above them.

On the one hand – Korach was totally correct, that all of Am Yisrael is indeed holy of holies.

We aren’t xtians, were one guy shows up and ‘fixes’ everything and everyone else all by himself, like some sort of ‘mini-eloke’, walking around in a human body.

But on the other hand…. we can’t do it all by ourselves, and there are, and always have been, elevated Tzaddikim in our midst, whose prayers reach those areas the rest of us just can’t quite get to.

And if we don’t recognise that this is an integral part of authentic yiddishkeit, then the ground will probably open all round us…. And you already know how that story ends.

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So far so good?

Great, let’s continue laying things out a bit more clearly here.

While no-one knows ‘for sure’ who these ‘Lamed Vav’ Tzaddikim are, they are aware of each other’s identities.

And usually, after they pass on, they are revealed as being one of the ‘Lamed Vav’ Tzaddikim – because to be revealed openly in their lifetimes can cause them a lot of spiritual problems, and can even result in their death, God forbid.

So now, this message from a ‘Lamed Vav’ is from 2017 – Rav Elazar Mordechai Menzer, the Lamed Vav in question, passed away a few months after delivering this:

Here’s what Rav Menser wrote in the letter:

“On Thursday night, before dawn, at 4.29am, after I’d finished davening ma’ariv, with the niggunim and the nusach of the holy days, I received permission from Heaven to reveal what I’m about to tell you.

“On the eve of the 17th Tevet, the yahrtzeit of the famous Tzaddik of the previous generation, who would be visited by many of the Tzaddikim of the previous generation at his home, the Rav Ezra Prachia Cohen, ztl, the father of Rabbenu, the Rav Chaim Cohen, shlita, the Milkman, the Tzaddik foundation of the world…

“Rav Ezra, ztl, came down on the day of his yahrtzeit and told his son, the Tzaddik, foundation of the world, shlita, ‘My son! My son! My son! Who is so dear to me and to the Creator of the worlds. I request from you very much, come with me Upstairs to Gan Eden. They have prepared a place for you there which is very good. Why stay here? [I.e., in this world.] Now that the holy Shechina and all of the Tzaddikim together with her are crying, when they see the lowliness of this generation?’”

Rav Menser continues: “After he said this, he then went on to speak at length about the zealots in the community, whose ‘loftiness in their mouths, and who hold a double-edged sword in their hands.’

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[Rav Ezra] then continued and said the following to his son:

“You are also being slandered, and also the other true Tzaddikim of the generation [are being slandered], and also the Tzaddik, foundation of the world, Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, who fled into exile [is being slandered], and no-one paid any attention.

“I REQUEST FROM YOU [MY SON], THAT YOU HAVE MERCY ON ME. FROM ABOVE, I’M UNABLE TO CONTINUE WATCHING YOUR SUFFERING, AND THE SUFFERING OF THE REST OF THE PERSECUTED TZADDIKIM, WHO ARE BEING TRAMPLED ON. AND THE GEDOLEI YISRAEL WHO DON’T FOLLOW IN THE PATH OF THESE PERSECUTORS, THEY ARE ALSO BEING PERSECUTED.

“The Shechina and the Tzaddikim above, in Heaven, are crying and are suffering [from this]. Only the Satan and the accusors are happy and dancing about the fact that they’re besting the Shechina and the Tzaddikim above, whilst also lengthening this terrible, bitter exile.”

Rav Menser continues: “[Rav Ezra] then continued to speak about different matters, and in the end he concluded by saying: ‘More than this, I don’t have permission to reveal to you now.’”

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This article is six years old…. but it’s still as pertinent as ever, for what is going on today, in 2023, Erev Rosh Hashana 5784.

It continues:

A little while after this occurred, Nachman Salmonovitch from Shuvu Banim was visiting the Tzaddik Rav Menser, shlita, who permitted him to publicize the content of this letter, and also added the following astounding message:

“You should know, that all of this persecution [of Rav Berland] is born out of jealousy. I have no doubt that if these persecutors would have been living in the generation of Rabbenu HaKadosh, Rebbe Nachman, that they would have also been persecuting him….

R’ Salmonovitch explains: “It’s known that Rav Menser, shlita, only says the words that Hashem puts into his mouth, when people ask him questions. At 2am that morning, he told me that he’d just received another message from Heaven, and that I should give it over in his name. The message from Rav Menser was as follows:

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‘They don’t punish a person unless he’s first been warned, therefore I’m now warning you.

Tosfot in Masechet Sotah [which quotes Rabbi Yochanon, who brings the words from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai] says that: ‘It’s better for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace, than to embarrass his friend in public.’ And also Rabbenu Yonah [writing in Shaarei Teshuva, the Third Gate, 139, where he explains that we’re speaking about the ‘dust’ of murder, because the person who shames another causes the red blood to drain from the face of the person he embarrassed] – explains that one who embarrasses another in public, it’s like one of the three cardinal sins that a person should rather die than transgress.

(The three cardinal sins are murder, sexual profanity and idol worship.)

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‘From now on, anyone who opens his mouth against Rav Berland, shlita, he’s considered to be a deliberate transgressor, and he should know that he’s playing with fire.

