Emunat Tzaddikim in action.

You can clearly see, how when we follow true tzaddikim, and do our best to fulfill their requests, very harsh judgements in the world are sweetened.

At least, for us.

Snippet, but highly advise you go and read the whole thing, to put more of the pieces together in the right place:

The Power of the Prayer of the Multitude and Fulfilling the Words of the Tzaddik Sweetens the Decrees

Behold, amazingly, just 12 days have passed since the call of our Rebbe Rav Berland shlit”a for the operation of saying 100,000 Tikkun HaKlali’s, and just a few days after the operation was publicized on the Breslov hotlines and people began to register, the operation gathered greater strength and momentum in Israel and the world.  40,000 Tikkun HaKlali’s have already been said, and suddenly the Rav shlit”a gave over these holy words, saying:

“It is written in Pirkey D’Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 28, that in another 189 years, until [the year] 5972, 28 years before the end of the 6th millennium – there will not be any disasters here.

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“Because he who said that we stand before a new disaster – there will be no disaster here.

“What happened in Turkey isn’t relevant to us.  This isn’t relevant to the Land of Israel, not relevant to Jerusalem – Jerusalem is shielded.

“The kings of the world did not believe, nor did any of the world’s inhabitants, that an oppressor and enemy would come to the gates of Jerusalem” (Eicha 4:12) – there is no threat to Jerusalem and no threat to the Land of Israel, and it’s not necessary to say 100,000 Tikkun HaKlali’s.

“It’s enough to say one Tikkun HaKlali a day.  Someone who wants to can say 2, 3, not more than 3.  One doesn’t need to say more than 3 Tikkun HaKlali’s.

“There won’t be any disaster, and in the merit of the dancing, like in the exodus from Egypt, through dancing [there was the redemption, so too] there will be the complete redemption, speedily in our days, Amen.”

====

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That Turkish earthquake was *headed for* Jerusalem.

My dead mother-in-law told me that clearly, twice, weeks before it hit.

But, it all got ‘sweetened’ by our tefillot and emunat tzaddikim – and the Rav’s self-sacrifice, because he’s been seriously unwell again the last few days. BH,  now he is recovering again.

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That article also explains more that we need to move out of ‘sadness and depression’ – urgently! – and move into more internal simcha, by dancing and clapping hands.

Here’s four minutes of Rabbenu trance to get you started:

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All this IS going to turn around, very soon.

There is no despair in the world.

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You might also like this Rabbenu song:

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And you might also like this article:

I got sent this message, from someone who follows the Shuvu Banim Whatsapp group.

***INTERESTING UPDATES BELOW***

Hebrew original, then I’ll translate:

היום ליל י”ז שבט תשפ”ג מסר חשוב ביותר מאת הגה”צ רבי אליעזר ברלנד שליט”א לאחר הפרסומים האחרונים שיצאו בשם הרב שליט”א שעם ישראל נמצאת בגזירת שמד רח”ל וכו’, כעת הרב שליט”א יוצא בהודעה חדשה לציבור שכל הגזירות כבר נמתקו ולא תהיה שום אסון עד שנת תתקע”ב ומספיק שכל אחד יגיד תיקון הכללי אחד ליום וכו’ צפו ושמעו ותחי נפשכם… אשרינו שיש לנו צדיק כזה…

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From the evening of 17th Shvat (Wednesday, February 8th, 2023), message from the Rav, R’ Eliezer Berland shlita:

After the recent publication in the name of the Rav, shlita, that Am Yisrael is under a decree of destruction, rachmana litzan, etc, just now, the Rav shlita came out with a new message for the public.

That all the decrees have now already been sweetened, and there won’t be any massive disaster until the year 5972 [the last possible moment, 28 years before the year, 6,000].

And it’s enough that each person should say a Tikkun Haklali once a day.

We should see and hear [good news] and your soul should live.

Ashrenu, fortunate are wek, that we have a Tzaddik like this.

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I can’t give more details, but as usual, the Rav has taken ‘the hit’ that was being aimed at Am Yisrael upon himself.

Please continue to pray – or start to pray! for Rav Eliezer ben Ettia, that he should a very long, healthy life, and be healed of all his tremendous suffering and ongoing serious illnesses etc.

And in the meantime, please continue – or start! – to say ONE TIKKUN HAKLALI A DAY.

For yourself, if not for any other reason.

And may we hear even more good news soon.

====

PS: Someone asked the Rav about why Turkey and Syria got hit with the massive earthquake.

He answered that it was intended for Israel – but got moved to them, because they celebrated the awful terrorist attack that happened in Neve Yaakov last Shabbat.

That terrorist attack, and the deaths it caused, were awful, and the people behind it – including Biden, and the secret services and military in our country that love keeping us all hopping around in a state of fear and confusion, so they can keep milking us out of billions and trillions to spend on ‘national security’ – will hopefully be brought to justice, somehow, very soon.

But, we can also see with our own eyes, how their deaths apparently went a very great way to ‘sweetening’ an even worse decree.

The death toll in Turkey and Syria is now past 15,000  – and still climbing.

Thank God, that didn’t happen in Israel.

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God is good, God is great.

And when we throw our own brains aside, do what our True Tzaddikim ask us to do – or at least, try to, or least, want to try to – and work on our own bad middot and lack of emuna – it changes everything around for the good.

Ein shum yeoush b’olam.

There is no despair in the world!!!!

At least, for the people who follow Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, and believe that.

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UPDATE:

Here’s another message that I just got sent from the Rav, specifically for the women who have been saying the Tikkun Haklali:

The Rav wrote a note for the women who took on themselves to say Tikkun Haklali for him.

To the woman students of Rabeinu.

Be strong and courageous! In the merit of the Tikkun Haklali that you say, the complete geula will come, Hashem is One, and Moshiach ben Dovid will come, and the complete redemption will come in the blink of an eye.

Eliezer Berland

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And in the meantime, while I’m not convinced that the flashing blue lights above Turkey before the earthquake were *unusual*, as these phenomena have been documented for at least four centuries, there are other videos surfacing that are a little harder to explain.

Like this one:

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How do comets work, in reality, if we have a rekia barely 100 miles up, that stop anything coming in or going out?

I’m pondering this question, and I’m thinking about what Immanuel Velikovsky postulated, that great destruction on earth is not caused by impact, but by electromagnetic ‘action at a distance’.

It’s something to consider, and I’m throwing it out there for others who may also want to ponder this more.

Because whatever that ‘thing’ was in the sky, it looked an awful lot like all the ‘Nibiru’ footage from a few years back, which appeared to show something ‘ploughing along’, like a speed boat, ON TOP of the rekia, the same we we’ve seen footage of rockets ‘ploughing along’ the bottom of the rekia, when they bump up against it.

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UPDATE 2:

A lot of the footage of ‘Niburu-whatever’ hitting the rekia (?) or something similar from 2017  have been totally scrubbed from the net….

But I’m finding stuff from earlier, like this, back in 2014:

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Ignore all the ‘false information’ about non-existent space aliens.

That stuff has been carefully cultivated by our governments and military to a) cover up all the ‘black ops’ stuff being done by their own secret services, and organisations like DARPA etc and b) to hide the true nature of our world.

Start to look at this stuff from the viewpoint of: are these things actually ‘scraping the rekia’, or something similar?

Is that what we’re really looking at here?

And how does all this possibly tie in with the other things we’ve been discussing here, about ‘stationary, flat (or spherical) earth’ that everything else revolves around, or the Greek heretical idea they like to teach that we’re just a speck of inhabited space dust,  revolving around the sun?

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UPDATE 3:

I found this old video by Dave Dobbs on the Coming Home to Jerusalem blog HERE, posted up July 2017.

Start watching from the 3 minute mark, literally for 10 seconds, as he does a quick ‘recap’ with images of the ‘Nibiru fly overs’.

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Disregard all the ‘Nibiru scary predictions’ stuff, and just look at the images.

Is this showing a ‘rekia’, or not?

And if yes, then it seems that comets can’t ‘fall to earth’ and destroy things in that way, as we’ve all been brainwashed into believing.

But that they can and do spark off some sort of ‘electromagnetic’ phenomena, that in turn triggers the sort of massive earthquakes that just happened in Turkey – via ACTION AT A DISTANCE.

And of course, let’s not forget that if this IS clearly showing a rekia – then NASA, science, all that rubbish about ‘long range ballistic missiles’ (that to my knowledge, have NEVER, EVER BEEN USED ANYWHERE, AT ANY TIME), ‘the nuke from Iran’, Elon Musk’s ‘sky link’, and a bunch of other stuff – it’s all shown to be totally false….

Think about that carefully, then come to your own conclusions about what these videos are really showing – and why Youtube is going to such lengths now to a) delete the raw footage (unless it comes wrapped up in ludicrous UFO etc packaging) and b) stick big ‘context’ stuff all over it, claiming we are just seeing plane contrails.

As if.

But, come to your own conclusions.

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LAST UPDATE FOR NOW:

I screencast and slowed down the clips from above, showing the 12 ‘Nibiru flybys’ from 2017.

You can watch that here:

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Compare and contrast with the clips of the rockets apparently hitting THE BOTTOM of the rekia, and ploughing along;

 

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Looks to me, whatever the lies being told actually are, they are starting to come tumbling down…

TBC

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You may not know this, but I’ve been working on a big project for the Rav for months, now.

Long story short, it’s editing the translation of the Rav’s massive work in Hebrew, a practical guide to shalom bayit, for men only.

You can see Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, plus the ‘Prayers for Shalom Bayit – for men only’  HERE, on Amazon.

And the last few weeks, I have been under a self-imposed deadline to get the editing done on the final Part 3, which is a much longer book, by January 31.

Honestly, my initial plan was to take Part 3 at a relaxed pace, a page a day, and get out it out for around Pesach 2023.

But then in hitbodedut, I kept getting that little voice telling me I needed to ramp up production, and get the basic draft done way faster.

Why that date?

I don’t know.

But, I can tell you from previous experience, that every time these books of the Rav come out, something ‘big’ seems to be happening in the Jewish world, one way or another.

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So I listened to that little voice, and I got the main draft done for February 2nd.

And then, it was just the very tiresome job left of sourcing all the quotes from Tanach in the footnotes, which when you have nearly 400 to track down, is actually not as easy as you might think.

