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The Vilna Gaon and Moshiach

The Vilna Gaon was really into the Moshiach and calculations of ‘End Times’.

There’s a book exchange station next to the bike path in the German Colony, and because it’s arguably the most Anglo neighborhood in Jerusalem, I often find some really good stuff there. Last week, I picked up a book called: The Gaon of Vilna and His Messianic Vision, by an observant Israeli academic called Arie Morgenstern. I have to tell you, it’s one of the most interesting books that I’ve read in a very long time.

I learned so many things that I didn’t know before, both about the Vilna Gaon himself, but also about the Chassidic community, the roots of the machloket between the mitnagdim and the chassidim, and also, how there was still a very strong yearning for Moshiach in the Ashkenazi world even after the Shabtai Tzvi false messiah disaster.

BUT – there was a huge clash of ideas about how best to bring the Moshiach and get to the end of days, which is basically what most of the book explores. BH, I want to explore what all that means for us today in the next article, but before I do, I first just wanted to share some of the more general interesting nuggets of information I picked up from the book.

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  • Why is there such a strong Armenian presence in Jerusalem?

Every time I drive or walk through the Old City, I skirt the Armenian quarter, and I find myself asking again:

WHY is there an Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem?!?!

It’s quite a small denomination, as xtian sects go, it’s not a world power, heck, Armenia doesn’t even neighbor Israel. So what’s going on here? Read on, to find out.

The Italian Jew Raphael Mordechai Malchi moved to Israel in 1673, and practiced medicine in Jerusalem until his death in 1702. He treated many of the residents of the Holy City, including non-Jews, and he recorded a conversation that he had with an Armenian priest, who explained why the Armenian church had built so many buildings in Jerusalem. Malchi wrote:

“He showed me some writings in Assyrian and Hebrew…and told me that on Mt Sinai, where a monastery stands today, they found a large tablet of lead in a cave, bearing Hebrew letters and these verses from Jeremiah.”

Ed. Note: This is Jeremiah’s prophecy of Messianic times, 30-35, that begins: For behold, days are coming – the word of Hashem – when I will return the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, said Hashem, and I will return them to the land that I gave their forefathers and they will possess it.

(It’s worth looking at these chapters in detail, which BH we will do in a separate post.)

What the Armenian priest told Dr Malchi is that after they ‘searched the whole world’ trying to figure out how to read it, “they discovered explicitly that at the end of day, the Semites will demand Jerusalem from all places around the world where they have been living.”

So the Armenians built monasteries in the holy city, arranged for a different patriarch to live in the city every year, and sent huge amounts of money to Jerusalem to ensure they had a strong toehold and a grip on the future seat of power. (And let’s be honest, probably also to try to put a dent in the ‘Semites’ plans to reclaim their country and usher in the time of Moshiach.)

Halavi, the Jews would take Jeremiah’s prophecies as seriously.

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  • Messianic fervor didn’t ‘disappear’ from the Jewish world after Shabtai Tzvi, the false messiah from Izmir who ended up converting to Islam.

I know that’s not obvious from our viewpoint of 2019, where the whole non-Chassidic, Ashkenazi Jewish world likes to pretend that after Shabtai Tzvi, everyone except Breslov and Lubavitch stopped even thinking about Moshiach, but as we’ll see in the next post, there was a big cover up going on at the end of the 18th century.

Shabtai Tzvi lived between August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676. While his ‘false messianic’ vision certainly did enormous harm to the Ashkenazi world, it seems the problem was more that he created a false – and fundamentally evil – new ‘religion’ called Sabbateanism, that continued after his death, than that he was talking about Moshiach and the geula.

Very soon after he disappeared from the scene, Jews from all different backgrounds continued to have ‘Moshiach fever’, and even to discuss specific dates for the end of days to begin, based on their understanding of allusions to this time in the Zohar.

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Most notably, there was a widespread movement of making aliya to Israel between the years 1740 and 1781.

This was based on kabbalistic calculations that 1740 marked the half-way point in the 6th millennia – and the time when the house of Yaakov would finally rise up against the house of Esav.

Here’s the quote from the Zohar that got all the kabbalists of that time so excited, based on Genesis 32:13-26, where Yaakov wrestles the angel of Esav until dawn:

“Until dawn.” For by then, [Esav’s] dominion has passed on. So it will be in the future. The current exile resembles night. It is night. And it’s dust dominates the Jews. They are hurled into the dust until the light ascends and illuminates the day. Then Israel will be dominant and the kingship will be given to them…

“…Israel’s deliverance will not be revealed in one stroke but rather like a dawn, which progresses and grows in light until true day appears.”

The kabbalists of that time, including one named Rabbi Shalom Buzaglo, estimated that the ‘time’ spoken of by the Prophet Daniel was 480 years long, as the gematria for hashahar (dawn) is 480. So when Daniel (in 7:25) speaks of ‘a time and times and half a time’, Rabbi Buzaglo worked out that this would be 1680 years after the second Temple was destroyed, which equated to the Hebrew year 5508 (1748 C.E.)

Ahead of that date, a whole bunch of big kabbalists, rabbis and other important communal figures from both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi world suddenly upped sticks, and moved to Eretz Yisrael, swelling the population of Jerusalem from just over 1000, to more than 5000 in five years.

Moshiach didn’t come then – but what did happen instead was that many members of the community started to die prematurely, including in a terrible plague, that killed hundreds of the Jews in Israel. The Ohr HaChaim died in Jerusalem in 1743, and the RaMCHaL succumbed to the plague in Acco, in May 1746.

The rabbis in Jerusalem responded to what they saw as this ‘Divine punishment’ by issuing ‘Moral Legislation’ in 1749, which forbade the wealthy new olim to the Holy Land from wearing their expensive clothes and jewelry in public. The Jerusalem rabbis also gave all the single men in the city an ultimatum to either get married, or leave town, to minimize the untznius behavior they were trailing in their wake.

In the meantime, the Moshiach didn’t come in 1748.

But what certainly did happen is that the ‘end of days’ process did begin in earnest at that point, after all, because so many people moved to the Holy Land at that time, more than at any other point in preceding 1600 years of exile.

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  1. The Baal Shem Tov ‘speaks to Moshiach’ in 1747, and discovers that geula depends on the Jews making teshuva, not on a fixed date

Very interestingly, while all this was going on, the Baal Shem Tov wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, Reb Gershon of Kutow, that his student Yaakov Yosef of Polonoye was meant to take to Israel to deliver, when he also made aliya ahead of 1748. The letter was never delivered, because Rabbi Y.Y. stayed home, after Moshiach didn’t show up then as hoped.

Instead, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef sat on this letter for over 35 years, only publishing it in his book Ben Porat Yosef in 1780. Why did he wait so long to publicise the letter? It seems that even amongst the Baal Shem Tov’s leading students, there was a strong belief that Moshiach had to be imminent. To put this a different way, it seems Rabbi Yaakov Yosef was hoping the Baal Shem Tov’s insight about the end of days, which he described to Reb Gershon, was wrong.

So what did the letter actually say?

In his missive, the BESHT described how his neshama had ascended to heaven on Rosh Hashana in 1747 – the year before ‘the end’ was meant to occur, according to the kabbalists – and had met the Moshiach, who was learning Torah with the Patriarchs, Tannaim and the Seven Shepherds.

This is a quote from the BESHT’s letter:

“I asked the Messiah when he would be coming. “This is how you will know,” he replied. “When your teachings become public and revealed to the world, and your wellsprings of my teachings, which you will have mastered, overflow to the outside, so that [others], too, will be able to perform mystical unifications and ascents of the soul like you. Then all the husks will be eradicated and a time of [Divine] desire and salvation will come.”

The Baal Shem Tov continues:

“[This reply] left me puzzled and severely troubled. Such a long time! When can it possibly come to pass?”

To phrase this another way, as Arie Morgenstern points out, this experience totally shifted the question of ‘when will the Moshiach come?’ out of the realm of ‘time’, and into the realm of ‘behavior’.

We’re back to that discussion in the Gemara, about whether the redemption depends on the Jewish people making teshuva, or is totally just a matter of ‘timing’. Rabbi Yehoshua said the latter, Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol said the former – and according to this letter from the BESHT, Rabbi Eliezer was right.

The Baal Shem Tov was explaining to Reb Gershon that the Moshiach is going to come, and the end of days is going to happen, only when the Jews start to really connect to God, and experience ‘ascents of the soul’, and to really learn and understand Torah on the deep level of chassidut.

And not a second before.

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That’s why the Baal Shem Tov was so troubled, because in order for the Jewish nation to reach that high spiritual level, so much had to change first.

And if he was thinking it was a tall order in his generation, what can we begin to say about ours?

In the meantime, the kabbalist’s date of 1748 came and went with no Moshiach, but Rabbi Yaakov Yosef only published the Baal Shem Tov’s letter in 1780, because at that stage, there was another date for imminent redemption being mooted: 1781.

And at that stage Rabbi Y.Y. wanted to pre-empt any more ‘Moshiach no-show letdown’ by publishing the BESHT’s letter, which described in detail how the rules of the game had actually changed.

And here’s where things get even more interesting.

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  1. Various groups of kabbalists keep trying to ‘force’ geula in various ways.

Back in 1753, a small group of Jerusalem kabbalists including Rabbi Shalom Sharabi (the Rashash), Rabbi Chaim de la Roza, and Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai (the Chida) formed a ‘secret society’ with the aim of trying to force Hashem to bring the geula that year.

The year 5313 spells ‘ha shahar’  – the dawn, and was also connected to the word ve-nivneta, talking about the rebuilding of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 30:18). There are four separate accounts of what these three kabbalists tried to do, but the long and short of it is that after weeks of lengthy preparations and self-mortifications, they tried to use different holy names to ‘force’ the coming of the Moshiach.

Suddenly, the three heard a voice from Heaven telling them to stop from their “brazen undertaking” before they totally unhinge the world, because they “wish to hasten something whose time has not yet come, as God has counseled.”

The voice then tells them:

“One of you will have to leave the holy city, for only the three of you together in unison can force the Messiah’s hand.”