And he fulfills the words of the following verse in Pirkei Avot that states:

Warm yourself beside the fire of the Sages, but beware of their glowing coals, lest you be burnt. For their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting is the sting of a scorpion, their hiss is the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like coals of fire.

‘Also, a person who only thinks bad thoughts against Rav Berland, shlita, should know that these thoughts are considered to be idol worship, and that he needs to use all of his strength to expel these thoughts [from his mind].

‘WHOEVER HAS ALREADY SPOKEN AGAINST RAV BERLAND, SHLITA, HAS NO REMEDY, EXCEPT TO GO TO TWO TRUSTWORTHY JEWS, AND TO TELL THEM THAT HE TAKES IT UPON HIMSELF THAT WHEN THE RAV, SHLITA, IS RELEASED, BH, HE WILL GO TO HIM TO APPEASE HIM, UNTIL HE HEARS FROM HIM [RAV BERLAND] THAT HE’S BEEN FORGIVEN.’

R’ Salmonovitch concludes: “This is what the holy Tzaddik Rav Elazar Mordechai Menser, shlita, told me.”

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To spell this out: the real ‘Lamed Vav’ tzaddikim in the world already know who Rav Eliezer Berland really is, and how holy he really is.

‘Pure’ makes ‘pure’ – which is why the followers of a truly sincere, God-fearing ‘rabbi’ and influencer, even if they don’t know themselves 100% what is going on, they take the steer from their own Rav, on what to think  about what is going on ‘about the Rav’.

Simply connecting to someone ‘pure’ can make ‘pure’ – especially in areas as convoluted and deliberately distorted as this.

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To spell this out even more – the people who are ‘against’ the Rav are totally disconnected from truly sincere, God-fearing leaders and influencers, and for sure aren’t connected to a truly holy ‘Lamed Vav’ – or anything approaching it.

Not knowing is not a sin.

It’s very hard to ‘know what’s true’, especially in our world of lies, especially about the Rav.

But when you don’t really ‘know’ anything other than what you read on government propaganda sites like A7 and YWN, but you still feel free to shoot your mouth off about things you truly know nothing about, and even to go so far as to slander very holy people like Rebbe Nachman and the Rav…. then you have a lot of teshuva to make.

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LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE.

It always has, it always will.

Think about this carefully.

Rav Berland is Holy of Holies, mamash.

If you read OIAG 1, 2 and 3, you will find tens of direct quotes from known holy tzaddikim – many of whom have no passed on – clearly and unequivocably pointing this out.

And there are still some ‘hidden tzaddikim’ saying the same things today, in ways that are not so hidden, for the people who have enough zchut to catch their not-so-subtle hints and clues about what is really going on.

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Remember, we aren’t xtians.

We don’t believe some ‘rebbe’ is the physical incarnation of an elok on earth, God forbid, who fixes everything hey presto, while we sit and polish some buttons.

But also remember, we aren’t Korach, who says that we don’t need a Tzaddik HaDor, and that ‘all the nation is holy’, and can do it without any pesky Moshe Rabbenu, and his 40 day fasts, and his tremendous prayer-a-thons to prevent the Jewish people from being totally annihilated….

It’s a very narrow bridge.

And the cost of falling off it, on either side, is going up all the time now – and will continue to do so, the closer we get to geula.

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Am Yisrael is currently facing a lot of danger – and also the world generally.

As I type this, they are bringing back ‘shots’ in Israel after Sukkot… apparently.

The war drums are going up again – but who knows if the ‘war’ is going to be waged via loaded syringes, or fake alien invasions, or the more standard ‘Iran has a nuke’ – I have no idea.

But one thing I can tell you:

Only the people who were following Moshe Rabbenu got out of Egypt.

And the rest didn’t.

So, give some careful thought to who that ‘Moshe Rabbenu’ of our lowly, pathetic generation actually is.

And then beg God to make sure you got the right answer.

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You might also like this article:

“The Geula is no longer being held up”

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Out of the shadows

For the last 10 years, it’s fair to say that Breslov has been kind of on its knees.

When I started getting into it around 18 years ago, it was firmly on the way ‘up’ in the world.

The first time my husband went to Uman for Rosh Hashanah, I got grief and ‘Uman widow’ jibes from pretty much everyone.

Three years later – no-one batted an eyelid, and so many more people were heading out to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

Everywhere you went in Israel, people were ‘becoming Breslov’.

A lot of that meteoric rise was due to Rav Shalom Arush’s efforts, and the Garden of Emuna books – and also other Breslov mashpi’im, like Erev Moshe Doron, who was hanging out with a lot of the Israeli celebs at that time.

And then… it crashed.

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The machloket over the Rav, and all the disgusting persecution and lurid media slanders ripped Breslov to shreds.

(It would take 10 years to understand that the people “within Breslov”, within Meah Shearim, who have been persecuting the Rav actually descend directly from very interesting families, and are close related to apparently ‘secular’ judges and politicians and big-wigs in Israel….Who could ever have guessed what was really going on, back then?)

But the point is – the fire came out of the engine, the Tzaddik HaDor kind of went into hiding, in a whole bunch of ways – and so much of ‘cool Breslov’ evaporated.