Especially when you’ve been typing so much the balls of your hands are literally sore from too much contact with the keyboard.

====

Long story short, I finally got the last bit of the footnotes done at exactly 11pm yesterday.

I emailed it off to my husband, for him to do the last double-check and final edit, and then I started tootling around looking at news sites about the earthquake in Turkey.

Around 11:12pm, my chair suddenly made a weird, very sudden, and very short jolt backwards.

Another earthquake!!

I decided it was time to go to bed.

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Today, I read that it was a 3.5 that struck south of Ariel, on the border of the Shomron.

Just before yesterday’s earthquake, I got an email from someone who is sensitive to earthquakes, saying that she believes that there are still more to come, for our region.

Here’s a snippet of what she sent me:

I’m an earthquake sensitive, and I may be wrong, but this does not feel like it is over yet, and I dont mean in Turkey. I pray I am wrong, but I believe more is to come soon, a very large earthquake, possibly here.
Soon meaning in the next 1-3 days.
Just in case, it would be wise for people to take the twofold path (increase prayer and mitzvot while making practical preparations just in case)…. such as preparing a small bag with what they think they would like to have with them if they needed to leave the house quickly and wouldnt be returning for some time, and have it in an easily accessible place to grab if needed.
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I have my earthquake ‘bug out bag’ from the Dutchsinse days, but I haven’t looked in it for a while.

I will take a look.

And, I will also just take a look, and figure out the best place to shelter, if some big quake does hit, God forbid.

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But in the meantime, I had a second ‘visit’ from my mother-in-law (who’s dead…) back in early January that I didn’t mention here on the blog.

That time, she said a massive quake was going to hit Jerusalem, and she gave me a specific day in January 2023, when that was meant to happen.

Clearly, it didn’t.

Nothing, nada, nega nega torey.

So, I figured that either it was all just my over-active imagination – or that something was meant to have Jerusalem, but it got ‘sweetened’, like so many of the harsh judgements on Am Yisrael have been miraculously ‘sweetened’ over the last few years, if you only but pay attention, and see what is right in front of your face.

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Barely a week ago, on January 30th, 2023, I put up this post:

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It was a message from the Rav, urgently calling for 100,000 Tikkun Haklalis by Adar 13th – Ta’anit Esther.

That’s March 6th, 2023 in the secular calendar.

All those prayers – all that ’emunat tzaddikim’ –  is sweetening things, radically.

This is what I’m talking about, when I say that if we join together and follow the dictates of the Gadol HaDor, who really can ‘see’ what’s coming down the pipe, things can turn around for the better in miraculous ways.

At least, for us.

That’s how it worked in Mitzrayim, and that how it’s going to work now, too.

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Every time you are saying a Tikkun Haklali, you are making a real difference.

Of course, still prepare your bug-out bag, and scout out your ‘earthquake shelter’ spot, do your basic hishdadlut.

But don’t forget, that the real ‘basic hishdadlut’ of the Jewish people is to tear-up all these evil decrees totally, by turning directly to God, and having that conversation with Him.

Nothing happens for nothing.

Everything is coming from God, as a message, a discussion, a ‘hint’, about what we ourselves need to fix, work on and change.

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The following videos come from the shiratdevorah website:

  1. Rav Fish (also mentioned by a commentator here – thanks! – explaining how the earthquakes tie in with the fall of ‘Gog and Magog’ (in Hebrew, but with English subtitles.

Watch that HERE, this below IS JUST A SCREENSHOT – don’t click on it.

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Turkey was the centre of the Sabbateans, famously.

Turkey – really, Constantinople –  was also the head of the Eastern Church for well over a millenia, and also, the seat of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, which actually continued on well into the 15th century, just under the name of ‘Byzantium’.

Those Romans actually never went away.

They just decided to conquer the world in a more cunning, insidious way. More on that another time.

But ‘Turkey’, historically, holds a lot of the clues to what has gone so wrong in our modern world.

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The second video shows the weird ‘blue flashes’ that lit up the sky in Turkey, literally five seconds before the ground started shaking:

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Also yesterday, I got sent an email from a different reader, pondering if it was possible that the Turkey quakes were ‘man-made’.

They were referencing the ‘Vox Populi’ website HERE, that linked to this Tweet below, of ‘weird stuff in Turkey’s skies’:

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But then, I saw the date on this Tweet was January 20, 2023 – almost 3 weeks before the quake.

 So, I have no idea what that thing in the sky was, but I can’t believe it was directly connected to the earthquake that happened almost three weeks later.

But those blue flashes are interesting.

The world is way more ‘electro-magnetic’ than modern science wants to let on.

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This snippet comes from the Popular Science site HERE:

In study published in the January/February issue of the journal Seismological Research Letters, Thériault and colleagues pulled together reliable sightings of these [earthquake] lights since 1600, and found some strange similarities.

A total of 63 out of the 65 sightings occurred along nearly vertical faults. The researchers suggest that along these faults, the stress of rocks grinding against each other produces electrical charges, which can travel upward and interact with the atmosphere to create light.

“When the stress of an earthquake hits the rock, it breaks chemical bonds… creating holes of positive electrical charge. These ‘p holes’ [can flow] vertically through the fault to the surface, triggering strong local electric fields that can generate light,” according to Nature. The existence of these p-holes was proposed in 2003 by researcher Friedemann Freund, who wrote that “under normal conditions [these p-holes] are dormant, but when they ‘wake up’” during earthquakes, “the rocks begin to sparkle and glow.”

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So, these weird lights do seem to be a ‘natural’ phenomena, connected to massive earthquakes.

Take a look at this video, from September 7, 2021 – the Second Day of Rosh Hashana!!! – when a huge quake struck Mexico City:

 

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Or, try this one, also from Mexico City, when a 8.2 quake struck in 2017:

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Even if it does turn out that HAARP / CERN / Uncle Klaus has a hand in these earthquakes after all, they are all ultimately just from Hashem.

God is literally trying to ‘shake us awake’.

People are staggering through life like spiritual zombies, desperately trying to block out the warning signs as every false institution, fake leader and false belief is being torn down before their eyes.

The whole world ‘flips over’, when geula finally happens, and the ‘world of lies’ crumbles away.

We are watching the metaphor made flesh.

And it’s only going to continue from here on in.

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Let’s end with this, from the RavBerland.com site, that I wrote in March 2019:

Read this as part of your ‘basic hishtadlut’ on how to be prepared for what’s coming next.

And then, get your bug-out bag ready, and make sure it has at least one Tikkun HaKlali in it.

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Last week, I apparently upset someone.

Apparently, they got upset that:

a) I am not parroting the line that ‘all the jabbed have had their DNA permanently changed, and are going to die horrible deaths soon,’ God forbid.

(Because I don’t believe that. At all.)

b) I’m pushing prayer as an option – and especially, that I’m pushing prayers by Rav Berland.

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So it is, that I got blasted with an abusive email accusing me of being a ‘snake oil salesmen’ offering people ‘false hope’, whilst also following a ‘charlatan, fake chassidic rabbi’.

I asked that person to stop emailing me, and I’ve now put them in my ‘spam’ list.

It’s a real shame…

But I’ve noticed that there are lot of ‘militant Kahane’ people who actually resort to flat out anger and abuse, when you say things they don’t like or disagree with.

This actually isn’t so shocking.

Because when you believe that violence and force solve all your problems – without you having to make any real teshuva yourself, or putting God in the picture, or work on your own bad middot, including arrogance, anger and a total lack of emuna – then of course, you are going to be ‘firing off’ abusive emails to cut your ‘enemies’ down.

Of course.

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Here’s a little of what Rabbenu says about the power of prayer to solve our problems, from the book ‘A little more advice’:

“Nowadays, prayer is in exile.

That is, in our day and age, hardly anyone appreciates the significance of prayer or believes in its power. Yet it’s a fact: prayer is incredibly potent.

With real prayer, done right, you can save yourself (and others) from all sorts of suffering and danger. But since you don’t simply and truly believe in the power of prayer, you don’t use it – or [have] emuna.

You think everything happens naturally.

You fall into believing heretical and atheistic ideas.

The path of faith and prayer grows much weaker….

Only if you are awestruck by God – that is, only if God actually intimidates and frightens you – can you free prayer from exile and allow it to be more whole…

When your prayer has wholeness, you don’t need a doctor to heal you.

Why? When prayer is done the way it should be, your cure can come through any food or drink you consume.”

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Do me a favor.

If what I just copied out above upsets you, if it strikes you as something akin to ‘offering false hope’ – then please stop reading my blog and go find something that is more suited to your outlook and religious beliefs.

I really do believe in God. Ein od milvado.

I really do believe God is behind every single thing that is happening to every one of us, at every level, at every time.

I believe that having a conversation with God about why is this thing happening to me? will clear up the problem 99% of the time.

And that other 1%?

When it’s something we are paying down from a previous life, or an immutable ‘tikkun’?

Well, talking to God about it will also give me some inner peace, that this is God’s will, so I don’t need to blame myself, or others, or spend my whole life bitter and twisted trying to fight God’s plan for my soul.

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If all this bothers you, if it sounds like ‘false hope’ – then please, please, please, stop reading.

That will be best for both of us.

And here’s something else I believe:

Paying pidyonot to real Tzaddikim like Rav Berland really do work, to get to the root of even those ‘immutable’ tikkunim.

I believe this, because I have seen it happen more times than I can count.

You don’t have to believe me, or take my word for anything.

Just go, do the experiment for yourself, put your money where your mouth is, and THEN we can have a discussion about it. (Maybe…)

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Rabbenu explains that nothing, not even pidyonot paid to the real Tzaddik HaDor, are 100% guaranteed.

Sometimes, God decides to take that money to use it to sweeten a ‘global’ judgement upon Am Yisrael, instead of helping the individual.

That’s part of this process – accepting God’s will, ultimately, whatever He chooses to do with us.

But most of the time, the pidyonot work fantastically.

(IF you are dealing with a real Tzaddik….)

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There are a lot of judgments floating about, on just about every level.

Lots of the ‘earth’ types, who tend to cover up their worries and just get on with things, are starting to crack under the strain of pretending everything is fine. (If you’re back went out in the last few weeks – I am talking to you! Read John Sarna’s book.)