The decree of exile seems to have fallen upon the Chida, who immediately left Jerusalem for unknown reasons on January 9, 1753 and stayed out of Israel for the next 5 years.

The three kabbalists were terrified at the sin they felt they had committed, by trying to go against God’s will to hasten the end, so much so that Rabbi de la Rosa asked his student to perform the four types of execution upon his body, after he died.

His students couldn’t bring themselves to do it – but Rabbi de la Rosa’s funeral procession was attacked by Arab bandits, and his body was thrown into a ravine. The Tzaddik’s decree was fulfilled, one way or another.

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  1. There was a wave of Chassidic aliya before 1781

So now, the next date that loomed into view for the ‘end of days’ was 1781. A well-known kabbalist by the name of Immanuel Hai Ricchi, from the previous generation, had calculated that the ‘in its time’ redemption would occur in May 1781, corresponding to the Hebrew year of 5541.

And historical events certainly seemed to be heading in that direction.

The vicious Haidamak pogroms began in 1768 (and saw 30,000 Jews murdered in Uman, alone), and then were was also an awful outbreak of bubonic plague in 1770 (!) which killed hundreds of thousands of the Jews in the pale of settlement.

This from HERE:

In Western Europe, the last outbreak of plague was in southern France between 1720 and 1722. Towns like Marseilles and Toulon were devastated. In Eastern Europe, Kiev in Ukraine suffered a severe outbreak in 1770. The last serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe was in Moscow in 1771.

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Then, Russia conquered Poland in 1772, and also some of the Turkish empire, too, in 1774 – and it really looked like ‘the End of Days’ was fast approaching.

Many leaders of the growing chassidut movement thought so, with some of chassidut’s biggest luminaries, including Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk, making aliya to Israel in 1777.

But the Chassidic aliya quickly ran into severe problems, mostly of the financial kind, so when the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, asked Rabbi Menachem Mendel if he should also ascend to the holy land in 1780, Rabbi Menachem Mendel basically told him to hold off until the next year, to see if the Moshiach really was about to show up.

Again, he didn’t.

So at that point, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonoye decided to finally print the letter describing the Baal Shem Tov meeting the Moshiach, from many years before. Presumably, he was trying to ‘bank’ any disappointment that Moshiach hadn’t shown up, and to set out a new path, one based on perfecting behavior and fixing bad middot, instead of a fixed ‘time’ of redemption.

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The point of all these tidbits is to point out that the Jewish community has actually weathered far more disappointments over Moshiach not showing up than you might think, even after the whole Shabtai Tzvi affair.

And we actually came through all these false starts OK.

History shows that it’s been far more damaging, spiritually, for Jews to totally forget about Moshiach and geula, and considering moving to Israel, than obsessing over these things too much.

In part two of this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the disagreement that erupted between the Vilna Gaon and the Lithuanian rabbis and the chassidim in 1781 – there’s that date again! –  because we’re going to learn something amazing about the ‘end of days’ by the time we’ve reached that end of that story.

To be continued…

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Deconstructing Aliyah

Should people make aliya, or not?

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What Moshiach?

What’s really stopping us from seeing the truth?

I was discussing with my husband why so very many people, including ‘big’ rabbis, just don’t seem to want to see what’s right in front of their eyes at the moment, or to hear anything about geula being imminent, or to discuss any possible candidates for Moshiach.

Rabbi Kaduri’s Geula Prediction, and September 17th, 2019

It’s all business as usual! Nothing unusual going on here!

I know how hard it is to move country, and to put parnassa at risk, and to leave behind the nice homes we have… and the nice shul we belong to… and the nice community of friends and family we have around us.

I know how easy it is, to fool ourselves into think everything will happen the ‘sweet’ ‘easy’ way, because isn’t that just more convenient all round?

We can just stay in our little bubble, easily, until Moshiach shows up and then we just jump on the nearest synagogue that’s grown wings and is flying its way to Israel….

Part of me also wants things to be like that.

I had a big argument with my kids over Shabbat, because a big part of them is clearly not at all ready for what it would mean to be really living in that next, much more spiritual, dimension that is going to be the era of Moshiach.

One of my kids told me straight, “It’ll be so boring!”

Another one started ranting at me that I belong to a cult, and that ‘normal’ people just don’t think about the geula and Moshiach all the time. Sadly, I know she’s right. So what does that say about the ‘normal’ observant world we live in?

We want Moshiach now!!!!, but only if we don’t have to change anything, or do anything different.

Only if we can carry on living where we live, and listening to traif music, and stuffing our eyeballs with movies and Facebook and Instagram, and only if we can carry on only doing the bits of yiddishkeit that appeal to us, and feeling like true tzaddikim, while dismissing all that other stuff that doesn’t really appeal or comes very hard.

So I told my kids,

I get where you’re coming from, I really do. A part of me is also scared to give that stuff up, and to lose the ‘wiggle’ room. But a much bigger part of me is SO sick of all the lies flying around, and all the self-righteous posturing, and all the people with terrible middot who secretly think they are one of the lamed vav tzaddikim who are sustaining the world…

The world is such an awful mess.

I also know that you, dear reader, would prefer me to write superficial ‘uplifting’ posts telling you that we’re all tzaddikim and that everything is going to be 100% OK and that we don’t have to change anything about ourselves, or work on any of our bad middot, or spend hours pouring our hearts out to God about what a mess everything is.

My kids are also resistant to hearing that their i-Phones, goyish music and eyebrow piercings will NOT be accompanying us to the era of Moshiach. Or that they won’t be able to carry on ignoring God and doing whatever the heck they want, while still considering themselves to be ‘perfect’ Jews.

We had a big argument about it all over Shabbat, I get where they are coming from, I understand why it’s so hard.

Part of me also wants the world to continue the way it is. Part of me knows I’m also not giving God everything He wants, 24/7, or anything close to it.

And that part is very scared of what’s about to come next.

But as I see the moral darkness enveloping us, and as I see how many of us are literally losing our neshamas as we chase after cash, and stuff, and physical pleasures, and ‘fun’ – that’s what gives me the strength to say to God:

I’m scared of what’s coming next, really scared.

But I can’t stand the moral depravity in the world for a second longer.

Evil is so banal today, we don’t even register what’s really going on all around us. We see all the miserable people, we hear about the huge spike in people on anti-depressants and smoking pot just to get through the day, and the massive rise in people killing themselves, we see small children literally being butchered by a medical profession gone mad who has somehow decided these kids are in ‘the wrong body’, we see people lying to themselves and hurting others all over the place – and we tell ourselves this is ‘good’.

We tell ourselves this ‘normal’. 

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It’s not easy when your teenagers start ranting at you that you’re wasting your life on a ridiculous pipedream that seems to be cutting you off from ‘fun’ things like spending 2 weeks on holiday in Thailand, or ‘fun’ things like watching the latest movies from the Hollywood sickos, or ‘fun’ things like spending every waking minute chasing after more cash so you can buy more designer clothes and eat more fast food and live in an even bigger house.

After my discussion on shabbat, I can see that I have to do an awful lot of praying for my teens, because it seems there are no free rides into the geula dimension. It seems that every single one of us will have to decide if they’re more wedded to evil-normal or good-abnormal over the coming weeks and months.

It’s a scary prospect, because I can see already that most of us are just not ‘there’ yet.

And I don’t know what it’s going to take to get us ‘there’, but I can tell you it won’t be soft and fluffy, or easy to ignore.

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And that idea is clearly very scary, for a lot of reasons.

And my teens aren’t even stuck in materialistic chutz l’aretz where there’s also other things that could be holding them back from really embracing their yiddishkeit.

So, I can see why so many frum people just don’t want to hear about anything ‘real’ today, connected to geula and Moshiach, and don’t want to see that all hell is about to break loose all across the world, in so many different ways, and don’t want to talk about the changes and teshuva we might all need to be making, in real time, to meet the looming spiritual challenges up ahead.

I understand them.

And I’m praying that somehow, some way, God will make it clearer for the truth to start getting out there, in a way that people can really digest and accept it.

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cartoon of three monkeys with their ears, eyes and mouths stuffed with dollar bills

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Dumb and Dumber

Is it just me, or are most people getting dumb and dumber by the day?

I’m currently writing another book (!) on stress, and its damaging effects on the brain, so I can tell you categorically that most people today seem to have some form of stress-induced brain damage, that’s causing them to act even more dumb and dumber over time.

People just can’t assimilate new information, they can’t change their minds. They have fixed opinions and they’re unable to see anyone else’s point of view. Depending on what their dominant stress response is, they react to any discomfort socially by going on the attack (FIGHT), running away (FLIGHT), totally ignoring ‘the issue’ (FREEZE), or keeping things so superficially ‘fake nice’ (FLATTER) there’s simply no room for deep thought, or a deep exchange of ideas.

All this happens when people have stress-induced brain damage – and all this is happening in spades all around us, right now. And the more ‘damaged’ the person is, emotionally, the harder they find it to engage with different ideas, new ways of doing things.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if the Prophet Daniel had given over some of his wisdom to our generation.

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MENE MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN

“It can’t be a real prophecy, I don’t understand it,” sniffed Dumb.

“Never mind that!!” Barked Dumber. “Only xtians talk in riddles like this! That message can’t be from God, because He always expresses Himself very clearly. I don’t think this Daniel guy is even a Jew!!”

And so it continued.

When the Prophet Zechariah would stand up to give over his message for the Jewish people, Dumb and Dumber stood there in the front row, clutching their copies of the Ramchal and heckling him.

Zechariah Chapter 3:

“Hear now, O Yehoshua the High Priest, you and your companions that sit before you; for they are men that are a sign; for, behold, I will bring forth My servant the Shoot.

For behold, the stone that I have laid before Yehoshua; there are seven facets upon one stone; behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, said the Lord of Hosts: And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.”

‘Rubbish!!!’ Yelled out Dumb.

‘Ridiculous mumbo-jumbo!!!’ Echoed Dumber. ‘If you were a REAL prophet, you’d make this stuff easy to understand, like the Rambam did, and not just lead the masses on with all this xtian-sounding clap trap!’

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But the person they derided the most was Ezekiel (1:25-7):

“And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.

And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.

And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.”