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For at least the last five years, people have been ‘Breslov’ because they mostly really engage with Rabbenu’s teachings, and for sincere spiritual reasons.

And in the Rav’s community, Shuvu Banim, that goes double and triple, because on top of the lack of real ‘support’, the ongoing financial grind, as the government has literally tried to close the community’s institutions down by making it a criminal offence to donate money to the Rav… there has also been so much shame and humiliation involved in trying to be ‘sincerely Breslov’.

So many people just lapped up the media lies.

So many people believed the couple of former Shuvu Banim crazies who basically ‘imploded’ spiritually, and then tried to blame all of their own problems and bitterness on the Rav and other people – instead of looking inwards, taking responsibility for their own actions and mistakes, and making some real teshuva.

And let’s not even talk about dawn raids by the police, gabbaim being rounded up and incarcerated for days, the non-stop controversy and difficulties involved with trying to remain attached to the Rav, in myriad ways.

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Point is: being Breslov has not been ‘cool’ nor ‘fun’, the last few years.

And even more so when they shut down Uman as a ‘holiday’ destination, first during Covid, and now with the war.

The same pattern is now going on with Rabbenu and Uman:

You don’t go for the ‘amazing experience’, the fun, the dancing on the streets all night, the seudat amenim in all the kivrei tzaddikim,  the slaughtering of sheep for kaparot by the side of Pushkina St, like used to happen in the old days.

You go, with maximum expense, and maximum discomfort, and yes, with a bunch of fear, too – only because spiritually, you understand the imperative of going to Uman.

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To put this another way:

Breslov generally, and Shuvu Banim specifically, have gone through a major ‘cleansing’ process, the last few years.

And what remains now (mostly….) are the people who are trying to sincerely serve Hashem, in the face of so many difficulties, and with a lot of mesirut nefesh.

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Honestly?

The last year, you could see that so many people are just getting very tired.

Even with all the best intentions in the world, it’s not easy to keep standing on your feet for an hour singing and dancing, in a grubby outside courtyard on the edge of Meah Shearim, even when it’s hot, even when it’s cold, even when it’s blowing a gale and raining.

Yet people have been doing that every single night, for a a couple of years.

But it’s hard.

And recently, it was starting to feel like the air is coming out of the tyre, and the ‘energy’ is depleting rapidly.

Even with the best will in the world.

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Which brings us up to the atzeret the Rav called yesterday, in Hevron.

It got postponed once – I think because of ‘security issues’, but not 100% sure of that – but yesterday, it was called for 9pm.

There were no buses put on that I could see – not least, because there is so little money for any of this stuff, as the State continues fleecing the Rav and the community out of hundreds of thousands of shekels every month in various ways, for the crime of…being the Rav.

But still, there were a good few thousand people who showed up yesterday.

And perhaps even more importantly – it felt like the fire has returned to the engine.

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The Rav came around 10.30pm, and prayed with everyone for over an hour, standing at the podium, with a very strong voice.

He’s 85, and has a whole bunch of serious health issue.

By contrast, I spent the whole time sitting in the deckchair I’d brought with me from home – and I even feel asleep in the middle of the prayers.

Not because I was tired so much – I’ve been ‘feeling tired’ for months, for years – but because there was something so powerful going on, it took me out.

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Stuff like that used to happen to me in Uman, by Rabbenu, as well.

I’d just be sitting there, then conk out – and it was always something very meaningful, spiritually, like ‘spiritual surgery’ was being done, somehow.

The Rav was praying that he gets to Uman for Rosh Hashana this year.

BH, that will happen.

(It looks like, it can only happen miraculously at this point…. but miracles can and do happen. Especially around the Rav.)

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But the real point is this:

It felt to me like the Rav is starting to come out of the shadows again.

It felt to me, like the koach of Rabbenu’s teachings to operate in the world, and the koach of the True Tzaddikim to really fix things at their spiritual root, has come out of ‘hibernation’ mode, and is switching into something way more active and alive.

Bezrat Hashem.

I came back feeling quite a bit more optimistic, about 5784.

====

Of course, there were still issues on the return journey from Hebron.

Too many psycho teenage drivers decided to make ‘two lanes’ where there was really only one, and the result was a total logjam backed up from the turning by Halhul.

Halhul is one of the most ‘radicalised’ Arab villages in the Gush….

It’s known to be full of terrorists and guns.

And dafka there, is where Shuvu Banim’s psycho teenage drivers managed to create a huge traffic jam.

====

We were stuck there for around 40 minutes, as Breslov chareidim with long payot walked the road together with bald-headed Arabs from Halhul in shorts, trying to figure out how to ‘un-stick’ the bottleneck.

One Arab started yelling at my husband to move his car to the side – and then my husband refused and started yelling back at him.

Are you crazy?!?!? I hissed at him from the passenger seat.

Really, you’re going to get into a fight with an Arab 10 seconds from Halhul, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a traffic jam where there is nowhere to drive away too?!?!

He was.

(There’s a reason we are also part of the crazy Shuvu Banim crowd….)

I’m not going to the side of the road just because some Arab is telling me to do that!

====

At that point…. I just started ‘binding’ the whole traffic jam to the True Tzaddikim….