That’s not what I’m talking about, here.

Things are NOT fine, in a bunch of ways.

There’s a lot of teshuva, a lot of prayers, a lot of soul-searching, dancing and clapping, and generally effort required, to get through to the next stage in one piece.

But, if we do our part, and work on having emuna, and work on overcoming our abusive tendencies, bad middot and anger issues, and try very hard just to stick close to the true Tzaddikim – all this WILL turn around for the best.

At least, for us.

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And what about for everyone else?

At this stage…. I am kind of tired of arguing with people that if they really want geula, the answer is to work on their own bad middot and talk to Hashem.

And that the answer is definitely NOT to go around trying to kill or deport anyone who upsets them, or ‘blaming’ everyone else, all the time, for what is happening.

Again, if this makes me sound like a mad-woman in your ears – go away!

You may well be sick of me saying all this, but believe me, I am also sick of repeating myself ad nauseum to people who simply don’t believe in the power of prayer, or in the power of teshuva, or in the real Tzaddikim – or in God, ultimately.

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Tachlis, there is a very narrow bridge to cross, and no-one can cross it for you.

Each person has to take responsibility for themselves, and their own actions, and their own beliefs (and LACK OF…)

When we give God what He wants from us, the suffering will start to ease, and things will turn around.

And God wants emuna, simplicity, humility – and the heart.

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UPDATE:

Look who else believes they can solve all their ‘problems’ with violence:

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These are the people who get to decide ‘who is a terrorist’ in the State of Israel.

Do you really want them to have a law on the books with a ‘death penalty for terrorists’?

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I just got sent this message, from someone close to Rav Eliezer Berland:

The Rav says that they want to destroy Am Yisrael.

So we must finish together 100,000 Tikkun Haklalis before the 13th of Adar.

This is coming from one of the Rav’s gabbaim, it’s for sure a ‘legit’ statement.

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At this point, I have seen the Rav call things correctly so many times – and sweeten them, with prayer rallies, Tikkun HaKlalis and other things – that there is no doubt in my mind that:

  1. They DO want to destroy Am Yisrael, and are working hard on the ‘next plan’ to do that, God forbid.
  2. All this CAN be sweetened, if we pick up our Jewish ‘tools’ of prayer, hitbodedut, emunat tzaddikim, etc.

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The other thing to say is that I have seen from my own life, how each time I follow these instructions to ‘pray for the klal’ etc, things get sweetened in my own dalet amot.

When you commit to saying Tikkun Haklalis every day, with emunat tzaddikim, it has a huge impact, spiritually.

Starting with us.

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So, you want to know what you can REALLY do to help Am Yisrael, and stop the terror, and the next plandemic, yadda yadda yadda?

Roll up your sleeves, and start praying.

Commit to saying 1, or 3, or maybe, even 7, Tikkun HaKlalis a day.

BH, with God’s help, I am going back to saying three a day now, until Purim time.

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The alternative is that you can carry on voting for waste-of-space puppet politicians….

Or waste your time ‘demonstrating’ (and hopefully, you won’t get arrested or have your brains beaten out by our corrupt police…)

Or waste your time online in a million different ways, doing a million different things that won’t really help.

Or, you can have some emunat tzaddikim, get a Tikkun Haklali, and join the effort to try to reach 100,000, by Adar 13.

The choice, as always, is 100% yours.

And may we hear good news soon.

====

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This is probably going to be one of those wild posts.

So buckle in, grab a cup of tea, and let’s begin.

==

The story begins when one of my readers sent me an email exchange he’d had with a friend who is both a historian and a mathematician (amongst many other things.)

This is the part that particularly caught my eye:

Not only did Bnei Zadokim (the priestly line known as the sons of Zadok) know that [the earth] was a sphere, but they actually knew very specific things about its orbit around the sun, and they also knew details about its axial rotation.

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What?!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that the working theory that is developing about real Jewish history is that the ‘Zadokim’, aka the heretical ‘Sadducees’ never really went away.

They most probably gave us Yoshki, and ‘Jewish-xtianity’, in whatever way that occurred; they for sure gave us Greek assimilation and heretical ideas, and they almost certainly continued to ‘subvert the Jewish community’ from within, not least as Karaites, and more modern ‘Jews for Jesus’.

The working theory is that these families of ‘Sadducees’ (who were mostly corrupt Kohanim) also gave us Shabtai Tzvi (aka Shabtai HaKohen, the SHACH), and that of course devolved, at least partly, into the Freemason-Frankist-Reformers,  while the ‘old school Sabbateans’ remained outwardly ‘ultra-orthodox’.

This is the working theory for the mess our Jewish community is currently in.

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So, it hit me like a thunderbolt that these same Zadukim / Sadducees were also big into heliocentric heresy, and ‘sun worship’.

When you think about it, that makes perfect sense. They were hellenising heretics, who wanted a more ‘moderate and modern’ Judaism that would enable them to stay ethnically Jewish, while tossing most of the mitzvot and Torah away.

Does this sound familiar?

====

So the first thing I did was to try to pin down a bit more about who these ‘Bnei Tzadukim’ actually were.

And this is where the story gets really interesting – and also really confusing.

Let’s have the basic intro, from Wikipedia, because it’s only going to get more wild from here:

The Sons of Zadok are a family of priests, kohens, descended from Zadok, the first high priest in Solomon’s Temple.

The sons of Zadok are mentioned three times in the Hebrew Bible, as part of the Third Temple prophecy in the final chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, and are a theme in Jewish and Christian interpretation of these chapters.

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These Zadokite priests descend from Pinchas the Zealot, who killed Cozbi and Zimri in flagrante delicto, and was then ‘rewarded’ with the High Priesthood.

Pinchas was the grandson of both Aaron HaKohen, via his son Eleazar, and also of Yitro, via his mother, ‘the daughter of Putiel’. (Putiel was another name for Yitro – see Rashi’s commentary to Parshat Vayeira, 6:25).

After the whole thing with Jephta’s vow to sacrifice the first thing he saw when he came home after doing battle at Gibeah – which happened to be his daughter – Pinchas-who-is-Eliyahu drops out of view, and the High Priesthood is now given to the sons of Itamar, Aaron HaKohen’s other surviving son.

Eli HaKohen who we know from the story of Hannah, descends from Itamar HaKohen.

And of course, his sons Hophni and Pinchas are the corrupt Kohanim who have put the whole of Am Yisrael off from ascending to Shilo, to the Tabernacle, for the three festivals.

(There is nothing new under the sun).

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So, under King David, Zadok is appointed High Priest, and he comes from the lineage of Aaron’s son, Eleazar.

This Zadok is very holy, he arranges the Kohanim into 24 ‘watches’, and according to Sotah 48b, David appoints him as Kohen HaGadol because the Urim v’Tumim actually work for him:

Rav Nachman said: When the Urim v’Tumim were consulted in the days of King David, sometimes it worked out for them and sometimes it did not work for them. For we find that Tzadok consulted the Urim v’Tumim at David’s behest and it worked out for him, while Aviatar consulted the Urim v’Tumim and it did not work out for him.

The Artscoll notes that this is based on the account in Samuel II, 15:24.

Having read it through, quickly, I can’t see anything about the Urim v’Temum specifically, but it does say that Zadok and Aviatar are David’s Kohanim, and describes how they bring the Ark of the Covenant out to travel with him, when he’s fleeing from his son Absalom, but David tells them to return to Jerusalem and act as his spies and informers.

Which they do. Zadok’s son Ahimaaz is the one who informs David that the rebellion has been crushed.

And later on, Solomon appoints Zadok as the first High Priest in the Temple.

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So, the Zadok family are holy, important and strongly connected to royalty.

The next time the ‘sons of Zadok’ show up is in the prophesy of Yehezkel – also a Kohen, but from the line of Ithamar – in his vision about the Third Temple.

Here’s a little of what it says (Yehezkel 40:46):

“[T]he chamber that faces North is for the Kohanim, the guardians of the charge of the Altar. They, who are the descendants of Zadok, are the ones from among the sons of Levi who approach Hashem, to serve Him.”

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The next notable mention of the ‘Sons of Zadok’ comes from fragments found amongst the Dead Sea scrolls.

Snippet from Wikipedia:

Various documents of the texts found at Qumran mention the teachers of the community as “kohanim Sons of Zadok“, leading some scholars to assume that the community at Qumran included kohanim (Jewish priests) who refused to participate in the Hellenization of the priesthood then taking place in Jerusalem.

Already by this point, I started to get the feeling that a big piece of the ‘real Jewish history’ puzzle was starting to swim into view.

Let’s continue.

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So now, there are a lot of later commentaries on the status and function  of these ‘Sons of Zadok’ in the Third Temple.

These include:,

  • Jonathan Eybeschutz,
  • Isaac Abrabanel, and
  • Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michal (the Malbim)

In fact, Eybshutz wrote a whole big pamphlet on the role of these ‘Bnei Zadukim’, called ‘Ahavath Yonatan’.

I haven’t read these commentaries myself, but according to Wikipedia, they state that the:

Status of the sons of Zadok after the coming of the Messiah will be that of “semi” high priests….there is Rabbinic documentary that describe the future high priest from the sons of Zadok as having certain priorities, or at least being equal to the future Jewish Messiah King. 

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Now, go back and re-read the post I wrote a while back, called The Rod and The Sceptre.

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As always, I’m getting sidetracked from what I actually wanted to write about, but take a look at this, from HERE:

Rabbi Chaim Vital… introduces an idea that in the Age to Come (Hebrew LeAtid Lavoh “the Messianic era”) the souls belonging to the spiritual rootsource of Kayin, which are essentially the souls of the firstborn and Levites, will become clear and purified and will thus merit to serve in the Third Temple.

This idea is exegesized from the verse “אם תטיב שאת” (if you will better yourself you will be uplifted) explained as when you will better yourself you will merit to the priesthood which is titled “שאת” (uplifted).

This idea is echoed by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in his book The Tanya, as by his son and successor The Mitteler Rebbe.

Surprise, surprise, the Chabad Rebbes are right in the middle of all this.

While we are on this subject, let me just note that from what I can tell, at least the last five rebbes of Chabad actually descend paternally from Kohanim.