‘Is the man on drugs?’ Dumb wanted to know.

‘I think it’s worse than that’, muttered Dumber. ‘Only a XTIAN would try to give the likeness of an appearance to God!!! He’s obviously a false prophet, a false messiah! No wonder he keeps going on and on about the Temple being rebuilt and how it’s all going to look in the future!!! The Rambam would NEVER say something like that!!!’

Who could argue with such erudite YouTube scholars as these?

I tell you what else is very troubling, continued Dumb. This Ezekiel figure is playing with fire. He’s egging on the masses that we’re going to have a rebuilt Temple, and that the Moshiach is going to come. But he’s totally crazy! Look, he’s spent a whole year lying on his side on the pavement, baking his bread over cow dung!! Who does something like that?! Certainly no real Rabbi I’ve ever heard of!

He’s just a delusional charlatan, agreed Dumber. I mean, all those prophecies about the Temple, and did any of them ever happen? He’s just beguiling people with riddles, and filling their heads with nonsense about ‘bones’ coming back to life. You just don’t find reputable Jewish leaders doing things like that. I think he’s a hare krishna.

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Just then, Dumbest showed up, and all three of them repaired to the nearest pub, to continue their high-level discussion of esoteric Torah principles over a pint of Guinness and a packet of cheese and onion crisps.

Dumbest, what do you think about all these gobbledy-gook ‘pronouncements’ from Ezekiel? Is he a true leader of the Jews, or a false one?

Dumbest put his pint down for a moment (I mean, this was really important, after all!) and after thinking for exactly 5.37 seconds, made his pronouncement:

One thing I know for sure, is that the Mashiach will not speak in riddles which people can interpret any number of ways. Mashiach is coming to make things clearer to us, and erase our doubts, not cause confusion.

Dumb pumped his fist into the air.

Yesss! I knew that guy was a faker!

Someone as clever as Dumbest was never going to make a mistake about something this important….

But Dumber had to ask:

Hey, Dumbest, don’t mind, but can I ask you for your source for that statement?

Sure, Dumbest responded. He looked all around him conspiratorially, then motioned the other two YouTube Sages closer:

My i-Phone has nevua!

Dumb and Dumber were impressed. How could they not be? This is how Jews were really meant to discuss Torah!

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We’re all Dumb and Dumber today, whether or not we admit it. The ikker is just to have a tad of humility, and to be honest that we have no idea what to really think about anything. That’s really the only smart thing to do at the moment.

That’s also the point I was trying to make HERE:

The way out of this morass, all this ‘feeling confused’ stuff, is just to be honest, and to admit that really, we have no idea what’s going on, or what to think about it all.

It comes back to that whole ‘being real’ idea I discussed over HERE, where it seemed to me that the people who are pretending to be what they’re not seem to be the ones most in danger of turning against the Rav, God forbid, or pinging away in disgust.

“HOW COULD THE RAV SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!?!” THEY MUTTER TO THEMSELVES.

Really, they have no idea what the Rav did or didn’t say, what he did or didn’t intend, what did or didn’t actually happen.

But it takes a lot of humility, it takes a lot of self-awareness about your own limitations to really admit that, doesn’t it?

What’s going on right now is a massive birur process, or clarification procedure.

All of us are being tested, but especially on our arrogance, our emuna, and our emunat tzaddikim, or belief in our true Tzaddikim.

And so, the test of Dumb and Dumber continues.

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What the Lubavitcher Rebbe Really Said about Geula b’Rachamim

What did the Lubavitcher Rebbe mean, when he said there would never be another holocaust?

One day, Rebbe Nachman was walking along with a group of his students, when they happened to walk past a home where someone had just passed away. The bereaved family members were crying and shrieking, and beseeching God in a very distraught way. Rebbe Nachman turned to his followers and told them:

“What they are doing at the end, I want you to do at the beginning!”

It’s human nature to want to stick our head in the sand, and to avoid all the unpleasantness and the scary things going on around us. Why think about it? Why worry ourselves?

But Rebbe Nachman made many statements where he urged his followers to do the exact opposite.

“Why do we allow God to bring evil decrees to the world?!” he once said to them.

We should be praying, and beseeching, and clapping our hands, and dancing, and making the teshuva required to really sweeten these decrees!

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Right now, we can still do something about the ‘scary stuff’ we can see looming in the future, and that every single one of us can feel lurking under the surface. 

God doesn’t want us to put our heads in the sand and pretend everything is A-OK, and that people can continue spitting in God’s face in a million different ways but it’ll still all end up being fine and dandy.

How can that be?

God created the world according to certain rules, and one of the biggest is the concept of reward and punishment. There are real consequences for bad behavior, sometimes very big consequences. If a person continues to go against what God really wants for them, and how He really wants them to be living their lives – and they don’t wake up and make some sincere teshuva – then they will have to deal with the consequences of their bad behavior.

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In the meantime, putting our head in the sand is not helping anyone – not even ourselves!

God wants us to be crying out to Him, and making teshuva, and realizing that unless we are really holding firm to the Tzaddik of the generation, we could honestly get flung a million miles away, as God continues to shake the world.

“Regarding the Messianic age it is written: ‘To grasp the ends of the earth and shake the wicked from it.’  However, one who is attracted to a True Tzaddik can grasp hold of him and not be cast off. Holding on to the Tzaddik, he can remain firm.”[1]

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Rabbi Berland isn’t telling us about the thousands of rockets pointed at Eretz Yisrael because he wants to pointlessly scare the pants off us.

He’s just pointing out the obvious – the bleedingly obvious – to rouse us to really start praying, and working on all the bad middot and teshuva we need to make to get these harsh decrees sweetened.

That’s why I get a little frustrated when I read emails like this:

“I’m keeping up with all the world news, craziness and all like always but I try to bring myself away from the doomsday stuff. It’s so scary when it’s so close to the end. The words Rav Berland is sending out now are really making me nervous. It makes me daven harder but I can’t imagine Hashem taking out anything on his children at this point. We just passed כ סיון which I learned all about recently. So many horrors have happened to us, I just can’t see anymore happening. Too many earlier tzaddikim like the Lubavicher Rebbe said it will be with rachamim and all Jews will be ok, I am trying to keep calm with that. I know what the autistics are saying but I am hoping Hashem will only fulfill the good.”

====

Do I understand that all this stuff is scary, and that we’d for sure all prefer things to come the sweeter way with no more bloodshed and suffering?

Of course!

Is the ‘sweeter way’ going to happen, if we don’t make every effort to do all the things I keep pointing out again and again and again, namely:

  • Praying our socks off – and making every effort to join in with Rabbi Berland’s prayer gatherings, however we can manage it.
  • Making some real teshuva, including working on our bad middot and ‘getting real’ about just how imperfect we actually are. 
  • Hanging on to the true tzaddik of the generation – whoever that guy might be – and telling other people about him, too?

Nope, it isn’t.

====

Which brings me to another point of clarification.

Over the years, I’ve read so many comments from people who are convinced that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z’tl, (who was unquestionably a giant Tzaddik and probably the Moshiach of his generation) apparently said that the geula  is only going to come totally the sweet way, with no more death or suffering.

Even my correspondent, above, mentioned this:

“Too many earlier tzaddikim like the Lubavicher Rebbe said it will be with rachamim and all Jews will be ok.”

(Incidentally, apart from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I don’t know of the other tzaddikim who have said anything like this. If any reader wants to share me some sources, I’d be very grateful.)

Now, I’ve been trying to track down the statement, or statements, that the Rebbe actually said, to give people this impression, and so far, this is what I’ve turned up (with some help from my friend, C.A. – ta!)

Before we continue, let me just point out that wherever possible, I’ve been trying to track down verifiable statements that were made by the Rebbe himself, and not just other people’s explanations of what they think he was saying.

There is certainly a time and a place for interpreting our Sages words, but the starting point has to be a clear explanation of what they actually said to begin with.

==

What the Lubavitcher Rebbe said about ‘no Jew being left behind’ when geula comes:

“Leah, ‘for now my husband will be united with me.’ In an ultimate sense, this verse refers to the unity of the Jewish people with G‑d. That unity will be revealed in the Messianic age, when all the Jews will leave the exile; not one Jew will remain. In the redemption from the Babylonian exile, many Jews, among them the Torah sages and the Levi’im, remained in Babylon. However, in regard to the future redemption ‘a great congregation will return,’ ‘you, children of Israel, will be gathered one by one,’ no Jew will remain in exile. Thus, in preparation for this redemption, efforts must be made to increase Jewish unity as explained above in regard to the Ushpizin related to the present evening.”

From here:

5th Night of Sukkos, 5745 (1984)

====

What the Lubavitcher Rebbe said about every THING being redeemed:

“The redemption will involve freeing all the elements of existence that have been subjugated in the exile. Nothing will be lost.2 On the contrary, everything will be redeemed. Every single Jew will be redeemed. We will leave “with our youth and with our elders… with our sons and with our daughters.” And “their gold and silver will accompany them.” All the positive activities and achievements of the Jews (and also the non-Jews) in the exile will not be nullified. What will be nullified is the concealment of the world’s true inner being which is brought on by the material substance of the world and the subjugation to the rules of nature that exists at present. But all the positive aspects of the exile will remain, and indeed will be elevated.”

From here:

Shabbos Parshas Acharei-Kedoshim, 13th Day of Iyar, 5751 (1991)

==

The Lubavitcher Rebbe on the holocaust:

I also found this news report from December 31st, 1990 on the JTA website, which quoted the Lubavitcher Rebbe as disagreeing with a statement made by the late Rabbi Schach, z’tl, that the holocaust came about as a form of Divine retribution because of the millions of Jews who had thrown off the Yoke of Torah and Mitzvot. Rabbi Shach also said that something similar could happen again, God forbid.

This is how the Lubavitcher Rebbe was quoted as responding to those statements, in the report:

“[Rabbi] Schneerson was especially vociferous in his attack on the notion, expounded by [Rabbi] Schach, that further retributive suffering might befall the Jewish people if they fail to abide by Jewish law.

“This suggestion is unconscionable,” the rebbe declared, without mentioning who had made it. “The future bodes only well for the Jewish people. There will never be another Holocaust. There will be redemption and joy.””