And the Arab walked off, while another Arab stuck in a car next to us started to make small talk with my husband.

You went for a big pray in Hevron, yes?

He asked my husband, with a big smile on his face.

And just like that…. this weird ‘friendly’ vibe descended on all the Arabs and Jews stuck in a massive traffic jam by the terrorist nest of Halhul, in the middle of the night, caused by crazy teenage psycho drivers from Shuvu Banim.

====

I don’t know why, but the Arabs seemed amused, and even pretty happy about what was going on.

Some of them started playing their happy music and clapping loudly, kind of cheering all the cars on around them, as the traffic jam finally got unstuck by Arabs and Jews working together, to create some order on the road.

This is how peace comes to Israel….

I thought to myself, as the ‘party vibe’ continued for another 10 minutes, and even my husband calmed down and stopped giving ‘the stare’ to other drivers.

(In his defense…. we just got a new car literally last week, for the first time in nine years….)

====

So.

Who knows what was going on in Hevron last night, really.

Who knows where all this is leading.

But what I can tell you, is that something is moving again, in a way it hasn’t for a very long time.

And it seems that real, sincere, holy Breslov is starting to rise up from the ashes again.

And BH, it will pull everyone else up with it.

Amen.

====

You might also like this article:

The test of Korach

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Get your ticket for Uman

Someone asked the Rav a few days ago if he should still go to Uman, even if the Rav isn’t allowed to get there.

(God forbid….Basically, if the Rav doesn’t get there, geula will come faster but with a lot more suffering, and if he does get there, BH, it will come a little slower, but way more gently and ‘stretched out’, as we’ve been experiencing the last few  years.)

The Rav responded: Bevedai, bevedai.

(Of course, of course.)

====

My husband has his ticket – and yes, it’s getting more and more expensive each year, and more and more difficult travelling-wise.

But things  can get sweetened and ‘fixed’ spiritually in Uman on Rosh Hashana, by Rabbenu, in a way that just can’t happen anywhere else, or any other time.

I’m not going to get into a big discussion about the power of the kibbutz – how each person who comes adds another holy ‘stone’ to the holy ‘houses’ being built, which create the spiritual power to really sweeten harsh decrees.

If you’re interested in how all this works spiritually, get a copy of Likutey Moharan, and start reading through it.

And if you’re not interested in the spiritual explanation, there is no other explanation.

====

Point is, the kibbutz in Uman has tremendous power to turn things around.

And that’s why each year, they’ve been going after it in a million different ways, to try to limit it, close it down and scare people off.

But go buy your ticket!

====

I spoke to someone who literally got back from Uman yesterday, and they told me that it looks like there are a few more checkpoints than last year.

But other than that – it’s mostly business as usual in Uman itself.

If the night-time curfew is still in place, it seems most people are now ignoring it, and the roads to the Tzion are lit up (which they weren’t last year, the same time.)

There is food there, there is electricity – although there was a power cut at one point during Shabbat.

(Old timers to Uman will remember when the power used to fall two and three times a day, in the middle of the coldest winter days. It used to be a very common part of the ‘Uman package’.)

====

She said the travelling is difficult, because you are literally spending 12 hours on the road, even from ‘close’ locations like Kishinev airport, Moldova.

And there are still big delays at the borders, because they insist on taking all the suitcases off and checking them.

So, be aware that it’s going to be challenging travel.

But it’s the journey to the true tzaddikim that brings all the miracles, and makes the ‘vessel’ for the blessings.

Literally, every step a person takes on that journey creates angels that then accompany him onwards.

So the fact that the journey is now much longer, means there are that many more good angels being created, and the ‘vessel for blessing’ will be that much bigger, when you finally get there.

====

Last week, Rav Berland said this about getting to Uman (from the RavBerland.com site):

====

You can watch it here (shiur begins at timecode 30:52):

====

This is how we get things to ‘sweeten’.

This is how we turn the harsh decrees around.

With prayer, emuna, emunat tzaddikim, mesirut nefesh, humility – and Uman.

====

The day after this shiur, last Wednesday, the Rav was reported as saying the following:

Thursday night the Rav said everyone should buy tickets, there is talk about closing borders!

====

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling quite ‘nervous’ again, for no obvious reason.

I have the feeling this period of relative calm and ‘relative normalcy’ is about to come to a close.

Rosh Hashana is going to be huge this year, one way or another, and it’s the key to determining whether the next stage of the geula process comes gently, or with more suffering.

If you can’t get there yourself – then help someone else to get there, in whichever way you can do that.

And you don’t have to ‘buy in’ to all this – but if that’s the case, this blog probably isn’t the best place for you to be hanging out.

====

Big things are on the horizon.

And I’m more than a little scared about those ‘big things’.

But I’m trying my best to have emuna, to believe that God is ultimately behind everything in the world, even the apparently ‘bad’ things – and to stay sitting within the Tzaddik’s circle, as per Rabbenu’s story of the Cripple.

More than that, I can’t really do.

But I pray that thousands of people overcome their own ‘fallen fears’ to make it to Uman and back safely this year – and that the Rav will be joining them, so that geula can come the sweetest way possible, and all the harsh gezeirot can be sweetened.