What that means is that none of them could ever have been ‘Moshiach ben David’ – unless there was some strange idea that “the sons of Zadok =  at least being equal to the future Jewish Messiah King. “

Let that sink in, while we move on with the main story.

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So now, we have a conundrum to try to resolve.

Here, we have a description of ‘Zadokim’ that seems to suggest they are holy and pure, and will be back serving Hashem in the Third Temple.

Meanwhile, we also have all these Sadducee-Jewish-Xtian-Karaite-Sabbatean-Frankists, who are also named for ‘Zadok’.

So, what’s going on here?

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Notorious Frankist-Reformer Abraham Geiger is the one who first says that ‘Sadducees’ descend, specifically, from Zadok the first Kohen HaGadol.

That doesn’t mean he’s wrong, necessarily, because as we’ve seen all along, the most evil people keep coming out of the families of true Tzaddikim – and vice-versa.

Our authentic Jewish tradition (via the ‘Avot de Rabbi Natan) teaches that ‘Zadok and Boethus’ were two students of Antigonos of Sokho, who went off the derech when they misunderstood his statement in Pirkei Avot Ch.1, Mishnah 3 that there is no reward or punishment.

Here’s that mishnah:

Antigonos of Sokho recieved the tradition from Shimon HaTzaddik. He used to say: “Do not be like servants who serve their master for the sake of recieving a reward; rather, be like the servants who serve their master without a reward in mind, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.”

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And here’s a translation of the Avot de Rabbi Natan:

[H]is two pupils, Zadok and Boethus, repeated this maxim to their pupils. In the course of time, either the two teachers or their pupils understood this to express the belief that there was neither an afterlife nor a resurrection of the dead and founded the sects of the Sadducees and the Boethusians.

They lived in luxurious splendor; using silver and golden vessels all their lives, not because they were haughty, but because (as they claimed) the Pharisees led a hard life on earth and yet would have nothing to show for it in the world to come.

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Priestly families usually only used stone vessels, because of issues with tumah (spiritual impurity).

So we see that these ‘Sadducees and Boethesians’ were clearly storming off the derech.

Here’s a few more examples of their heretical ideas in action, from HERE:

 The Mishnah, as well as the Baraita, mentions the Boethusians as opposing the Pharisees in saying that the sheaf due at the Passover (compare Omer) must be offered not on the second feast-day, but on the day after the actual Shabbat of the festival week, and, accordingly, that Shavuot, which comes seven weeks and one day later, should always be celebrated on Sunday.

In another passage it is narrated that the Boethusians hired false witnesses in order to lead the Pharisees astray in their calculations of the new moon.

Another point of dispute between the Boethusians and the Pharisees was whether the high priest should prepare the incense inside or outside the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur.

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This was the real start of all the nitpicking and ‘disagreements’ between the Sages, that has put so very many people off yiddishkeit down the ages, including in our days.

And remember, there is nothing new under the sun.

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Boethus and Zadok were both from priestly families.

Apparently, the Talmud was using the words ‘Boethusians’ and ‘Tzaddukim’ interchangeably, to denote a bunch of wicked, hellenising heretics who were trying to subvert Judaism from within.

For example, there is an argument in Shabbat 108a between ‘a Boethusian’ and R’ Yehoshua HaGarsi, where the Boethusian heretic is asking him:

From where is it derived that one may not write tefillin on the hide of an animal that is not kosher?

All these Boethusian, Sadducees and proto-xtians heretics sound the same in the Gemara.

That’s probably not a coincidence.

But according to my historian, above, there were two groups of ‘Zadukim’, one holy, and one really not, that Chazal could no longer distinguish between.

Let’s explore a little further.

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This snippet comes from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, HERE:

Because of evident similarities, some scholars tend to view the Boethusians as merely a branch of the Sadducees.

Both parties, they point out, associated with the aristocracy and denied the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, because neither of these doctrines was contained in the written Torah, or first five books of the Bible.

The Boethusians testified to their disbelief in the “world to come” by living lives of luxury and by ridiculing the piety and asceticism of the Pharisees….

Still other scholars have argued that the Boethusians should be identified with the Essenes and Dead Sea Sect and that the word Boethusian may not derive from the name Boethus but from Beth Essaya, or Essenes.

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There’s a link to Qumran again.

Let’s continue.

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While I was pondering all this, the Rav, Rav Eliezer Berland, started making a bunch of references to ‘Shimon HaTzaddik’, and the strange account of what happened with the High Priesthood, when two of his sons started fighting with each other.

You can find that account in Tractate Menachot, 109b (this is the Artscroll translation):

“At the moment of his passing, [Shimon HaTzaddik] said to them, ‘My son Chonyo should serve as Kohen HaGadol in my place.’

Shimi, his brother, became jealous of him, because [Shimi] was two and a half years older than [Chonyo]. Shimi then schemed to have Chonyo killed, so he could assume the post of Kohen Gadol.

[Shimi] said to [Chonyo], ‘Come, and I will teach you the order of the Temple Service.’ He dressed him in a leather blouse and belted him with an attractive sash. Both of these were feminine articles of clothing. [Shimi] stood him next to the Altar. Shimi then left him there and went to speak to a group of Kohanim who were in the Temple at that time.

[Shimi] said to his brothers the Kohanim, ‘Look at what this [brother of mine] vowed and carried out for his beloved wife! He swore to her, ‘On the day I first serve as Kohen Gadol, I will wear your blouse and belt myself with your sash, to demonstrate my love for you.’

His brothers the Kohanim believed this story and wished to kill [Chonyo]. [Chonyo] ran away from them but they ran after him. He went to Alexandria in Egypt, built an altar there and brought sacrifices upon it for the sake of idolatry.”

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Remember, both these Kohanim are meant to be the sons of Shimon HaTzaddik.

But wait, there’s more. The Gemara account continues  like this:

“This version of the story reflects the words of R’ Meir. R’ Yehudah said to him: ‘That’s not how the story went’.

Rather, after Shimon HaTzaddik named Chonyo as his successor, Chonyo did not accept this upon himself because his brother Shimi was two and a half years older than him. Nevertheless, Chonyo regretted his decision and plotted to have Shimi killed, so he could become the Kohen Gadol.

[Chonyo] said to [Shimi], ‘Come, and I will teach you the Temple Service.’ He dressed him in a woman’s leather blouse and belted him with a woman’s attractive sash. [Chonyo] stood [Shimi] next to the altar and left him there.

[Chonyo] said to his brothers the Kohanim, ‘Look at what this [brother of mine] vowed and carried out for his beloved wife! He swore to her, ‘On the day that I first serve as Kohen Gadol, I will wear your blouse and belt myself with your sash, to show you the depth of my love.’

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His brothers the Kohanim believed this story and wished to kill him.

He asked them to wait until he spoke and then they could do whatever they wished. [Shimi] told them the entire incident. The Kohanim investigated the matter with the greatest scrutiny until they clarified Shimi was innocent and it was Chonyo who had dared to make the Kohen Gadol, the avodah and the Altar into a joke.

[The masses] then wished to kill Chonyo. [Chonyo] ran away from them, but they ran after him. He ran towards the King’s palace, but they ran after him. Whoever saw him as he ran would point at him and tell his pursuers, ‘That is him! That is him!’

When he reached the palace, the king could not protect him because he was sought by the entire Jewish people.

[Chonyo] went to Alexandria in Egypt, built an altar there and brought offerings upon it for the sake of Heaven.

He therefore fulfilled a prophetic promise to Isaiah from years earlier, for it says: ‘On that day, there will be an altar to Hashem in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Hashem near it’s border.'”

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If you are feeling confused by all this, don’t worry!

I also am.

But certain threads are starting to tie together here, in a big way, between real Jewish history, the Hashmonaims, the Sadducees, and the first ‘Jewish-xtian’ heretics.

Let’s set out a few more details, and then we’ll pick this up in part 2, because it’s too much info to stuff into one post.

The note on the Artscroll translation says this:

Rambam states that Chonyo built a temple that was structurally similar to the Beit HaMikdash.

Josephus Flavius reports that it was a smaller and poorer version. Josephus writes further that Chonyo [whom he calls ‘Onias’ and describes as a descendant of Shimon HaTzaddik] appealed to Ptolemy Philometer and his queen Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt from Alexandria, to allow him to develop a certain stretch of land for a Jewish Temple.

Josephus states that this land was in an area known as ‘the Nomus of Heliopolis’.

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“Helio” = sun.

“Polis” = city.

Back to that footnote:

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Rambam writes (following the view of R’ Yehudah) that the Temple of Chonyo was not a pagan temple, but Chonyo did transgress the negative commandment against offering sacrifices outside the Beit HaMikdash.

Rambam adds that the Copts and their associates were attracted to Chonyo.

Chonyo encouraged them to serve Hashem and they listened to him. His statements were much esteemed by them and they made him their priest and honored his temple.

They served Hashem there and brought offerings according to what Chonyo had instructed them. The temple stood for hundreds of years.

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I have that strange feeling I sometimes get that we may have just tripped over the historical account of the original ‘Yoshki’.

You know, that guy who went ‘bad’ and mislead a whole bunch of people to start worshipping idols, even though he himself was apparently still a devout Jew… who went down to Egypt and learnt black magic there…. who was very connected to ‘royalty’ back in Jerusalem, and who descends from a family of priests…

Remember, the Coptic Church is probably the oldest ‘official’ xtian church in the world. This comes from Wikipedia:

The Egyptian Church is traditionally believed to be founded by Mark the Evangelist around AD 42, and regards itself as the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament.

Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says “In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border”.

The first Christians in Egypt were common people who spoke Egyptian Coptic.

There were also Alexandrian Jewish people such as Theophilus, whom Luke the Evangelist addresses in the introductory chapter of his gospel. When the church was founded by Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a great multitude of native Egyptians (as opposed to Greeks or Jews) embraced the Christian faith.

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This is the exact same verse quoted in our Gemara, Tractate Menachot 109b, in connection with Chonyo’s temple!

If the original ‘Yoshki’ was actually the son of Shimon HaTzaddik… we can already start to understand why all this has been so covered up.

So now, we have to ask the question:

Who was ‘Shimon HaTzaddik’, really, and how did he connect to the Hashmonaim rulers?