==

It makes for interesting reading, doesn’t it?

If this last news report I brought was accurate, then the Rebbe does seem to be clearly saying there will never by another Holocaust. Let’s take each part of this last statement and explore it a little more closely:

The future bodes only well for the Jewish people.

 Who can argue with this? The principles of emuna state clearly that God is doing everything, and that everything that God does – even the bad, apparently yucky stuff – is ultimately for our own good. And of course, the ultimate ‘future’ is redemption, Moshiach, world peace etc.

But the Lubavitcher Rebbe is NOT saying that there won’t be any more suffering or death before we get there.

There will never be another Holocaust.

Amen, let’s really hope so.

Rabbi Berland has said on a few occasions that if you look through Jewish history, you see there was some sort of terrible destruction, pogrom or holocaust every 70 years or so.

A big part of why he went into exile and willingly took so much disgrace upon himself was to prevent this next ‘holocaust’ from happening. And that effort is continuing today, with the prayer gatherings, and all the terrible physical suffering the Rav is going through with his non-stop serious illnesses.

A couple of months ago, he also stated that unless more of Am Yisrael get with the program and start doing our bit to help sweeten the harsh judgments on the horizon, he may well have to take yet more disgrace and exile on to himself, and that it will be much, much harder even than what came before.

The mind boggles as to what that could actually mean.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was an enormous Tzaddik, and he overlapped with Rabbi Berland.

He certainly knew about Rabbi Berland, and he could see what was coming.

(It’s a side note, but my Lubavitch friend told me that the Rebbe always used to get very upset when people referred to him as being Moshiach. Even though the Rebbe often said that the Moshiach was here, he NEVER said that he himself was the Moshiach. It’s just more interesting food for thought, that I’m putting out there to mull over.)

Is it too far-fetched to say that the Rebbe could see there would be a Tzaddik 30 years in the future who would sacrifice himself totally for the Jewish people, in order to prevent an otherwise ‘inevitable’ holocaust from happening again?

Or to put it another way, both Rav Shach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe were right.

But we only get to avoid the ‘inevitable’ holocaust if we’re take the threat of it very seriously, and cry out to Hashem and making the appropriate teshuva. Sticking our heads in the sand and kind of hoping for the best just isn’t going to work.

Lastly, we have:

“There will be redemption and joy.”

Again, who can argue with this? Amen and amen and amen.

BUT – that doesn’t mean there won’t also be more suffering and people dying.

In the 29 years since the Rebbe first made this statement, has there only been ‘redemption and joy’? Has there been no suffering?

Since 1990, Israel has gone through three Intifadas, and a number of wars.

Since 1990, so many people have lost their loved ones in tragic circumstances.

So many marriages have gone to the wall. So many people have lost their faith, or their minds. So many people have had to deal with challenges of an enormous magnitude.

It just isn’t realistic to sit there saying “all Jews will be OK” without qualifying that statement by adding but only if they make the necessary teshuva. Only if they stop destroying the world and spitting in God’s face. Only if they get close to the true tzaddikim.

====

Otherwise, how exactly is this meant to work?

That a totally unrepentant Mr Rainbow-Chasing-Chazer-Eating-Haredi-Hater with the worst middot in the world also gets the red carpet rolled out for them, to come and have a VIP tour of the Beit HaMikdash and personal meeting with Moshiach?

Really?

When the Lubavitcher Rebbe says that every single Jew will be redeemed, and that no Jew will be left behind, we need to remember that the same could be said of the Exodus from Egypt.

Every single Israelite who made it through the plague of darkness alive, was redeemed.

But four fifths were lost, before things even got to that stage.

There’s a scary midrash that “predicts” only 700 Jews will live to see the coming of Moshiach and the Temple being rebuilt. Now THAT is a scary thought, even for me.

But what if the geula coming b’rachamim just means anything over 700 people make it through to the finish line?

==

Like I said, the point of this post isn’t doom or gloom.

Rather, it’s to snap us out of all the unhelpful and unrealistic wishful thinking about geula, to make the point that until and unless more of us wake up, start joining in the prayer gatherings, start rallying more Jews around the flag of the real tzaddikim and start working on the enormous bad middot that are preventing us from really doing what’s required, here, the geula coming the sweet way j- with no more suffering – just isn’t going to happen.

Rav Avigdor Miller noted something similar about what occurred just before WWII. He said that God didn’t want to bring the harsh decree of Hitler and the holocaust, but He was waiting for the Jews to band together, make teshuva, and to start crying out for mercy, the same way they did at the time of Haman.

Sadly, that didn’t happen.

Why not? According to Rabbi Miller – the secular Jewish media and Jewish atheists were to blame. They wasted an ocean of ink denouncing Hitler, but couldn’t spare a single drop to encourage the Jews to rally around their true tzaddikim, and return to God.

God forbid, that should happen again.

[1] #22, His Rebbe Nachman’s Wisdom, published by the Breslov Research Institute

====

UPDATE:

A reader just sent me a translated Kuntres apparently written and edited by the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s own hand, with the following message:

“Regarding your most recent blog of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, there is unquestionably evidence throughout the Rebbe’s sichos where he indeed strongly hinted that he could be Moshiach. Several places he said that that Nosi HaDor is the Moshiach of the Dor. There is an entire kuntres called Beis Rabeinu Shebebavel , entirely edited by his own hand, with this concept, where he explains the uniqueness of 770, among other things it being Beis Moshiach. Anyone who learns this kuntres, it’s hard to arrive at any other conclusion besides the Rebbe hinting that he could be Moshiach. Here it is, in the original, and with an English translation, if you would like to take a look for yourself:”

You can download it as a PDF here: Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Kuntres on Beit Rabbenu

(The last link ‘broke’, so this is a PDF that will automatically download. I found it very interesting reading.)

There’s a lot of confusion about this subject, but I want to stress that the sources talk very clearly about their being TWO moshiachs, Moshiach ben Yosef, and Moshiach ben David.

In the post I wrote about who’s holding up the geula, I brought the following quote:

In Kol HaTor Chapter 2, Section 2, Letter bet, the Vilna Gaon says the following:

 “The general purpose of the two moshiachs, Moshiach ben Yosef and Moshiach ben David, throughout all the generations has been to protect and fight against the three ‘heads’ of the klipot (evil husks): Eisav, Yishmael and the Erev Rav…..

“….the Erev Rav is our greatest enemy, the one who separates the two moshiachs. The klipah of the Erev Rav works only through deception and roundabout ways. Therefore, the war against the Erev Rav is the most difficult and bitterest of all. We must strengthen ourselves for this war, anyone who does not participate in the battle against the Erev Rav becomes, defacto, a partner with the klipah of the Erev Rav, and was better off not being born in the first place.”

It’s important to understand that these two moshiachs are not in ‘competition’.

It’s not a case of ‘my Rebbe is bigger than your Rebbe’.  The two Moshiachs are on the same side, and trying to work together, to bring the geula, but they both have different approaches and achieve different results. Rebbe Nachman explains this concept in a beautiful way in one of his stories, which I covered in this article: Moshiach ben Yosef vs Moshiach ben David.

I think maybe the time has also come to take a closer look at whether it’s possible for a Moshiach to come from the dead.

This is a very sensitive topic, I know. But I think it needs airing out respectfully, and with as many sources behind it as possible to see what conclusions our Sages came to, and how they got there.

A big part of the problem is that so many people have ideas about ‘Moshiach’ and geula that aren’t at all rooted in Torah sources. For example, there is a discussion in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 98b) that closely examines the idea of whether the Moshiach can come back from the dead. It’s not a ‘lunatic fringe’ issue, like it’s so often made out to be, it was a serious question that was debated by some of the biggest Sages that ever lived.

The ultimate conclusion is ‘no’, but if you follow the debate, you can see it’s not at all as black and white as it’s often portrayed to be.

BH, I will put together as many Torah sources on the subject as I can over the next few days, and we will learn about it together. As much as possible, it’s time to build some bridges, to put all the ‘hysteria’ to one side, and to take a calm, gentle and measured look at this topic.

With an awful lot of help from Hashem.

====

You might also like these articles:

Who Is Really Holding Up The Geula?

The Enemy Within

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Moshe Rabbenu Hits Monsey

Did you ever stop to wonder how Moshe Rabbenu would go down in Monsey?

“Shlomie! Shlomie! You gotta hear this! Some guy in a frock just showed up in the beis medrash, and told everyone he’s the Moshiach!!!”

Shlomie heaved his stomach back inside the belt line of his black pants, stood up and went over to talk to his chevrusa Yankie, who was anxiously pacing backwards and forwards by the kollel’s coffee vending machine.

“Whaddya talking about, Shlomie? Calm down, speak slower. Who just showed up in the beis medrash?”

Yankie took a breath, stopped pacing, and turned to Shlomie.

“Some guy called Moshe something… He said G-d sent him to redeem the Jews, and he wants to take us out of Monsey to the promised land!”

Shlomie’s eyes narrowed. Another nut-job talking about G-d!

The last 210 years, there’d been a lot of these imposters who’d showed up trying to con the Jews of Monsey that one day they’d have to leave and go to the ‘holy land’. Wherever that place was meant to be…

“Where is this guy?” Shlomie demanded. “I wanna talk to him.”

With Yankie following behind, Shlomie headed off to the beis medrash, swung the doors open, and saw a tall, bearded figure standing in the corner with his eyes shut, rapturously reciting the bracha over a cup of water out loud.

Shlomie whispered to Yankie,

“Uhoh, this already doesn’t look good! What’s with this guy’s accent? Is he Sephardi?! And who spends five minutes blessing a cup of water?! This is definitely bitul Torah!”

Yankie muttered back, “Shlomie, we didn’t get the Torah yet…” But Shlomie didn’t hear him, as he’d already marched up to ‘Moshe the moshiach’ determined to kick this imposter out of the beis medrash.

====

“Sooo, Moishe… where’d you learn?” challenged Shlomie.

Moshe Rabbenu studied Shlomie with wise, kind eyes and told him gently:

“I’ve spent the last 60 years communing with Hashem in the desert.”