Amen.

====

You might also like this article:

New date for the Atzeret in Hevron – This Thursday

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The only advice

On Shabbat, I was reading a bit more of the Kochavi Or book in Hebrew, telling more accounts of Rabbenu’s dealings with the maskilim in Uman.

One of the stories really caught my eye.

It was after Rebbe Nachman had passed away, and Breslov chassidut – and Rav Natan Sternhertz in particular – were going through awful persecution from ‘big tzaddikim’ – chassidic Rebbes! – who were literally trying to kill them.

One night, they sent an assassin to Breslov.

Except, the assassin broke into the house of ‘R Natan Apotekker’ in Breslov, instead of R’ Natan Sternhartz, and murdered the man and all his family while they slept in their beds.

When this became known, Hirsch Ber Horowitz, one of the leading maskilim in Uman who had tight links with the Russian government and who played chess with Rabbenu before he died, came to Rav Natan with an offer.

He told him, just give me the word, and I’ll write a letter. Within 24 hours, no trace of your persecutors will remain…

==

R Natan told him: I would rather be the one being persecuted, than be ‘the persecutor’.

There is a spiritual rule, that God aligns Himself with the ones who are persecuted – even when they otherwise don’t have a lot of good deeds or good character traits to show for themselves.

R Natan then also told Hirsch Ber:

I have no other etzot (advice) – except for prayer!

==

Even though I am still doing my best to avoid as much ‘fear porn’ news as possible, it’s impossible to not know about anything, especially those things that are happening in Israel itself.

So yes, I do know there was another very strange double murder in Huwara on Shabbat, and there are things about that murder that don’t add up to me at all.

Like, why someone would drive over 100km from Ashdod – on the Southern coast – to Huwara – central-North – to fix their car.

I know Palestinian mechanics tend to be much cheaper, and to do a good job – but there a bunch of cheap Palestinian mechanics in the Gush, too, which is much closer to Ashdod.

==

And I also don’t get what other ‘errands’ they were meant to be running in Huwara on Shabbat for hours, nor why they would get their car cleaned before they headed back over 100+km on a dusty road back to Ashdod.

Lots of things don’t make sense to me.

==

And, I also know there was another shooting attack on the roads near Hevron yesterday, that apparently killed a woman.

As much as I would love to filter all this out, I just can’t.

==

And the last thing I know at the moment, is that the ‘usual suspects’ – all those ‘dati leumi’ figures who really do just work for the government – are now calling on ‘the settlers’ to rise up and basically begin a violent civil war, in the name of ‘self defense’.

Some of the people calling for this literally sit in the government, and apparently are in charge of ‘security’….

Meanwhile, under the watch of this fantastic ‘right wing’ government, the security situation has just gone from bad to worse – because that’s the whole point.

To give everyone such yeoush, such despair about the pointless political situation here and elsewhere that we either sink into total apathy and give up – or get angry and violent.

Either would suit them fine, but the last one is what they are particularly hoping for, because then they can declare martial law and take over the country officially, with a proper pretext.

==

The Rav has been talking a lot the last couple of weeks about how David refused to wear armor, when he went to fight Goliath, because he wanted to have the miracles.

And the miracles wouldn’t come, if he was doing even minimum things like ‘wearing armor’, the way he was supposed to.

You think we can successfully fight these ‘Goliaths’ of our day, according to their rules?

Do you really think there is any political system in the world that is not totally rigged and under their control? Any political candidate who they would let get the top jobs, if they weren’t totally under the thumb of ‘the machine’?

We can’t fight this Goliath derech hateva.

The only advice is prayer.

==

To be honest, I have more than mild apprehension about what the next few months are going to bring.

I am trying very hard to carry on living life regardless, and to just carry on praying and trying to do good deeds, and trying to re-focus on the Torah more, and Rabbenu’s teachings, and Rav Berland’s words, because they seem like the best use of my precious time and headspace right now.

It could be, they will try another plandemic soon.

It could be, we’ll wake up to a fake alien invasion one of these mornings.

Or another war.

Or some other totally manufactured situation to keep us all stuck in ‘fear’ mode, and far away from God.

==

God forbid, any of that happens.

But if it does, I will try to deal with it at the time, in the best way I can.

And in the meantime….the only advice is prayer.

====

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Pie in the sky

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Pie in the sky

I got into such a bad mood before Shabbat.

I had a big plan to make a milky Shabbat, replete with filo pastry mushroom bourekas – handmade, with love and lots of butter.

And there wasn’t a lot else on the menu.

My husband, may God bless him with every good thing, and lengthen his days in good health, happiness, peace, nachat from his family and wealth, went shopping to get the bits required.

I gave tailored instructions about the:

Filo pastry…. in a black package… in the fridges next to the smoked salmon….

And when he got home, I had a quick look in the bag, and I saw what looked like the right pastry package staring back at me.

==

An hour after the supermarket closed, I finally got around to assembling the bourekas.

I opened the package…. and that’s when I saw that whatever this pastry was, hiding out in exactly the same packaging in exactly the place in the fridge next to the smoked salmon – it was not the pastry I wanted.

==

I would love to tell you that I laughed all this off, ruffled his hair and successfully made ‘lemonade’ out of the ‘lemons’ God had sent me.