For sure, he’s a massive Tzaddik, there’s no question of that.

But, what is the context surrounding him, and his family, and how does all this mesh together with what we know of ‘official Jewish history’?

We’ll try to explore that more, in the next post, BH.

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In preparation for the next post, I highly recommend you go back and read this one:

A lot of the pieces are starting to come together.

I will pick up heliocentrism and Jewish heretics next week, BH.

I am exploring some new avenues of information linking both together, which is already proving extremely interesting – but needs quite a bit of spade work before I can ‘lay it out nicely’ to share with you, so you can come to your own conclusions.

In the the meantime, let’s just get back to the meat for a mo.

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Someone asked one of Rav Berland’s gabbays about the frankenchicken.

Long story short, he was told that the Rav looked into it, and is still eating chicken.

I don’t have more details than that.

But, they also asked what hechsherim the Rav is eating himself, and this is the answer:

Eida Chareidit, Rubin, Landau, are top
Kehillot and Machfud are probably also ok
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We know the rabbis make the reality.

The problem is, so many of our rabbis are currently Erev Rav fakers, it’s very hard to know if the ‘reality’ they are making is a good, holy one, or not.

Each person has to continue to do their hitbodedut, and to ask God to show them the truth.

What I can tell you, is that I recognised a lot of the names in the ‘frankenchicken’ pamphlet as belonging to people who ‘excommunicated’ the Rav.

And that gave me pause for thought right from the start, that these people may not be coming from a good place, spiritually.

Because ‘extra chumrot’ is also a Sabbatean thing, to make yiddishkeit so burdensome that people give up and drop out.

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In the meantime, my husband sent me this:

In a groundbreaking ruling, Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Lau stated that the cultured meat produced by Israeli food tech company Aleph Farms is pareve.

However, in order for it to be defined as such, the company, which produces its products from stem cells, will have to declare the meat to be vegetarian.

– Jpost.

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HERE‘s the actual headline:

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It’s up to you if you rely on this ‘psak’ from David Lau.

Let’s just say, I’m not.

At all.

(Go look at his family tree, btw, you’ll find it VERY INTERESTING!!!!)

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And while I was typing this, another reader, Alizah, sent me this from HERE:

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Snippet:

“In particular if its shape will be similar to meat in taste and smell, [then Jews should] treat this cultured meat as stricter and define it as kosher, but not pareve, for the purpose of mixing it, cooking it and eating it with dairy products.”

….In addition to cheeseburgers, cells taken from pigs may also be deemed kosher for Jewish consumption. Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a recognized authoritative figure on Halacha (Torah law), suggested this may be the case.

“When the cell of a pig is used and its genetic material is utilized in the production of food, the cell, in fact, loses its original identity and therefore cannot be defined as forbidden for consumption,” Rabbi Cherlow said at a conference titled, “Science and Halacha” in 2018. “It wouldn’t even be meat, so you can consume it with dairy.”

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Yuval Cherlow came out with a number of shocking statements during Covid 19.

Like this:

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Snippet:

The sanctions proposed by Cherlow, who is a leading ethicist in Israel, would consist of keeping people from frequenting business establishments like retailers and public transportation. Businesses, he explained, should be allowed to ask customers for proof that they’ve been vaccinated, and public transport and flights have an ethical obligation to turn away those who haven’t been vaccinated.

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Maybe, we need to re-define the word ‘ethicist’.

Or at least, to understand that not all ‘ethicists’ with a rabbinic title are actually preaching ‘ethics’ that have any connection to what is good and true and moral.

HERE is his page on the ‘Elijah Interfath Institute’ website, who are hoping to build their massive interfaith centre in the heart of Meah Shearim, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.

Those who will understand, understood how all this is linked.

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So, it’s up to you if you want to believe ‘religious zionist’ rabbis who are telling you pigs are kosher.

Personally, I don’t.

At all.

And it’s up to you, if you want to believe fanatics from Meah Shearim who are telling you that nothing today is really kosher, including chickens.

The rabbis – the real rabbis – make the reality.

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But we can see how this dance of despair works, can’t we?

On the one hand, we have the ‘religious fanatics’ making the yoke of yiddishkeit so hard to bear, potentially, we all just feel like giving up on keeping kosher, because it’s too hard to do it properly, so what’s the point???

And on the other, we have the modernising ‘religious zionists’ who work for the Frankist-Freemason State of Israel telling us that pigs are now kosher.

There is nothing new under the sun.

And as different as they look, and pretend to be, they are actually just both working for the same boss, trying to pull Jews away from the Torah and God, and our true Tzaddikim.

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A lot of pieces of this puzzle are really starting to come together.

BH, when I put the stuff together about who has been pushing ‘heliocentrism’ in the Jewish community  – for millenia! – I think the penny will start to fall big time, for a lot of us, that everything we’ve been covering here on the blog is connected, in some profound ways.

And that those hellenising Sadduccess never went away, never stopped attacking ‘the perushim’, and never stopped trying to force Am Yisrael to ‘modernise’ and assimilate, in a million different ways.

Both by joining forces with our enemies without, and by trying to subvert our ‘Holy of Holies’ from within.

There is nothing new under the sun.

More on that soon, BH.

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You might also like this article:

It’s a really funny time right now, isn’t it?

Not funny haha, funny weird.

I’m seeing that many people, including yours truly, are not really in such a talking mood at the moment.

And I know a lot of people are ‘under the weather’ at the moment (when they aren’t dropping dead of heart-attacks aged 24 because they tackled someone ‘too hard’ in a professional American football game. Yah right… name one other occasion when that ever happened. There has to be at least one other occasion in the history of the AFL where someone got a ‘heart attack’ from tackling too hard. Doesn’t there?)

So much uncertainty, so much doubt, so much to worry about….

(If you  have your eyes open. If you don’t – then so many more anti-depressant pills to buy, and anti-anxiety medication to source, and mental health facilities to check out for when the dam finally bursts and you go totally cuckoo.)

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In the meantime – I am doing my darndest to actually stay upbeat and happy here!

Because life is still so good!

It’s still so good!

I don’t live on the pavement, I can breathe, I can walk around, I have people around me I love and who (hopefully…) love me, I love nearly all the things I spend my time doing.

Whatever circumstance I find myself in, whatever is going on in my life, I can ALWAYS chose to use those circumstances to get closer to God and to make some real teshuva.

Or the opposite, God forbid.

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But you know what?

So much of what takes the ‘blahs’ away, at least for me and my family, revolves around doing things like saying Tikkun HaKlalis, trying to get to the Rav frequently to join in with the prayers and jump up and down and clap for an hour, and doing an hour of hitbodedut and making a HUGE effort to actually follow the practical advice of Rebbe Nachman, and of Rav Eliezer Berland.

If I feel down – I do some hitbodedut to find out what’s troubling me, I dance for half an hour to things like this:

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I try to make some real teshuva, I stop listening to the evil propaganda news, I stop reading the evil propaganda news sites, I look to see how I can improve things in my own dalet amot, instead of hanging on every word and interview from deeply compromised puppet-politicians.

And did I mention, I also read a lot of Tikkun Haklalis and sometimes pay some pidyonot too?

This, very simply, is what I’m doing to get through all this ‘weird’ and ‘heavy’ in relatively happy shape, without driving myself or my family totally nuts with doom-or-gloom scenarios, but also without going so deep in denial I lose all connection with the current reality.

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When things work, I like to share them with you, dear reader, so here’s something else I recently discovered that works really well, to kind of ‘sonic clean’ so much of the stress and depression vibes out of the house:

It’s the Rav, reciting the 10 Psalms of the Tikkun Haklali, or general remedy, as set out by Rebbe Nachman.

You can get the audio HERE, (it’s a Dropbox link).

I have it on CD, and I have literally started playing it for three times a day, to ‘sonic clean’ the house from all the miserable, ‘down’, worry tumah vibes floating around.

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A word of caution: this doesn’t sound ‘melodious’.

The first few times I listened to it, it was actually pretty jarring.

Now I’ve done a lot more work with my tuning forks, I can see that dafka, it’s the tones that sometimes sound a little uncomfortable to us that are actually doing some of the deepest ‘cleaning’ work, so if you can, persevere.

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So many people are feeling like life is totally pointless at the moment.

What’s the point of carrying on, when it’s all just going to hell in a hand basket….

Right?

NOPE!!!!

Totally wrong.

There is still absolutely everything to pray for, and THERE IS NO YEOUSH IN THE WORLD.

Whatever God decides to do, going forward, that’s totally up to Him.

But in the meantime, don’t lose sight of the fact that EVERY LITTLE THING YOU DO IS MEANINGFUL.

Both for the good, and for the bad, God forbid.

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Even the smallest hirhur of teshuva – do you know what a massive difference that is making, not least to your own soul and connection to Hashem?

Even the smallest effort, to stop complaining and to see the good, in the middle of the darkest circumstances – do you know what a huge difference that is really making, at least to your own frame of mind and mood?

Do you understand that Hashem stops everything, just to listen to those two words of heartfelt prayer that you are struggling to get out?

That when you make that enormous effort to stop wasting your life watching Netflicks, it starts tipping the whole balance in the world more to the side of ‘good’?

Then when you say a kind word to your spouse you are rectifying all 1o of the sefirot?

That spending half an hour reading a story to your child, or kicking a ball around, or baking some cookies with them, is literally building a whole world?

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I know it’s hard to keep hanging on to God, and to emuna, even though it all seems so crazy and pointless at the moment, but really, what other choice do we have?

If we don’t do that – it’s game over already.

At least for us.

At least, in all the ways that really count.