Shlomie eyes rolled so far back in his head they almost popped out his neck. Geez, the nerve of this guy!!! Still, Shlomie prided himself on being open-minded, so he decided to ask a couple more questions before officially excommunicating him.

“So, who’s your Rav?” he asked.

Moshe lowered his head slightly and said:

“Hashem. Hashem’s teaching me Torah. Although I did meet Rabbi Akiva a little while back…”

Shlomie snorted again. What? That guy whose parents were goyim who converted?!?

====

He tried one last time, just to be nice.

“Where did you grow up? Did you study at the Mir?”

“I grew up in Pharoah’s palace,” Moshe Rabbenu replied gently. “I had to flee Monsey-raim at the age of 20 after I killed an Egyptian by uttering one of Hashem’s ineffable names. I never got a chance to learn at the Mir….”

“Kishoofim!!!!” roared out Shlomie. “Out, out, get outta here with all your dangerous Moshiach talk! You’re nothing but a crack-pot, a false messiah, a person who’s trying to pull the Jews away from learning Torah with all your talk about serving Hashem!”

Yankie muttered again “But Shlomie, we didn’t get the Torah yet…” but again, Shlomie didn’t hear him.

With quiet dignity, Moshe Rabbenu picked up his staff, and headed out of the beis medrash.

====

Yankie was anxiously biting his fingernails.

“The nerve of that guy!” sputtered Shlomie. “I can’t believe people are falling for this! We’re only meant to be learning about Moshiach, not believing it!”

“But Shlomie, a lot of the really big rabbis – like Aharon HaKohen – say he’s the real deal…” Shlomie harrumphed.

“All these ‘rebbe’ types stick together, you know that.”

“But Shlomie,” Yankie tried again, “This morning he turned the whole Nile to blood, and he’s told Pharoah there’s more natural disasters to come, if he doesn’t send the Jews out of Monsey-raim…”

“Kishoofim!!” Shlomie yelled again. “Unbelievable bitul Torah! Instead of learning another three blatt Gemara this guy’s off doing black magic and talking to goyim! Don’t fall for it, Yankie, don’t let him fool you. Seriously, where was the guy’s hat??”

Yankie tried one last time:

“But Shlomie, we have a tradition from Yaakov Avinu that at some point, the Jews have to leave Monsey-raim, and that a redeemer will show up and take them out of galus…”

Shlomie sighed a big sigh, and put his enormous arm around his frail, naïve learning partner.

“Yankie, you’re a great guy, do you know that? Here, take a look over the other side of the beis medrash. Who’d ya see?”

Yankie turned his head, and spotted Korach, the Rosh Kollel, shtiggering away to the bachorim about how why the beis medrash doesn’t need a mezuzah on the door. Korach cut a fine figure in his Armani black suit, smart tie and brushed fedora, tilted at just the right angle to set off his jutting chin.

“Now, if someone told me that’s Moshiach, I’d believe it,” explained Shlomie. “That guy’s related to one of the most important families in Monsey-raim; he’s got 14 kids – all shomer Toyrah ve-mitzvos – and he encourages his students to think for themselves. That guy is all about Toyrah and mitzvos. And his wife bakes a great kugel!”

“But Shlomie, we didn’t get the Torah yet,” Yankie wanted to say. But he didn’t because he knew there’d be no point.

Shlomie heaved his stomach back behind his shtender, and went back to learning his latest blatt on his My-Gemara i-Phone app.

“The nerve of that guy, ‘Moshe Rabbenu’!” he muttered to himself, thankful that he’d managed to save the guys in the beis medrash from another false messiah. Hrrmph! As if the Moshiach would be someone who’d never stepped foot in the Mir…

====

First posted in June, 2017

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You might also like these articles:

The ‘cult’ of Moshiach

Deconstructing Geula

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BREAKING: The autistics just announced the identity of Moshiach ben David

The identity of Moshiach Ben David has been announced over on dani18.com.

Can you guess who they said Moshiach ben David is?

You can see their messages for yourself, in HEBREW and ENGLISH, here:

http://www.dani18.com/

I have totally conflicting feelings about Dani18, for a lot of reasons. But anyone with their eyes open can see that at least in this instance, you can trust what they are saying 100%.

Things are about to get really interesting!

A WORD ABOUT COMMENTS:

I know that this announcement probably going to trigger quite a few people’s psycho tendencies, so let’s be clear on what comments will be going up, and which comments I will be deleting:

Anything that is lashon hara / slander / personal attacks – will be deleted.

While I’m flexible on being personally insulted, there is a zero tolerance policy for lashon hara against tzaddikim (or anyone else, besides me) on this site.

So, if you stick to just insulting me personally, your comment may still go up.

Otherwise, very happy to discuss, and this is big news, massive news.

Whatever is coming next, hopefully it will only be the sweet way, and will include everyone in the next stage of geula.

Also, see this:

https://ravberland.com/moshiach-is-already-here/

====

UPDATE: FULL TEXT FROM DANI18 on the identity of Moshiach ben David:

“Your servant the Son of David will come, and he will redeem us” – Binyamin
Golden, 24th Nissan, 5779

There is nothing to worry about. The Son of David will continue, he will live, and ultimately, he
will bring us to the Beit HaMikdash. But it’s not going to be easy. The Son of David was sure that
he would be able to fight against the Sitra Achra more easily. But the Son of David is not going to
give up and say “that’s it!”.

He can’t, because he loves Am Yisrael so very much. He’s not going to abandon us so easily.
There are moments of despair, but ultimately, HaKadosh Baruch Hu chose him to bring the
complete redemption in its entirety.

The situation is very difficult. The situation is more than ‘very difficult’. The Sitra Achra, may his
name be erased, is running wild and he’s sure that he’s running the show, G-d forbid. But even if
only 10 believing Jews remain, to fight against the lies, Hashem will destroy all the evildoers with
them. He will rebuild the world to come with the few who will remain faithful.

He is going to demolish, wipe out and erase those who prefer the lies over the truth.

====

The believers don’t need to worry, but those who prefer lies, all of them will disappear.

Hashem created the world for Am Yisrael, and in order to take Am Yisrael and to raise them up
to a spiritual level that I can’t even describe. I can only say this, that whoever reaches this level
will achieve an eternal life that is so very good, and I don’t even have any words to describe it.

Don’t despair, just stay with the Tzaddik. Hashem loves the Tzaddik, and the Tzaddik loves Am
Yisrael no less than Moshe Rabbeinu did. The Tzaddik is not going to give up, and he’s not going
to abandon us. He cries over every single Jewish man, and over every single Jewish woman, and
these tears have a very great influence in shamayim. The Tzaddik is not going to leave us.

“Shuvu Banim” is eternal. Even though amongst us, there are still some who don’t really believe.
We will have to go through another birur, another clarification process: who really does believe,
and who really doesn’t.

Now, the world is about to enter a period that will be even darker, and even more frightening
than before. The believers will always see the light – whoever really believes in HaKadosh Baruch
Hu, and whoever will ‘hang on’ to the Tzaddik very tightly, so-to-speak, because they know that
this is what will bring them to true eternal life.

Only a few will remain, they will be the chosen few, the perfect ones that Hashem will build the
future upon. The believers need to know that only a few will remain, but those who remain, the
chosen ones, will be those who go with the Tzaddik. The future will be so very good, that it will
be worth all the suffering that we will have to go through to get to it. There are no words to even describe it.

I want to bless all the true Jews who believe in HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and in His faithful
representative, the Son of Dovid, that they shouldn’t fall into despair, because the future of the
world depends on the love that you have for Hashem. Love for Hashem, and absolute and total
faith in the Creator of the world, the almighty, and in His representative, Eliezer ben Etia,
Moshiach ben David.

He will not abandon Am Yisrael under any circumstances. Am Yisrael is so very beloved by him,
as it was by Moshe Rabbenu, who stood by them, by Am Yisrael, and who acted as their
defender before the kisei hakavod, even though they sinned greatly against HaKadosh Baruch
Hu.

Eliezer ben Etia loves Am Yisrael. He weeps over every single Jew that strays from the true path,
and he is completely faithful to the Almighty. He is more beloved than anyone else in shamayim,
more than any other soul. He came to this world around 81 years ago, and despite all the
difficulties he’s had in trying to bring Am Yisrael to the truth, he didn’t abandon them – just as
the Almighty won’t abandon us, either.

He is our defender, Eliezer ben Etia, even though he is a little weak from some despair, he will
bring us to eternity, bezrat Hashem.
====

Finally, finally, the King Moshiach has come – Menachem, Parshat Kedoshim Tehiu
“Be Holy”, 5779

Baruch Hashem, Hashem has finally, finally sent us the redeemer. Yes, the Redeemer with a
capital R. And so we, the brain-damaged ones, the autistics, or whatever you want to call us,
don’t need to continue writing any longer.

For the last 26 years, we’ve been writing essays all the time, in order to strengthen Am Yisrael,
and to demonstrate where the sheker, all the lies are to be found, and where the truth is to be
found.

But now, there is no more need for our talents. We are now obligated to leave this work,
because the King Moshiach has come. And he will provide the answers to all the questions
everybody has, and he will direct Am Yisrael towards the complete redemption. We are going
into retirement.

But we will also be praying, and begging HaKadosh Baruch Hu that even us, the autistics, can be
with all of Am Yisrael, once the geula shleimah, the complete redemption, arrives. And that we
can also, with the greatest joy, accompany the King Moshiach to the Beit HaMikdash, and
sacrifice offerings there, etc.

Am Yisrael, don’t worry! Moshiach will guide you on the right path, and he is the shaliach, the
messenger who will save every single Jew. But, every Jew has to do teshuva, and all those who
are really Erev Rav, or something like that, they won’t make it to the complete redemption.

But Eliezer ben Etia, he will bring us from this world, to the spiritual world, and to the Third
Temple.

The end.

====

UPDATE on the Moshiach ben David announcement #2:

Everyone should think for themselves about how to take this development, because no-one can or should be ‘persuaded’ of things they don’t really believe in themselves. Personally, I don’t believe any pronouncement made about the future that comes from the autistics, as asking them about the future was strictly prohibited by the rabbis who gave them haskamot (brought below).