I mean, on the big scale of ‘things that could go wrong in the world’, getting the wrong pastry for your bourekas is pretty minor.

And I honestly did try to make ‘lemonade’ out of the wrong-pastry-lemons (not least, because I hadn’t planned to make anything much else and there wasn’t a lot of choice.)

But, when the soggy mess wrapped around the mushroom filling refused to move across to the baking tray without falling apart – that’s when I totally lost any semblance of ‘having emuna’, and ‘accepting everything with love‘.

In an instant, the rage flared up, and I flung the pastry-mess thing on to the baking tray.

(Side note: that actually worked surprisingly well, but is not recommended.)

====

OK, great… I just failed another big test of not getting angry…. over having the wrong pastry for the bourekas….how pathetic can you get?!

So began the next big test, of trying very hard not to blame myself for being a loser with bad middot, or blaming my husband for having supermarket dyslexia – you know, that strange phenomenon where otherwise very intelligent men simply can’t read labels and understand what is written on them, in a supermarket setting.

BH, I did marginally better with that one, but I still headed into Shabbat feeling pretty grumpy, upset and dissatisfied with myself and the world.

(Side note: it was definitely all connected to discovering more and more of the ‘world of lies’ that’s been built all around us, not least in the orthodox Jewish community, not least, in Israel.)

====

The next day, I got the ‘hint’ in my hitbodedut to spend some time reading through Rav Berland’s book of prayers to overcome anger, again.

I’ve written about that small red book many, many times before here on the blog, and how it works instantly, to defuse anger.

So I pulled it out, started reading through it – all the stuff about how anger drops you into the ‘boiling furnace of hell’, and then all sorts of demons control you, and you can get horribly sick, too, God forbid – when I got to this section, near the back:

The most severe thing in the world is pride, there is nothing worse than this.

This is the person: honor. That’s his whole being, his imaginary self-honor.

What, this other person doesn’t know what I want?!

He’s doing the opposite of what I want?! And not what I intended?! He did something against me?! Something was done against my will?! He changed my plans? a little bit?!

Who am I and what am I? What are all these ‘plans’ and things I do?

Pie-in-the-sky.

Live quietly!

There is no world, there is nothing. Hashem helps….

Every time this person’s plans are ruined, he is filled with anger….

The Rebbe says that if I get angry at someone, if I stumbled into anger – then it’s certain that this person seeks honor. And everything he does, every ‘mitzvah’ that he performs, it’s only in order to gain more respect…

====

Sigh.

Not for the first time, the Rav and Rabbenu really nailed the problem.

====

For years now, I have been trying to walk that very fine line between doing what I think God wants me to do, i.e. calling out the lies we’ve been told, whilst still trying to give God what He wants, i.e. respecting the other person and still trying to see the good, with humility.

I know I am falling all the time with this stuff.

That’s why there are such big breaks sometimes, when I feel that God doesn’t want it anymore, or I don’t have ‘permission’ to dig deeper.

Right now – I am having the opposite.

Right now, there is so much information bubbling to the surface, and such a ‘push’ to get on and get it out there, that I can’t really keep up with it all.

And a big part of me wants to just go fishing for a couple of weeks, while it all blows over again.

====

Point is, I sometimes feel I am ‘doomed if I do’, and ‘doomed if I don’t’.

For all the times that it’s mostly been  just hunches and guesses, I sounded like a crazed conspiracy theorist and got dissed for not respecting rabbis enough, and not fearing Hashem sufficiently.

Now, finally, more hard information is appearing to really tell more of the story of how our community has been ‘captured’ and subverted by people with evil agendas – and now I have the challenge of not getting all proud and ‘told-you-so-y’, as the facts start to speak for themselves.

====

So, this is where I’m at.

Still a very flawed person, trying to work on overcoming my own anger, arrogance and lack of emuna.

Still trying to be ‘real’, with you the reader – and also, with myself – about the challenges and difficulties I’m experiencing in many different ways.

And still trying sincerely to give God what I think He wants, even when I am filled with doubts and confusions about whether I’m actually doing the right thing.

And in the meantime…. the birur continues.

====

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Atzeret in Hevron on Wed night – 16th Aug

The Rav typically calls these Atzerets when the storm clouds are starting to gather again.

Even though I’m not following the news much these days, I can still tell you that:

There are massive fires going on in Hawaii – Maui, with almost a hundred people dead.

I think that’s the magma moving – Hawaii is a volcanic zone, and volcanoes are connected to earthquakes and other seismic events.

==

There is another war going on in Ethiopia – and I know this because one of my kid’s friends works for the Jewish Agency and they are getting a ton of calls from worried Ethiopians in Israel.

==

They are currently dropping rockets on Odessa, in the Ukraine – at least, they were last week, which is when a salesman I was talking to from the Ukraine originally told me his parents are spending most of their time in bombshelters at the moment. But still don’t want to move to Israel….

And lastly, it’s not looking so promising for the Rav to be able to get to Uman this year – and there are also rumours the Ukrainians may try to shut the whole thing down again, or severely limit the numbers.

My husband has his ticket bought and his plans made…. but the rest is up to God.