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Tachlis, the best advice I can give right now for staying upbeat and not getting submerged in all the ‘yeoush’ sloshing around all over the place is this:

  • Get off social media as much as possible – it’s totally infested with negative people who just suck you dry, emotionally, and videos and video ‘shorts’ that waste all your time and energy on total narishkeit.
  • Stop wasting your time on propaganda news sites – of course that’s the MSM, but also so many of the alternative news sites are also causing a lot of yeoush at the moment, with their doom-and-gloom scenarios that give zero credence to the power of prayer and teshuva to turn everything around. We’re with the true tzaddikim – the Moshe Rabbenu of our generation – we don’t have to worry about the 10 plagues smashing down all over the place, as long as we stick with the True Tzaddikim, and keep following their advice.
  • As soon as you start to feel ‘yucky’ or downtake action! Play the Rav’s Tikkun Haklali, dance to some Breslov trance (or anything else that uplifts you), say a Tikkun Haklali, or three, go to a holy site and do some praying there, sit quietly and talk to God….
  • Don’t listen to anyone who is telling you the situation is terminal – whatever ‘the situation’ happens to be. King David teaches us that even if there is a sharp sword at our necks, we should still cry out to Hashem to save us.
  • Do things that make you happy, calm and ‘filled up’. Have a nice bath. Go for a walk. Find a pencil and sketch something. Make a nice supper…. None of this needs to cost a lot of money – and usually, the stuff you do for free, or the ‘mundane’ stuff is where it’s really at.
  • Understand there are no guarantees that we get ‘another day’ after this one. So make the very most of every minute you have, to live the life you want to life, to do the things you want to do, to make the changes, the teshuva, you are yearning to do, to make people with the people you need to.
  • Accept we aren’t in control. So, make your best effort – and then leave the rest, happily, to God.
  • Be kind to yourself. Yah, we’re all eating ‘franken-chicken’, still addicted to Instagram shorts, worrying way too much about ‘what happens next’, and all the rest of it.

But really?

We just want to serve Hashem.

We are mostly just yearning, with everything we’ve got, to serve Hashem, even though sometimes it’s seems almost impossible to do that.

And God knows that!

====

The last thing I wanted to mention, is that while this current situation feels kind of like ‘the worst it’s ever been in the history of mankind’ – it’s really not.

I am coming to the conclusion that the forces of evil go all out trying to ‘reset’ the world every century.

And each time, despite all the havoc and destruction they cause, they never manage to really do what they are planning.

It’s literally the Matrix, where it just keeps getting to this crescendo point again and again and again – but then, the evil is stopped in its tracks.

That is going to happen this time, too.

Sure, a bunch of difficult things may happen along the way, but so much of that really is down to us and our own teshuva process, and efforts to have emuna.

Ultimately, this is God’s world, and He is running it in whichever way He sees fit.

Our job is to do our best to stop complaining, to work on our emuna – and to follow the advice of our True Tzaddikim, so we can actually enjoy ourselves as much as possible, and get to the finishing line hopefully in one piece.

Even if that ‘finishing line’ is just our own, as opposed to ‘global geula’.

====

So, courage, dear readers.

Remember that Jews are above nature, and that there is a ‘Moshe Rabbenu’ in every generation, just waiting to take us out of exile while all the evil gets totally smashed to pieces around us.

So, we are not going to let the buggers get us down!

With God’s help.

====

 

It’s amazing how much real Jewish history I’m learning from translating some of Rav Berland’s old classes.

Before we dive in, I just want to state up front that I am trying, very much, to adopt a more ‘neutral’ approach with this information.

That means that I will share all the information I’m coming across with you, but with the caveat that we should assume wherever feasible and not ridiculous, that people are making teshuva all the time.

Also, just to restate the obvious, that just being in the same family tree as a bunch of Sabbatean-Frankists, Roman Emperors and George Soros doesn’t automatically make someone ‘bad’. It all comes down to each person’s individual actions and free will. As always.

And with that, let’s begin.

====

First, there’s the stuff I was in the middle of translating for the Rav, about shalom bayit, when all of a sudden he digressed to the topic of who came up with the idea of creating a ‘Jewish State’ in modern times.

Here’s what he said:

Chareidim built the State of Israel

Yavniel was built by the chareidim.

Afterwards, there was a centre of the Palmach there, and also in Rosh Pinna and Petah Tikva. All of these places were built by the charedim. The idea of having a Jewish State didn’t belong to Herzl at all, this was all happening a long time before.

Already between the years of 5580 and 5760 (1820-1840) they were talking about this.

==

The voice in the desert

There was Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher, and Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Kalisher, and Rabbi Yehuda Alkali, who were great geniuses, and who said that we had to ascend to Eretz Yisrael.

It was like a kol koreh b’midbar, a proclamation from the midst of the desert, but we didn’t merit it for the chareidim to ascend to the land.

And then there was in 5630 (1870) Rabbi Akiva Yosef Shlesinger and Rabbi Hillel Kolomeyer, who ascended to the land already in 5630. Rabbi Akiva Yosef built Petah Tikva. Afterwards, it was destroyed by a flood that came up from the Yarkon.

There was malaria there, and people died from it, and only a few people remained. So they said that it looked like Hashem didn’t want it to happen. Afterwards, another person came along called Yehoshua Shtumpfer, who rebuilt Petah Tikva anew, and the main road there is called by his name.

Rothschild was also busy building up the land of Israel. Amongst other things, he built Metulla. They asked him: Why are you building in a place that that?! He replied that he knew they were going to create a Jewish State, and that the border was going to be there.

And so it was.

==

Long before Herzl

It was only after the Dreyfus affair, that happened in 1894, and when Herzl saw all of the hatred towards the Jews, that he started promoting the idea of a Jewish State, in 1896, a year after the Dreyfus affair.

The whole story with Dreyfus happened after France lost the war. So they slandered Dreyfus that he had sent a letter to an enemy country. They forged a letter and then libelled him, that he was a spy.

But the whole idea had been widespread a long time before this. They were talking about a Jewish state, and they even said that Rabbi Nachman of Tulchin would be the Finance Minister. They were talking about a state, and they were already distributing the positions. But we didn’t have the merit that this would come about via the chareidim.

After the Balfour Declaration, the Ohr Sameach said that those who were scared of the ‘three oaths’ that Hashem swore about knesset Israel (abjuring the ingathering of the Jewish people, back to the land of Israel by force) – that now there was no problem.

Because now, it was being done with the agreement of the nations. The biggest countries in the world agreed with the Balfour Declaration.

====

There is always so much to unpack, in even the Rav’s most ‘throwaway’ comments.

So, I’d never really heard of most of these people, excepting R’ Tzvi Hirsh Kalisher, so I started looking them up, to see what I could learn about these chareidi ‘Hungarian Halutzim’.

In the middle of doing all that, one of the commentators, Simon, posted something up about how billionaire Hungarian financier George Soros is also related to the Chatam Sofer, indirectly, on the bottom of THIS post about Roman Emperors and Welsh Royalty.

I took a quick look – and that’s when I saw the same names I’d literally just typed up when I was doing the translation for the Rav.

====

Long story short, this is Akiva Eiger’s tree, that has been repeatedly tied to known Sabbatean-Frankists.

(Now, remember the caveat above, that just appearing in this tree doesn’t mean someone is a Sabbatean-Frankist, but it does tell us that these people were growing up in families that were deeply compromised, in terms of their religious beliefs and teachings. But of course, it was still open to each person to change course, and make teshuva – as so many baal teshuvas in our days have also done.)

So, George Soros’ g-grandma was one Jittel Raizel Schlesinger, who descends from R’ Akiva Eger the Elder, amongst many others.

Her brother, or half-brother is one Tzvi Dov Schlesinger – and he is the father of the ‘Divrei Yehiel’, who in turn was the father of Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, one of the main people the Rav spoke about as being ‘chareidi halutzim’ of Eretz Yisrael.

====

So, I took a closer look.

These snippets come from YIVO, here.

(1837–1922), pioneer of ultra-Orthodoxy, early Jewish nationalist, and Yiddishist.

Akiva Yosef Schlesinger’s father, Yeḥi’el (1814–1891), a close disciple of Rabbi Mosheh Sofer, was a minor rabbinical functionary in his hometown of Pressburg.

After attending the yeshiva of Avraham Shemu’el Binyamin Sofer in Pressburg, Schlesinger studied briefly with Ḥayim Sofer and Mosheh Schick.

He then went to Leipnik in Moravia to the yeshiva of Shelomoh Quetsch (1798–1856).

This was an interesting choice, as yeshivas in Moravia had a reputation for openness to general culture that was rare in Hungary. Schlesinger would later write that at this stage in his life he seriously considered the path of modern Orthodoxy, and that the experience granted him insight into the mindset of those tempted to succumb to its temptations….

==

[I]n 1860 he married Liba (1842–1917), the daughter of Hillel Lichtenstein, who was then serving as rabbi of the small community of Margareten in eastern Hungary.

When Lichtenstein became a widower, he then married Schlesinger’s younger sister Fradel, at his son-in-law’s urging. Until the Schlesinger family moved to the Land of Israel in 1870, the two couples lived together.

====

This ‘Hillel Lichtenstein’ is the same as the ‘Hillel of Kolomiya,’ referenced by the Rav in the piece I translated.

Already by the third par of this YIVO piece, I was getting that niggling feeling that something is a bit off here….

Let’s continue quoting from the YIVO piece:

At a time when Hungarian Orthodoxy was entering a period of deep crisis, the two men, along with Ḥayim Sofer, were close ideological collaborators, laying the foundations of ultra-Orthodoxy.

====

You can read more about Hayim Sofer HERE.

YIVO tells us that he was not a relative of Moshe Sofer, the Chatam Sofer, despite being very close to him and learning in his yeshiva. You can see his family tree HERE, and there’s quite a few strange things that seem to me something is being covered up there. (‘Nathan Ashkenazi’ happens to also be the name of ‘Nathan of Gaza’, Shabtai Tzvi’s main prophet who was raised in Eretz Yisrael.)

Over on the Jewish Encyclopaedia, we learn a bit more about where else Hayim Sofer learned:

He studied at Presburg and at Ungvar, where he attended the celebrated yeshibot of Ḥatam Sofer and Meïr Ash (Meïr Eisenstädter).

For now, let’s can that side of things, and go back to Akiva Yosef Schlesinger and Hillel Lichtenstein of Kolomiya.

====

More from YIVO:

Schlesinger argued passionately for the need to safeguard the most basic markers Jewish of identity and culture such as namelanguage, and dress. The acronym of the three words shem, lashon, and malbush—shalem—encapsulated for him the ideal of the complete Jew, the “Hebrew” possessed of staunch integrity.

In this way, he redefined the battlefront of the culture war. In its metaphorical trenches, no longer did the Orthodox face a Neolog (Reform) foe, but rather the lines of confrontation were drawn between the authentic Orthodox and the enemy within, the counterfeit Jews, the modern Orthodox.