I don’t think this announcement about Moshiach ben David is predicting the future, it’s stating a conclusion that many people – including many of the biggest rabbis in the Jewish world – have already come to independently. But the stuff about only a small number of people surviving, etc, is still predicting the future and so I don’t hold by that part of the statement.

The Tzaddikim can and are sweetening things all the time. Rabbi Berland has sweetened so many of the harsh decrees in the past, and BH, the more people start to understand what’s going on, and listen to his directives about making teshuva and praying more, the easier this whole geula process will be for everyone.

Rav Yekutiel Fish stated the following about the recent 4.6 earthquake in Israel (that I felt in Jerusalem, btw):

“The earthquake on Wednesday marked the end of the waiting period,” Rabbi Fish said. “It was the official day of the beginning of the birth of the Messiah.”

(BTW, don’t hold your breath for Breaking Israel News to cover this story identifying Moshiach ben David in any way, shape or form. It’s a website for christians, and all the geula information on it is carefully skewed to feed a christian audience who loves all the end of days stuff, but is totally allergic to the idea of a real, Jewish moshiach showing up any time soon. They have their candidate for the post already figured out, lo alenu.)

I’ll continue to update this page with anything else that’s relevant, but I can see that most of us seem to be either totally past caring that Moshiach ben David could / has come; and / or strangely unhappy or discomfited by the idea that it could actually happen in practice, and not just talked about in theory.

I guess that fulfills the midrashim that said that Moshiach ben David will only show up when everyone has fallen into the biggest despair, and totally given up on the idea of redemption. Another prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes….

====

HASKAMOT ON THE AUTISTICS:

(From HERE🙂

FACILITATED COMMUNICATION (FC) FROM THE TORAH’S POINT OF VIEW:

One should not ask a person with brain damage questions of any kind, and especially not personal questions or questions about the future. One should not rely on their statements in matters of halacha, health, marriage partners, etc.

One should address any question to a proper rabbi. This will provide the Torah view. The messages, which are meant for families and the nation, are for their tikun, the tikun of the family and help in the tikun of the nation.

STATEMENTS OF APPROVAL BY TORAH LEADERS OF OUR TIME

HAGAON RAV ARYEH LEIB STEINMAN SHLITA OF BNEI BRAK

Speaking about Facilitated Communication with the brain-damaged, Rav Steinman personally informed Rabbi Srevnik that “he sees in this the great mercy of Heaven to wake up the sleeping who forget the truth amid the ephemeralities of routine life, and abuse their whole life with empty pursuits and indulgences.

It is also a source of moral inspiration for the Torah community, who today are also
in need of strengthening. The statements of the brain damaged are fiery mussar [admonition, i.e., inspiration to search one’s soul and improve conduct] and bestir all those who read them.

It is a worthy cause to distribute and publicize these statements. Rav Steinman has personally attended communication sessions with the brain damaged and was
very impressed by the answers they gave to his questions.

In Rav Steinman’s opinion, it is very important to contemplate their messages and search one’s soul. One should not ignore them.

He also warned that one should not use the statements of the brain damaged for any specific purpose or halachic ruling. He also warned against asking them about the future.

“We have had the zchut of the discovery of this phenomenon for one purpose only: to bring the hearts of the Jewish people to their Father in Heaven.”

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RABBI NOSSON M. WACHTFOGEL

“The people which walk in the dark saw great light.” We are living in a period with great darkness and confusion. Many of our people are not even aware of their Father in Heaven; and even of those who walk on the path of truth, many some are still far from perfection.

The Creator had mercy on his people and, in His great mercy, sent us something capable of waking people up from their deep sleep, namely a new form of communication with the brain-damaged.

Through this form of communication, we see that the spiritual world is revealed to them. Despite the fact that the world regards them as devoid of understanding and awareness of what is going on around them, by means of this new form of communication, which is called Facilitated Communication, we discover that their knowledge of the spiritual affairs of the world, of the Creator, of ethics and morals are on a very high level.

This fact has already inspired many Jews to return to their roots or to heighten their devotion to Torah and mitzvot. Due to my many commitments, I was unable to read through this book and asked a talmid chacham [proficient Talmudic scholar], whom I trust implicitly, to review it.

He indeed reviewed a large part of the book and conveyed its contents to me. In addition, his first hand observations of this form of communication caused him to conclude that it is authentic and highly valuable.

At the same time, it must be stressed that while the messages conveyed by the brain damaged are suitable for strengthening and bringing people closer to the truth, a person should not act on what they say without referring to a Rov [rabbi]. For as is known, only Torah sages may guide our nation.

I should like to bless all those who seek to publicize these important messages with a view to sanctifying the name of Heaven and magnifying His name in the world. May Hashem help them and desire the success of their endeavors.

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RABBI GABRIEL KRAUSZ, A MAJOR DAYAN IN ENGLAND

(Extract from the Forward of his pamphlet on the religious messages of the brain-damaged, Shimu Vetichyeh Nafshechem)

All the mentally disabled in Israel, communicating through Facilitated Communication, have recently expressed their wish that those of their statements which compare with passages from source texts be published with the appropriate references from the Bible, Chazal [the Mishnaic and Talmudic sages] other works as far as possible.

I feel that doing this will provide great inspiration since it shows how far their pronouncements are anchored and rooted in our holy sources. The sources for their
statements which I found show us that we cannot ignore what they say…

For thousands of years, sufferers from autism, Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy were thought of as “imbeciles.” Now we have discovered that they are of sound, clear mind and capable of expressing themselves – by means of communication – on a level far above ours.

For many, this is not easy to accept. But this does not change the fact that this is true, as has been proved beyond a doubt on many occasions. Finally, two outstanding Talmudic scholars passed on this pamphlet to one of the Torah sages of our time on my behalf. He warmly and heartily approved its publication and said it is a tikun
[rectification] for their souls; and will be a great zchut for us, if it inspires us to do tshuva.

The same sage warned against possible mishaps linked to FC. We must listen to his warning that one should not ask them questions which can lead to making decisions, for example in matters of halacha and medical affairs, since they do not serve as a substitute for sages, rabbis and doctors …

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CHAZAL ON THIS FORM OF COMMUNICATION:

The Talmud in Massechet Baba Batra, p.12, states,

“From the day the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed … prophesy was given to imbeciles and infants.”

Harav Dessler in Michtav MiEliyahu, part 4, explains,

“Prophesy was given to imbeciles – because their screen [i.e., brain] is not so strong.”

The Zohar, parshat Shemot, p.6:2, states:

“Rebbe Chiyya said,  ‘30 days prior to a country receiving power and strength or before a country goes through crisis and destruction, they announce the matter throughout the whole world, and sometimes the matter is passed on to the mouth of infants
and sometimes to those imbecilic people who have no minds, and sometimes the matter is passed on to the mouth of birds.

“They announce the news in the world and there is no one who will see [hear] and understand the announcement. And when the nation is composed of men of zchut and tzadikim, the affair is passed onto the heads, the tzadikim of the world, in order that they inform the people of the matter of the decree and they will return to God.

“And when the nation is not composed of men of zchut, the procedure adopted is as we said — the affair is placed in the mouths of infants or imbeciles or birds. And the people are not aware of the matter so that they are not prompted to do tshuva and prevent the implementation of the decree.”

The Talmud in Massechet Nida (30:2) states of the embryo in the womb of its mother that:

“A light shines over its head and it observes and sees from one end of the world to the other.”

How can an embryo, whose eyes are closed and is inside the womb of its mother, see everything which takes in place in the world from one end of the world to the other? The Talmud tells us “A light shines over its head” — this refers to the soul whose powers of vision are not limited. The soul is that which sees from one end of the world to the other and all the secrets of the higher worlds.

The following was said by Shulamit Gad, mother of Galia and author of the book, ‘Messages from Heaven’:

In one particular session, Galia wrote out a message, telling me to go to a certain rabbi. She wrote out the name of the rabbi and his address.

As a baalat tshuva [someone who has become religious], making her first steps, I didn’t know how you decide which rabbi to take as your counselor. Galia chose for me a great rabbi who is a tzadik and well known, one of the major halachic authorities of our time. The rabbi encouraged me to give talks to women. Of course, there is no prohibition on communicating by means of FC.

The Torah states, “Do not seek out the dead,” meaning it is forbidden to communicate with dead spirits. Séances or any other form of communication with the dead are a serious offense and involve enormous tuma. I communicate with the living, with the soul of a living person, and, therefore, there is no prohibition.

Rabbanim forbid consulting people with brain damage and autism as though they are our umim and tumim.

In the Biblical era, a plate of precious stones with letters engraved upon them. In answer to a question, the letters would light up and convey divine messages.

It is important to stress that if a person has a question, he should consult a rabbi and obtain the Torah’s answer to his question. Galia wrote, “Rabbanim are the messengers of Hashem. And those who refer personal questions to people with autism are likely to compromise the requirement to apply free choice in their lives and possibly ruin their tikun too in this world.”

Great and famous rabbis, yeshiva principals, great scholars and halachic authorities who have
examined all of Galia’s messages, confirm that all Galia’s messages are remarkably similar to what is
found in traditional source works, and even recommended their students to read them, obviously
warning them at the same time to apply all the caution necessary in using Facilitated Communication.”

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Lastly, you might also want to read this again, from a couple of years ago:

Why is the geula blogosphere so quiet about Rabbi Berland?

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You might also like these articles related to Moshiach ben David:

The 10 Plagues of America

How God uses comets to fight for the Jews

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Jewish life in Israel vs Jewish life in Chutz L’Aretz

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on the Deconstructing Geula post, which I put together to try to explore what happens practically, the day after Moshiach actually shows up, and how different the experience is obviously going to be, depending on where we actually live at that point in time, and how much emuna we really do have.

I thought it would be useful to bring the discussion I’ve been having with Devorah, one of the commentators, here, as its own post. I’m working on a post which will look at the halachic basis for staying out of Israel, in the time before Moshiach comes – because there is one, as set out by the late Satmar Rebbe, R’ Yoel Teitelbaum – but this is a useful subset of the discussion:

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Devorah says

March 14, 2019 at 15:30

Rivka, Rambam represents just one opinion. There are different opinions. There’s another opinion that says that the Divine revelation at the time of geula will be like har Sinai, the yetzer hara, sicknesses, and death will disappear, the miracles will be bigger than in the Exodus, all forms of negativity will disappear.