====

If you are following ‘the news’, I’m sure you have many, many more things to worry about and pray for, that you can add to the list.

But in the meantime:

ATZERET IN HEVRON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 16TH, 2023, STARTING AT 10PM:

====

There’s a lot to pray for, still.

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Children

Yesterday, I went to the Henna (engagement) party of a girl I’ve known for almost a decade.

She was the best friend of my daughter in school.

These girls went through so much, before they ended up in a school that seemed like the answer to a parent’s dream – for the year it stayed open.

At the beginning of the school year, the head teacher sat down the small group of parents who were crazy enough to send their teenagers to this ‘experiment school’, and showed us the following video, entitled ‘Children’.

====

By the end of the video, most of the mums were crying – including me, and the mother of the girl who just got engaged.

At that point, we were deep, deep in the thicket of ‘raising teens’, and there was so much fear that our kids weren’t going to be able to pull through the ‘yuck’ of the modern world unscathed.

Yesterday, this video came to mind again, when I watched the newly-engaged friend dancing so happily with her family and husband-to-be, wearing the traditional Yemenite costumes.

So much water flowed under the bridge since then….

But the message in this video remains.

====

Don’t give up.

There is no prayer in vain, no tear shed that isn’t registered and carefully stored away, no impulse for ‘good’ that doesn’t arouse some other impulse for good in the world – even if we don’t see it.

And while it applies to children, this message also applies to everything, really.

Everything we love, that we care about, that we put time, love and hope into, that we invest in.

Sometimes, it seems it’s all for nought – especially at the last moment, when all those prayers, hope and yearning finally burst out in to the open, in a world of good that’s revealed in the biggest, most wonderful way.

So don’t give up.

I don’t know how much longer this journey continues on, in its current format.

But I can tell you that the final destination will be the greatest good we’ve ever experienced.

And that henna party yesterday was a small taste of redemption.

 

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“The Geula is no longer being held up”

For years, I’ve been writing here on the blog how the Rav – and others, but especially the Rav – has been continually ‘sweetening’ things.

***UPDATE***

I got an email from someone that basically said:

Who cares about rav Berland getting to uman for Rosh Hashona ?

==

The answer is, Rav Berland cares about that, and he’s said that if he doesn’t get to Uman this year, there will be a shoah that even he can’t get sweetened.

The Rav doesn’t say these things stam… part of having emunat Tzaddikim is that we accept that there are people in the world that know way more than we do about what is really going on.

So, if he says he needs to get to Uman this year, and if he’s asking people to say another TK to help make that happen – to avoid another shoah, God forbid – that’s good enough for me.

At the bottom of this post, I have put the video and translated comments from a few weeks back, where this was clearly explained.

Back to the original post now:

====

If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll have seen many examples of this happening ‘in real time’.

Wars that just disappear for no obvious reason….’tension’ that melts away on a million different fronts….lockdowns and forced-masking and green passport apartheid that all stop once the Rav gets out of prison….

But the last few weeks, it’s been feeling to me like ‘this can’t carry on like this for much longer’.

Maybe it’s the heatwave, maybe it’s the ongoing chaos all around the Knesset and in Kaplan, maybe it’s just years and years and years of being on the frontlines trying to battle for good and ‘truth in journalism’ – but the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling like I need a rest.

====

Perhaps you’ve been seeing some signs of that on the blog.

I’ve been deliberately ignoring a lot of what is happening here in Israel, not because I’m in denial, but because it’s becoming so obvious now that there is a ‘war against Torah’ and against religious Jews going on here, a lot more people are waking up and noticing it.

It’s got to the point where I don’t need to keep pointing it out any more, like I have been for years, and particularly, where that ‘war against Torah’ got sharpened into a ‘war’ against the Rav and his community.

====

For years and years, people just couldn’t believe the fantastic-sounding claim that the security apparatus in the ‘democratic’ State of Israel would be targeting the Rav and framing him for crimes he never committed, with the full help of the corrupt media, and about four million ‘useful idiots’ who believe everything they read online.

Now….

Things are starting to change.

Now, the truth is coming out more and more, about who has been after the Rav for years, and why they have been doing it.

====

And guess what?

Coming after the Rav was only the beginning.

Don’t forget, this whole saga started back 10 years ago, when Lapid first got into government and immediately went into action trying to dismantle one yeshiva, one Talmud Torah, one ‘child benefit’ after another.

What’s going on right now is Part II of that same story – but now, the end is finally coming into sight.

====

I got sent the following video.

It’s one of the Rav’s leading talmidim, R Shlomo Elmaliach, describing how he was at R’ Chaim Dovid Stern recently, and R’ Stern told him that the geulah is no longer being ‘held up’, so that more people could wake up and make teshuva, before the curtain comes down.

R Elmaliach then said that after he heard this from R’ Stern, the Rav’s grandson told him that two weeks’ earlier, Rav Berland had also said effectively the same thing – that there is no more ‘disturbing Hashem’ and His plans to bring the geulah any more.

====

If I’m honest, I have mixed feelings about all this.

No-one knows how much of this process has been ‘sweetened’ already  – although for sure, a huge amount has been sweetened by the mesirut nefesh of the Rav and the other tzaddkim, over the last few years.