====

In 1870, Schlesinger moved to Jerusalem, and he started fighting against a lot of the corrupt organisations here in the Holy Land:

The ḥalukah system, distributing charity from abroad, controlled by corrupt overseers, the memunim, could not provide a satisfactory economic solution to the rising tide of immigration from Eastern Europe. Many of the kolels sought to discourage immigration by denying the ḥalukah during the initial years of stay in Palestine.

To Schlesinger’s mind this state of affairs was not only criminally unjust and economically disastrous, but it also ran counter to his messianic expectations.

He had by this time fully internalized Tsevi Hirsh Kalischer’s activist messianism, which called for the restoration of Jews to the Holy Land and the creation of agricultural settlements as a means of both fulfilling religious commandments and solving pressing economic problems.

In 1873, he wrote a pamphlet setting out his vision of:

[A]n Orthodox utopia with many elements of a modern Jewish nation-state—Hebrew language, Jewish attire, a flag, a militia, an elected assembly—that would best secure traditional Jewish culture. Yet nowhere in the pamphlet was there an outright call for a Jewish state.

That came a year later, in a letter to Moses Montefiore, in which Schlesinger made explicit his goal to establish a Jewish state, albeit under Ottoman suzerainty, in Palestine.

====

Just stop for a moment, and understand what we’re dealing with here.

This is one of the main guys behind the whole ‘ultra orthodox’ insistence on Yiddish, no secular education, retaining the black and white clothing of 250 years ago, ‘no changes to anything’ – agitating to create a Jewish State in the land of Israel, that speaks Hebrew, has an elected parliament of some sort – and an army.

This is mind-boggling.

====

Ultimately, it didn’t happen.

Schlesinger was running an ongoing war against his arch-enemy, ‘modern orthodox Trojan horse’, Ezriel Hildesheimer, and a bunch of other secular Frankists, too, plus the existing corrupt overseers of the ‘haluka’ charity system then in place supporting the orthodox communites of Israel.

(Notice: there is nothing new under the sun. Also remember, most of those ‘established’ orthodox communities in Israel had actually been built and maintained by Sabbateans who flocked here to await ‘the second coming’ of Shabtai Tzvi, in 1700.)

Schlesinger was over-stretching. Here’s what happened next:

In 1875, disaster struck. Schlesinger published a work, Bet Yosef ḥadash, that went beyond all previous vilifications of acculturation and reform, but also contained a sensational proposal to suspend, in Palestine, Rabenu Gershom’s ban on marriage to two wives…

His book was banned and publicly consigned to the flames, his reputation destroyed overnight. Though his life was threatened, he refused to heed calls that he return to Hungary.

====

Well!

The weirdness continues.

So after that, Schlesinger put all of his energies into trying to buy land for agricultural colonies in Eretz Yisrael.

He convinced his father-in-law [Hillel Lichtenstein] to help raise money, and the first Jewish agricultural settlement, Petaḥ Tikvah, was purchased in 1878 in no small part with these funds.

====

Now, let’s take a closer look at Hillel Lichtenstein of Kolomiya.

Remember, he put up a lot of the money to buy the agricultural colony of Petah Tikva, in the land of Israel, in tandem with his son-in-law and brother-in-law, Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, above, who had published a widely known work calling for a Jewish state in Israel.

So, read this snippet from an Arutz 7 news story from 2015, when Hillel of Kolomiya’s grave in the Ukraine was repeatedly vandalised, and spot the inconsistencies yourself:

Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein was the outspoken leader of the ultra-Orthodox in Hungary. He was an ardent admirer of the Hasidim and made pilgrimages to the  Rebbe of Sanz, the Divrei Chaim.

Rabbi Lichtenstein was a preacher and a popular writer who denounced not only secular education, but even the playing of musical instruments and social games like chess and checkers.

He was an opponent also of all agitation for the political emancipation of the Jews, saying that it is the duty of the Jews to suffer the tribulations of the Exile until God finds them ready for Messianic redemption.

====

Except…. that’s not true.

At least, his actions in real life were not at all matching these words ascribed to him, above.

So, what is really going on here?

Let’s see if we can shed some more light on this.

(In another strange thing, take a look at THIS article, describing how Hillel of Kolomiya and Akiva Yosef Schlesinger came into possession of the ‘Holy Sword of Hungarian Jewry’, dated to the 15th century. This tale is getting stranger and stranger.)

====

Here’s some snippets from YIVO, here:

Lichtenstein gloried in his distinguished rabbinic lineage: he was a descendant of both Mordekhai Yafeh and Yesha‘yahu Horowitz (known as Shlah)….

He married Rezi Kolman, the daughter of a wealthy man in nearby Galanta. Supported by his in-laws for five years, he opened a yeshiva in Galanta that became famous for the piety of its students. He also taught householders and poor workers, anticipating his future publications geared toward the lay public….

He would travel about the countryside, his fire-and-brimstone jeremiads arousing great religious passion among the common people, especially attracting female audiences. In Margareten, he also encountered Hasidism at close quarters and came to view it with great sympathy.

As his own reputation as a holy man grew, Lichtenstein adopted some of the trappings of a Hasidic rebbe. In time, his amulets were sought from as far away as Baghdad.

====

Well, the weird bell is starting to ding off pretty loudly again.

But in the meantime, here’s the real kicker:

 He insisted that Jews not be tempted by emancipation, but rather retain their status as tolerated aliens.

Their fatherland was not Hungary, he claimed, but Palestine.

Smart readers will already have spotted the problem: this is diametrically opposed to what was said above, i.e. “it is the duty of the Jews to suffer the tribulations of the Exile until God finds them ready for Messianic redemption.”

====

More from YIVO:

Lichtenstein was the architect of the ultra-Orthodox manifesto, the famous nine-point pesak din of Michalowitz issued by 24 rabbis from northeastern Hungarian communities in the autumn of 1865…Not only neo-Orthodox rabbis, but almost all the leading mainstream Orthodox authorities in Hungary as well were scandalized by what they viewed as the pesak din’s distortion of halakhah, and refused to join the signatories….

==

…He is probably the only Hungarian rabbi to have had several passages of his work (in Jüdisch-Deutsch!) read into the [Hungarian] parliamentary minutes.

One member of parliament interpolated with sarcasm that Lichtenstein’s views denying that Hungary could be a Jew’s fatherland and his denunciation of assimilation seemed to be in full accord with the antisemite Gyözö Istóczy’s plan to have Hungary’s Jews immigrate to Palestine….

====

Remember, this is a good 70 years before Hitler rose to power, and basically started saying the same thing as Gyozo Istoczy.

And clearly, Lichtenstein must have said Hungary could never be a Jew’s real homeland, because it was actually recorded in the Hungarian Parliament’s minutes.

But it seems that the plan to create a Jewish state in Israel only started to solidify a little later:

As late as 1863, Lichtenstein wrote that he preferred militant activism in the Diaspora to a life of learning in the Holy Land, but he later came to espouse the active messianism preached by Tsevi Hirsh Kalischer.

We’ll get to Tzvi Hirsh Kalischer in a minute.

Before we do, let’s just find out who helped Lichtenstein buy Petah Tikva, and then what actually happened to that Hungarian-ultra-orthodox-owned agricultural settlement:

[I]n 1876, [Lichtenstein] wrote a letter endorsing the Society for the Settlement of the Holy Land (behind which stood his son-in-law), wherein he expressed the view that such activities marked the first stage of the messianic era.

He was induced by Schlesinger to raise money (mainly from the Frankfurt Rothschilds) to buy land in Palestine.

The purchase of Petaḥ Tikvah, the first Jewish agricultural settlement in modern times, was funded substantially by Lichtenstein in 1878.

However, he soon came under enormous pressure and was threatened with blackmail by the Hungarian kolel in Jerusalem, which viewed the entire project askance as siphoning off funds that by rights belonged to them.

He was compelled to yield his shares to the kolel, which promptly sold them off.

====

So.

One of the main ‘planks’ used to support the view that Jews should just stay in the diaspora and wait for God to bring them to the Holy Land…. didn’t actually hold by that.

(Take a look at THIS piece on the ‘TrueTorahJews’ anti-aliya website, to see how Hillel Lichtenstein’s words are being routinely twisted.)

But in fact, he himself bought land in Eretz Yisrael for agricultural settlement, way before ‘the secular Zionists’ even existed as a movement, and he wrote a  letter in 1876 where he publically said about buying and settling land in Israel:

“[M]arked the first stage of the messianic era.”

====

This is astounding!

So, how did we get from there, to where we are today?

First, let’s just do some housekeeping.

The Frankfurt Rothschild who probably put the money up for Lichtenstein to buy ‘Petah Tikva’ was almost certainly Wilhelm Carl Von Rothschild.

Snippet from Wiki:

In 1855 von Rothschild became joint head with his brother Mayer Karl of the Frankfurt house. When his brother died in 1886, he became sole head. As he and his brother left no male heirs, the Frankfurt house was discontinued at his death.

Von Rothschild, who was religious his entire life, was eulogized by Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim at the Yeshivas Knesses Beis Yitzchak-Kaminetz in Kaunas as הצדיק השר הטפסר (the righteous, the nobleman, the aristocracy)

====

Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, aka the ADERET was the father-in-law of R’ Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first ‘chief rabbi’ appointed by the secular zionists.

Rav Kook famously had an ongoing dispute with R’ Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, co-founder of the Edah HaCharedit in Jerusalem.

R’ Sonnenfeld was apparently one of the people who put the pressure on Hillel Liechtenstein to ‘donate’ his shares in the Petah Tikva agricultural colony to his kollel – which were then sold.

Also this from Wikipedia:

Sonnenfeld was a student of Rabbi Samuel Benjamin Sofer (the Ksav Sofer), the son of Rabbi Moses Sofer (the Chasam Sofer).

====

You can see the geni tree for R’ Sonnenfeld HERE.

It bears all the hallmarks of having being deliberately truncated. If you look closely, you’ll see that his mother was one ‘Zelda Rosalia Deutch’, whose father was a ‘Rabbi Aharon Deutch’ who appears to be floating in space. But when you look for possible fits for this ‘Rabbi Aharon Deutch’, you get to THIS tree, and this person:

Chief Rabbi Aaron David Deutsch or Aharon David Deutsch (also known as Rabbi David Prag) z’tl was born in 1812, in Raudnitz, Bohemia (today Roudnice nad Labem, Czech Republic) – died at Balassagyarmat, on 26, April 1878….