Rivka Levy says

March 17, 2019 at 13:18

Thanks for the comment, Devorah.

By the time the Israelites got to Har Sinai, they’d already lost 4/5 in the plague of darkness, had to leave their homes in Egypt, and experienced 10 plagues and enormous fear and upheaval. So, it seems to me that what you’re describing is what comes AFTER what I’m describing precedes it. We need to have emuna to get to geula, and there are no short-cuts to acquiring it.

Devorah says

March 18, 2019 at 04:56

I know Rivka but not in the final Geulah.

“Unlike the Egyptian Exodus, when many Jews did not merit to leave Egypt, with regards to the future redemption we are assured that no Jew will be left behind—including the Ten Lost Tribes.” Source: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1122197/jewish/The-Future-Apportionment-of-Israel.htm

Also, the Jewish people will not have to leave galut in haste because unlike in the Geulah from Egypt when the Jews still had some measure of evil in them, in the final Geulah the evil inclination in them will already been annulled. This is the kabbalistic explanation I remember from the book of Tanya and from the moshiach and Geulah online forum that still existed a few years ago. If you’re still scared, you can change ur emotions and invoke miracles in your life by practicing gratefulness. Kol tuv

Rivka Levy says

March 18, 2019 at 12:23

Devorah, do you live in Israel, or in Chul?

Rivka Levy says

March 18, 2019 at 12:54

Thanks for the link – I had a look, and I can see that what you quoted is the opinion of the author, Rav Silberberg, but he didn’t include any sources or references for that opinion. Can you point me in the direction of any sources?

At the same time, I found this on the Chabad website talking about the time immediately before Moshiach comes, here: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/100900/jewish/The-Time-Before-Mashiach.htm

Which has copious sources from the Gemara, and explains that the situation will be very scary before the Messianic Era actually kicks off (see below).

Which brings us back to the original point of whether we can get to the Messianic Era without the ‘birthpangs’ and suffering that is so amply described, in so many of our sources, as being part and parcel of the run up to the Messianic Era.

Again, if you have a Torah source you can reference to support your point of view, I’d be very interested in seeing it.
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III. Ikvot Meshicha: The Time Immediately Before Mashiach

The time appointed by G‑d for the Messianic redemption is a closely guarded secret.1 Nonetheless, we are offered many hints to recognize its proximity: when certain conditions come about, await the imminent coming of Mashiach.

Most of these conditions are quite disturbing, clearly displaying a situation of the very “bottom of the pit.”2 One major source describes the world-condition in those days as follows: increase in insolence and impudence; oppressing inflation; unbridled irresponsibility on the part of authorities; centers of learning will turn into bawdy houses; wars; many destitutes begging, with none to pity them; wisdom shall be putrid; the pious shall be despised; truth will be abandoned; the young will insult the old; family-breakup with mutual recriminations; impudent leadership.3

Other sources add: lack of scholars; succession of troubles and evil decrees; famines; mutual denunciations; epidemics of terrible diseases; poverty and scarcity; cursing and blaspheming; international confrontations nations provoking and fighting each other.4 In short, it will be a time of suffering that will make it look as if G‑d were asleep. These are the birthpangs of Mashiach, bearable only in anticipation of the bliss that follows them.

“When you see a generation ever dwindling, hope for him… when you see a generation overwhelmed by many troubles as by a river, await him.”5 “When you see nations fighting each other, look toward the feet of Mashiach.”6

Little wonder that some sages expressed apprehensions about those days in terms of, “Let [Mashiach] come, but let me not see him.”7

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I guess those scared Sages should also go and work on their gratitude….

Rachel in NY says

March 18, 2019 at 19:05

We are THERE, Rivka. We have already experienced everything you listed in your above comment. No reason to assume it has to get worse!

Rivka Levy says

March 19, 2019 at 09:42

It’s definitely tough now, you’re right.

But I’d like to see a Torah source for this part of Devorah’s comment:

“Also, the Jewish people will not have to leave galut in haste because unlike in the Geulah from Egypt when the Jews still had some measure of evil in them, in the final Geulah the evil inclination in them will already been annuled.”

I still have an evil inclination, and so do a whole bunch of the people who are living in Galut, and also here in Israel. What needs to happen, before that evil inclination gets ‘annulled’? I’d like to see a Torah source for that, because in my experience, evil inclinations get ‘annulled’ through suffering. That’s the catalyst for real teshuva. But I’m very happy to see a Torah source that provides some other route.

Devorah says

April 2, 2019 at 14:52

Rivka the Torah source of ” not leave in haste” is in the book Tanya and see also point 2 here: http://ruchoshelmashiach.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-will-redeem-you-in-end-like-beginning.html?m=1

I think it’s based on yeshayahu 52:12
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15983#showrashi=true

I am sorry to tell you though that I also read somewhere in the meantime ( sorry I lost the link) that it all depends on us. If I remember well. You can Google these things. I may find more when I will have more time to look. Sorry, I am not a rabbi ..

Re the evil inclination annulled. how? : I think thru the birthpangs of Jewish history, and of mashiach. Could also in the end happen suddenly like at har Sinai. It says it will be like that. Hashem will reveal himself to the whole world with greater revelation than at har Sinai and suddenly the evil inclination will be annulled. Darkness can’t exist in the presence of light

Re whether we can get to the Messianic Era without the ‘birthpangs’ and suffering that is so amply described: of course. Darkness can’t exist in the presence of light. Talmud says in order to survive in the times of the birthpangs of mashiach one needs to occupy himself with Torah and gemilut hassadim.

Also, gratefulness evokes miracles.

I too believe we have already suffered enough and we’re already there.

Question to you now after been reading ur other site: could it be that all these leftists that are anti Torah and wanna make peace with the enemies suffer from c-ptsd (toxic shame, self hatred etc) ??

Rivka Levy says

April 3, 2019 at 09:44

Hi Devorah, I’m grateful for you taking the time to share sources.

I will BH write a longer post on this, as what you’re referring to is also part of why Satmar talks about the 4 oaths, restraining Am Yisrael from ‘ascending to Eretz Yisrael as a wall’.

From the first link, the post ends with this:

“And so it is with the service of each and every individual – there is no time to say, ‘I’ll change, when I have the time’, because these could be the very last moments of galus, and after these will come ‘the years about which you say ‘I have no desire for them” – ‘night like day will shine’, the complete redemption by means of Mashiach. ”

That seems to suggest we can’t expect Moshiach to ‘change’ things for us – NOW is the time we need to be doing the work on taking down the yetzer, etc, and fulfilling the mitzvah of making aliya (or at least, WANTING to make aliya).

The 4/5 died because they didn’t want to move out of their comfort zone. It could be that when the Tanya teaches the geula will come ‘comfortably’ and not in haste, that means that the Jewish people had 70 years to get their act together and move to Israel at a time when it was most convenient for them, and they could still come with their assets, and not just some old matza to eat…

There’s a lot of clarification required, and I think it requires a proper blog post, not just a 2 minute response on a comment. So, BH when I have some time I will put that together, with as many sources as I can find.

Re: crazy lefties – they for sure have C-PTSD! That doesn’t excuse them (or any other of the angry, aggressive, narrow-minded and abusive people out there) – but it does explain how they got like that, and it also points to how they can get ‘fixed’ somehow.

Devorah says

April 3, 2019 at 12:16

Rivka, Remember that someone who suffers from c-ptsd could also have the fawn response, not just the fight response. I think most inhabitants of Tel Aviv fawn. It’s really bad. How do they react whenever they see the rockets flying over TLV? “Oh poor Palestinians, you are starving again. It’s about time that our gov treats you more like family” ??

Devorah says

April 3, 2019 at 21:20

And let’s remember, Israel’s enemies also have c-ptsd.

Before the elections, some questions for meditation:

Who should we vote for? Which politician doesn’t have or has the least c-ptsd ?
What if a Torah observant politician has c-ptsd but a non Torah observant politician doesn’t have it? Who should we rather vote for?

Rivka Levy says

April 4, 2019 at 10:00

“The hearts of the kings are in Hashem’s hands” – who we vote for doesn’t matter so much (although clearly much better to vote for someone with daas Torah behind them, because even if we think we know who has C-PTSD and who doesn’t, what do we really know?)

If WE make the teshuva required in our dalet amot, our leaders will have siyatta dishmeya and things will work out, even if they are lunatics. And vice versa.

Devorah says

April 4, 2019 at 18:02

“If WE make the teshuva required ”

Currently according to statistics only 20% of Israelis keep Shabbat.

We need a non-lunatic spiritual as well as political leader.

No one wants to follow a lunatic even if he has daas Torah (remember for instance that NY born rabbi politician who got thrown out of the gov and then shot) and Torah requires one to be healthy!!

Rivka Levy says

April 6, 2019 at 22:02

If someone truly has daas Torah, they won’t be a lunatic. Just because someone has the title of ‘rabbi’, doesn’t mean they have daas Torah.

Also daas Torah is not generally a result of an individual effort, it’s the result of many yireh shemayim people coming together to come up with opinions that reflect genuine daas Torah – that’s why the Sanhedrin had 70 members, that’s why a Beit Din has 3 members. You can’t just have one person calling the shots in true Yiddishkeit.

Daas Torah is a consensus view.

Also, the teshuva required is not just in Israel. I don’t know where you got that stat from about Shabbat – can you please give a source? But I can tell you 100% for sure, that there are far more mitzvahs happening in Israel, and far more people with a true connection to Hashem in Israel.

Doesn’t mean that there aren’t mitzvahs occurring in Chul too, or that there aren’t people with a connection to Hashem there, too, because obviously there are. But our sources say clearly that Israel is the land of emuna. You feel Hashem’s guidance here 24/7, that’s part of why it’s sometimes not easy to live here, you can feel the spiritual judgments in the air, and they can drive you bonkers – or make you make teshuva.

Devorah says

April 7, 2019 at 22:28

Rivka, So who is this person in Israel’s politics that presently has daas haTorah acc to you?