But for sure, we are still going to experience some difficult times ahead.

Even if we are ‘safe’ in the Tzaddik’s circle (as per Rabbenu’s story of the Cripple) – even if we’re saying our Tikkun Haklalis every day, trying to work on our bad middot, trying to move to Israel if we can, or at least to yearn to be here, trying to follow Rabbenu’s teachings and instructions, trying to work on our arrogance, trying to identify and stick close to the real Tzaddikim in the world….

It’s still kind of scary.

When the focus is on the ‘soul’, as it should be, there are no guarantees that ‘the body’ makes it through this process of geulah.

====

The point is what happens to the soul.

And some times, people are so sunk in the tumah that the very process of making real teshuva itself means the soul can no longer stand to be in the world.

Look at the story of Eliezer ben Dordaya, who chased after every prostitute in the world – and then finally made sincere teshuva, and kind of died immediately from a broken heart.

From a ‘this world’ perspective – it’s a sad story.

From a ‘soul’ perspective – he got ‘the world to come’ in a moment!

Result!

But he had to die at the pinnacle of his teshuva process to do that, maybe otherwise because the yetzer hara would have pulled him back into the tumah, otherwise.

It could be, something not so different is going to play out here.

Who knows.

====

Anyway, here’s the video, in Hebrew:

====

But one thing is clear:

Things are not going to continue ‘quasi-normal’ for much longer.

The earthquakes are picking up again – and also, forecast to start hitting some unusual locations, like this one:

Rare M5 range due in Ukraine Romania region.

The Rav really needs to get to Uman Rosh Hashana this year, for the ‘best case’ scenario to play out.

I hope that happens.

====

PS: You can help that to happen.

Consider taking it upon yourself to say a Tikkun Haklali a day, in the merit of the Rav getting to Uman.

It’s the short cut to joining ‘the Tzaddik’s circle’, wherever you happen to live.

And going forward, the value of doing that is going to start to become more and more obvious.

====

UPDATE: ORIGINAL COMMENTS ABOUT NEEDING TO GET TO UMAN THIS YEAR

(From HERE)

I got sent the link to this video yesterday, but after Molly’s comments about the Tikkun HaKlalis, I thought I should also put it up here, for wider consumption.

====

It’s in Hebrew, but these are the main points:

The narrator says: Everyone should know the current situation of the Rav, who said to a Talmid visiting Uman:

  1. Pray for me that I shouldn’t go back to prison
  2. Pray for me that I shouldn’t need to go back to hospital
  3. Pray for me that I should get to Uman for Rosh Hashana, may good be upon us.

==

The narrator then says: everyone was asking what the Rav actually intended with these words.

He explained the Rav is in and out of hospital all the time, and that we already know how important it is for him to get to Uman. That leaves the matter of ‘going to prison’.

Three months’ ago, the Rav talked about going back to prison again – and at that time, there were new court proceedings happening again, that can’t be publicised, but the Rav said what can I do? I’m obligated to go back to prison.

At that time, he said the only thing that can ‘cancel’ this is if people went immediately to Heveron to pray – and Baruch Hashem, we merited to do this, and it got cancelled, and the Tzaddik stayed with us.

==

The narrator then explains that the rashaim aren’t staying quiet for a moment, and are constantly seeking out new ways to come after the Rav.

If the Rav says we need to pray to avoid him being sent back to prison – he means it literally.

==

Next, the narrator returns to the subject of the Rav’s fragile state of health.

Two weeks before the video was put out, Rav Succot explained that the Rav told him on Shabbat morning – in front of tens of other people – that the doctors were giving him just one more month to live [God forbid a trillion times.]

These are the words the Rav himself said to R’ Eliyahu Succot.

==

Next, the narrator talks about Uman, Rosh Hashana.

The Rav told another one of this senior students that the persecutors are doing everything they can to keep him out of Uman, on Rosh Hashana, in every way possible.

But, the Rav said if he doesn’t get to Uman this Rosh Hashana, there will be no ‘sweetening’ of the judgements, etc, and chas v’shalom, there will be a Shoah.

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The narrator then explains the huge importance of saying Tikkun Haklalis – as many as possible – for the Rav to get to Uman this Rosh Hashana, to continue to be with us, and to avoid going back to prison.

And of course – to sweeten all the harsh judgements hanging over every single one of us, and if you have no idea that there are ‘harsh judgements’ going on, then congratulations, the meds are working.

The narrator explains some of the ‘hints’ the Rav has been making about this.

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Next (at the 4.15 min mark) the narrator explains they are trying to get 100,000 Tikkun Haklalis said for the Rav – minimum.

You can sign up to have your TKs counted on the Breslov line, by dialling #50.

The narrator then reminds us that the Rav has said in the past, that whoever prays for me, at that same moment, I’m praying for them.

It’s a really good deal, b’kitzur.

The Rav also told people to continue to pray for him separately, and to not stop, because he’s very ill.

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There’s more to say, but that’s what I have time to translate for now.

I’m trying to do three TKs a day at the moment, even one a day is a good start – and I know some people who are doing 8 a day! (Good for you, girl, you know who you are…)

And may we just hear good news.

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