He received his early education under his grandfather, Joseph Emanuel ben Menachem Deutsch, who was district rabbi (Bezirksrabbiner) in Raudnitz, and then frequented the yeshivot of Prague and Pozsony (Pressburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia) being one of the favored disciples of the famous Moses Schreiber (the “Chatam Sofer”).

====

He fits the time, he fits the place, he fits the circumstances, to be R’ Sonnenfeld’s actual maternal grandfather.

It’s highly unlikely that anyone could have risen to be the head of the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Jerusalem, without being a full-blooded member of ‘the cabal’.

Again, remember the caveat that it’s not the yichus that makes the difference, it’s the person’s own actions, for good and bad.

But also understand, so much of the story we’ve been told about what happened before the founding of the secular State of Israel is a lie.

====

Meanwhile, Carl Wilhelm von Rothschild’s daughter Adelheid married her cousin, one Edmund James de Rothschild.

And he is the guy who went around buying up loads of bits of Eretz Yisrael, and whose money and land holdings basically launched ‘secular’ Zionism and the secular State of Israel:

He became a leading proponent of the Zionist movement, financing the first site at Rishon LeZion.

In his goal for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, he promoted industrialization and economic development. In 1924, he established the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which acquired more than 125,000 acres (50,586 ha) of land and set up business ventures.

====

Are you starting to see that the ‘problem’ with the idea of settling Eretz Yisrael was not so much a religious one, as has been portrayed by so many ‘ultra-orthodox’ leaders in the diaspora, but  more a political issue over who got to control the country and the money and the land?

This has massive implications for the whole subject of making aliya today.

I’m not going to go into that here, but let’s see if we can just pin down a little bit more of this.

====

HERE is what YIVO has to say about Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, the person whose ‘messianic’ vision for a Jewish State in Israel apparently inspired all these ultra-orthodox Hungarian halutzim:

(1795–1874), rabbi and the most prominent “harbinger of Zionism.” Tsevi Hirsh Kalischer was born in Leszno (Lissa) in western Poland. He was a disciple of Ya‘akov Lorbeerbaum of Lissa and of Akiva Eger.

==

There is a TON  of weirdness around the family tree of Ya’akov Lorbeerbaum, a great-grandchild of the Chacham Tzvi.

And Akiva Eger’s tree we’ve already ascertained contains hordes of known Sabbatean-Frankists.

====

Kalischer was a leader of the Jewish Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land, founded by Ḥayim Lorje of Frankfurt am Oder (1860), which was the first group to propagate the idea of renewing settlement in the Land of Israel….

Kalischer remained in close contact with contemporary Jewish leaders, both rabbinic and lay.

He corresponded with Moses Montefiore, Anschel Rothschild, and Albert Cohen; with rabbis in Germany (Esriel Hildesheimer, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Seligmann Baer Bamberger); with rabbis and public figures in Russia (Yitsḥak Elḥanan Spektor, David Friedmann, Yehoshu‘a Heshel Levin, and Eliyahu Krotinger), and with Rabbi Me’ir Auerbach in Jerusalem.

He had a hand in every initiative connected to the Land of Israel, whether sponsored by the Alliance Israélite Universelle (in Paris), the Jewish Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land (in Germany), or the Dorshe Tsiyon vi-Yerushalayim society (in Grodno).

In particular, he gave his support to the mission to various Jewish communities of Hungarian Rabbi Yosef Natonek on behalf of the Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land.

====

When I was looking at the YIVO entry for Yosef Natonek, the man entrusted by Tzvi Hirsh Kalischer to raise and distribute most of the funds via the ‘Company for the Settlement of the Holy Land’, a very strange paragraph caught my eye:

Natonek’s most important work…’Messiah, or Discourse on Jewish Emancipation: A Study Equally Pleasing to Jew and Christian; 1861′, was published in Hungarian under the pseudonym Ábir Amiéli, “an Orthodox Jew” (igazhitü izraelita). The pseudonym, as he explains (p. 30), hints at the restoration of national independence (‘ami) that the spirit of Talmudic Judaism (el) is meant to direct to…

In Mesiás, he presents himself as a liberal Orthodox Jew who nevertheless would not permit his religious zeal to overshadow his humanity, nor his liberalism “to swallow up my Israelite nationality.”

His wide-ranging critique of Jewish society and religious indifference includes a harsh condemnation of both the Orthodox and their opponents, focusing upon their purposeful abandonment of hope for “the restoration of Israel’s national independence in Palestine.”

He concludes his essay with puzzling Christological references to a separate work wherein he claims to have demonstrated that the Talmud considered Jesus the genuine Messiah and that according to Talmudic reckoning the Messianic era was imminent in the second half of the nineteenth century.

====

In other words…. Natonek was a Jew-for-Jesus.

As always, each post on this subject takes our knowledge a huge jump forward…. but also leaves us with a lot more questions to ask, and a lot more research to do.

But I have the feeling this was a very important post, especially in light of what we’ve discovered about what was actually going on in the land of Israel, and with the idea of ‘aliya’, even before the modern secular Zionist movement began.

Lots and lots to think about…

And lots and lots still more to research and uncover.

====

You might also like this article:

There seems to be a pretty ‘down’ vibe beat floating around at the moment.

2023 is beginning with the same stupid crud about ‘covid variants’ that 2020 began with – three frigging years ago!!!

Can you believe that?

We’ve been sitting here, being lied to about covid plandemics for three whole years already….

So enough, already!

====

Last year around this time, I had a very strong lesson in why there really is no yeoush (despair) in the world.

It was when the State of Israel was trying to pin a murder on the Rav that had nothing to do with him – and everything to do with the people who are actually working for the State of Israel, to keep pulling the Rav down.

But for a few weeks, it really looked as though his opponents were going to pull it off, and that the Rav would end up in prison for the rest of his life, God forbid.

God forbid for a lot of reasons, but not least, because whatever happens to the Rav kind of ‘happens’ to the rest of us, too.

====

Rav Berland got arrested, violently, precisely a week before the State of Israel ramped up into full ‘plandemic’ mode, and locked us all down in involuntary house arrest for months.

So, December of 2021, things were looking really, really bleak.

I had that feeling that things were never going to turn around, that the Rav was going to be kept in prison forever – and that bad would just win, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

And then.

A miracle happened.

====

I had been working on trying to get ‘One in a Generation Volume 2’ translated into Hebrew for about two years.

You would not believe the miniot (obstacles) that was going on with that book.

I had two different translators, because the first one was so bad. The second one was very good – but caught ‘Covid’ and was taken out for months.

Then, there were all these technical changes required, which were almost impossible to make, so I kind of edited the Hebrew version of the book by ‘guessing’, based on the English version, where the stuff was that needed to come out.

Then I couldn’t get the punctuation to work in the Hebrew fonts.

Then, the book designer for the Hebrew text ended up costing a huge fortune.

On and on and on it went, and I gave up about fifty times, at least.

====

But, the person who had paid for the translations kept on nagging me to finish the job….(even though at that point, the Rav was now facing trumped-up murder charges, so I was sitting here thinking no-one is ever going to read this book anyway….)

And then, I had the totally crazy idea that somehow, getting that book out in Hebrew was connected to the Rav getting out of prison.

Lots of weird things have happened around the publication dates of all the ‘One in a Generation’ books, so it wasn’t totally without precedent.

But still, while I was actually working on finishing the book, I was in the very depth of despair, and the idea that the Rav was getting out of prison ever seemed totally ridiculous.

And then – a miracle happened.

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The same day that I picked up 1,000 copies of the Hebrew One in a Generation in Bnei Brak, which I took straight to the hiloula celebration for Rav Natan that was happening next to the Rav’s prison in Ramla, we got the news that the Rav was being released from prison.

It was a totally stunning, totally unexpected turnaround.

And it happened in the blink of an eye.

And it taught me a very powerful lesson that there is no despair in the world, and that open miracles can and do happen!

Even in our days.

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That was a year ago, tonight.

And tonight, Shuvu Banim is celebrating Rav Natan of Breslov’s hiloula, and the miraculous release of the Rav from prison.

You can read more of the details of tonight’s event HERE on the Rav Berland site, below I’m cutting and pasting:

Schedule of events:

7:00 pm — Maariv prayer on the night of the Hilulah in the courtyard of our Prayer Hall on Rechov Ido HaNavi together with our Rebbe Rav Eliezer Berland shlit”a

8:30 pm — Netilat Yadaim for the Yahrzeit meal combined with the Seudat Hodaya

9:30 pm — The main event with Rav Berland shlit”a

Women’s section on site

Entrance is free

By instructions of the Rabbis of the community, the public is requested to donate for the considerable expenses of United Hasidei Breslov Shuvu Banim a minimum of 50 NIS per person. But certainly the more one donates to offset expenses of tens of thousands shekels the more merit they receive. It’s possible to donate by direct donation, or at the stands at the Hilulah, or by way of the Breslov information line — *9148

Exact details about the location of the events hall will be announced tomorrow (Monday) on the Breslov Information line *9148, and on the English hotline 02-301-1995.e

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The hiloula is happening in Talpiyot Jerusalem, and if you are local – come and join it!

And if you’re not, please consider supporting the event by donating to it (details above).

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On the eve of the Fast of Tevet, we know that the darkness is very dark at the moment.

So many of us are feeling it.

But – just when we can’t take a second more of the darkness, that’s when dawn breaks.

I saw that with my own eyes exactly this time last year.

And BH, more and more of us will see it this year…

The light, the hope, is by the true tzaddikim.

The more you get with them, in whichever way you can, the easier all this becomes.

I keep repeating this, because it’s true.

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There is no yeoush in the world!

Not even the cr*ppy world we currently find ourselves living in, in 2023.

And God’s salvation happens in the blink of an eye.

Just sometimes, we have to hang on one more day, for the miracles to start manifesting.

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PS: A reader just sent me some more links on the RavBerland.com site, related to Rav Natan’s hiloula.

Enjoy!

In honor of the hilula of Reb Nosson bH!

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