Re the stat: “11% simply as religious, and 9% as ultra-Orthodox. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, the percentage of ultra-Orthodox is slightly higher.”

Source:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/latest-population-statistics-for-israel

80% of Israelis believe in G-d (stat of 2012)

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/1.5175991

Rivka Levy says

April 8, 2019 at 10:37

Daas Torah is collective, it’s not about an individual.

There is no one person in Israeli politics with “Daas Torah”, but there are political parties who clearly state that they don’t act before first consulting ‘Daas Torah’ – i.e. the collective wisdom of yirat-shemayim rabbis who are extremely learned in the finer points of halacha, and who are genuinely striving to try to give God what He wants.

Politics is dirty, there’s no way around it, but at least those types of parties have an additional ‘check’ on their negative impulses.

Thanks for giving the source for the stats – there’s a lot of manipulation of these things going on in the press in Israel, as they are trying to ‘force through’ anti-Shabbat legislation by claiming the majority don’t want it. Here’s what I found about the state of shabbos observance, from two years ago:

Towards the 69th Independence Day of the State of Israel, the Central Bureau of Statistics published a report according to which the population of Israel is approximately 8,680 million. 9% stated that they are ultra-Orthodox, 11% religious, 12% traditional religious, 24% traditional and not so Religious, “44% are not religious and secular.

I.e. 56% of the country keep Shabbat, in some form or other. Again, the reason that you’re seeing all those headlines screaming ‘only 20% are frum!!!!’ is because there’s a lot of political manipulation going on in this country, and huge agendas all over the place. Most of Israel keeps shabbat, but the 44% that doesn’t is often extremely vocal and ‘anti’ religion. It’s v polarised. But that 44% are in charge of the media, the courts and (most of…)the political parties.

Devorah says

Can you post the URL of the article about the stat?
Besides traditional doesn’t mean keeps Shabbat. It usually means they go to shul on rosh hashana and Yom Kippur, they do the pesach seder, brit mila and they install a mezuza.

The entire Middle East is one crazy region. The Arabs beat their wives, the Israelis beat their children, kick their brothers out of their homes and at least half of them divorce but, they wanna make ‘peace’ with the terrorists. Insane!

Rivka Levy says

April 9, 2019 at 09:09

The stat comes from here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel

“It usually means they go to shul on rosh hashana and Yom Kippur, they do the pesach seder, brit mila and they install a mezuza.” –

This is a chutz l’aretz definition of ‘traditional’. If you look at the link above, you’ll see that:

“85% [of Jews in Israel] participate in a Passover seder.”

“98% of Israel Jews Perform ‘Brit Milah’ Circumcision” – See here: https://hamodia.com/2017/12/27/poll-98-young-israeli-parents-held-bris-children/

Mezuzahs are ubiquitous in Israel – there is hardly a doorpost without them, and even self-defined ‘secular’ Jews put up mezuzahs – and also, erect sukkahs on Succot.

All this means that a ‘traditional’ Jew in Chul would probably self-define as a ‘secular’ Jew here. In Israel, traditional means the Shabbat is observed in some notable way – people will eat the Friday night meal, they will go to shul, they will not drive, minimum.

In regard to your comments about ‘half of Israelis beating up their children’ – 1) where on earth did you get that from? 2) it’s total lashon hara about Jews in Israel to say that – are you saying that wife-beating and kid-beating doesn’t happen in Jewish communities outside of Israel, or that Israel is somehow ‘worse’ than other places?

On what basis? This comes from a report on domestic abuse in the US Jewish community: (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/265934/safe-at-home-2)

“In Jewish families, domestic abuse occurs at about the same rate as in the general population (15-25 percent), among all socioeconomic levels and denominations including the unaffiliated, reports the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse.”

I know it’s more comfortable to keep demonizing Israel, as that helps to justify why Jews live in Chul. I get that, I understand it. No-one is pretending Israel is perfect, anything but. But the discussion boils back down to ‘what does God want from me, and where does He want the Jewish people to live?’

The answer to the second part of that question is obvious, but it’s qualified – and sometimes superseded – by each person’s individual path in life.

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Holy Despair

The last few weeks, I have to admit I’ve been struggling.

First I had that three weeks of ‘flu’, or whatever massive physical detox that actually was. Then, a lot of the things I’ve been working on the last little while started unraveling again, at least in my head.

I had issues on Sasson with a writer who was plagiarizing other people’s work, but didn’t seem to understand the problem when I explained it to them – repeatedly. Then, one by one the writers all seemed to get a little discouraged, and the creativity started drying up. I tried geeing it up with ‘themes’ and offers of monthly columns, but the people in the US really wanted to be paid to contribute regularly, and the people in Israel all got too busy with other stuff to be able to write.

Then, I had the issue with the pictures of women, which was the cue for someone who doesn’t even write for Sasson to send me a massively self-righteous email, knocking for me being so small-minded, judgmental and ‘anti-equality’.

So, my motivation to continue kind of sagged, because what’s the point?

Then, I spent two whole days  trying to stick up the back posts from Emunaroma 2017 on to this site, and as I was reading through them, I started to feel like why did I waste so much of my time writing this stuff? What’s the point?

At the same time, one of my teens has been extremely challenging the last few weeks, as mentioned HERE. She wants a nice, clean, new house. She wants a different kitchen. She wants a different bathroom, and for the apartment to be in a different part of Jerusalem.

After everything that happened with the house, I sympathise with her a lot, but it’s still sometimes rubbing salt in the wound when she stomps around complaining about how old and yucky and moldy everything is.

Mold always shows up in old apartments in Israel when it rains. And sure enough, I’m catching it spread across whole walls, and popping up behind a bed in our room, and behind the shelves and bookcase in the girl’s room.

Ah, now I understand why the rent was so reasonable.

In the meantime, my heart kind of sank again, because if it was my house, I’d do my best to tackle the mold problem fundamentally. But as it isn’t, all I can do is keep returning every few days with some wipees and bleach. I know it’ll be back again in a week or two, so again I had that feeling what’s the point?

Then I started reading an absolutely awful book – with no less than three rabbinic approbations! – which basically claimed that living in Eretz Yisrael is a total waste of time, and even a ‘sin’, because the State of Israel was created by reshaim who were using the State to uproot and replace religion and Torah.

That last bit is correct, but the rest of the author’s ideas – about massive Tzaddikim who live here being ‘reshaim gemorim’, or that the Six Days War was totally not miraculous, or that a Jew can live a perfectly nice life in Lakewood (without the high taxes, army service and threat of a nuclear Iran) – and be a better Jew than someone who sacrificed so much to live in the Holy Land totally and utterly depressed me.

The book is 1500 pages long, and by the middle, I started to doubt my own sanity for believing in the geula and Moshiach.

My husband saw what was going on, and took the book away to throw it out. I should have guessed it was bad news, and it had a whole chapter devoted to the ‘Erev Rav’ (who of course, only live in Israel….), and was packed to the gills full of lashon hara, arrogance and anti-emuna statements.

I learnt some interesting stuff still, which I may write about another time, but only if it’s going to help bring Am Yisrael more together, not divide us.

But I started to see why so many of the ‘ultra-orthodox’ Jews in the US and UK have absolutely no desire to make aliya – and even think it’s a mitzvah to look down on people who did, and to disdain those of us who really do believe that you should be ready for Moshiach every day, every moment, even if it’s never going to happen in your own lifetime.

There have been a few more disappointments and disses going on too, behind the scenes, which meant by the time we got to yesterday, I was feeling like my whole life is a total waste of time.

Not just what’s the point of writing? But, what’s the point of me?

Yesterday, I tried to do an imperfect long chat to God about it all, and by the end of that, I was in floods of tears.

I just felt so low and worthless, like whatever I do just fails and is pointless.

I drove out to Ashdod to take a look at the sea, and I felt a bit better. But when I got home, it all came crashing back down on me.

You’re pointless, Rivka. Nothing you do is ever going to get anywhere. You’ve been living in fantasy world getting ready for geula and Moshiach for the last 13 years, when you could have just stayed in London and enjoyed yourself. What an idiot, that you gave up your career and your house and your social group for this.

Man, it was bad.

I was a gibbering wreck when my husband came home, and I couldn’t even tell him what the problem was for the first two hours, I was crying so much and feeling so pointless.

I went to have a shower (that often helps when you’re in the middle of a nervous breakdown, btw), and by the time I was done, I could explain the issue.

I’m worthless, and nothing I’ve done matters in any way, shape or form. I have totally wasted my life, the last few years.

He looked at me blankly.

Then, he started the fight back.

I’m doing a little better today, although I’m still pretty shaky.

I’m still struggling to believe that I’m worth something, even if I’m not earning money. And that I’m a good enough mum, even if we live in an apartment that’s covered with mold and that doesn’t have a lot of home-made cookies in the pantry. And that I’m a good enough Jew, even though I have been finding so many things difficult recently, and I’ve run out of spiritual energy on so many fronts.

Of course, it was only after my total freak-out that I realized it’s Rosh Chodesh Adar – uniformly the most challenging time of the year. Last year, I signed the contract on the awful apartment on Rosh Chodesh Adar, and we all know what a ‘blessing’ that turned into.

I know we’re taught Adar is when the happiness appears, but my experience is that usually, the lead up to Purim is the darkest time of the year, and it’s only on Purim day itself that the heaviness starts to lift, and the light starts to shine through again.

And this year, we have two Adars!

We need all the help we can get, to make it through to Pesach in one piece.

After I wrote this, I checked my emails and found that Mary in NY had sent me this clip, from Rav Ofer Erez.

It was exactly what I needed to hear, and it explains (with English subtitles in 3 1/2 minutes) why we’re all feeling the pressure right now.

Over to Rav Ofer:

 

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Could it really be? Moshiach straight after Seder Night, 5779

Could it really be? Moshiach straight after Seder Night, 5779

Over on the RavBerland.com site, there’s a very interesting interview with Rav Shimon Badani, a very highly respected Sephardic posek who met with Rav Berland yesterday, and asked him straight out:

When is Moshiach coming?

Rav Berland told him:

Straight after Seder night, 5779.

I so want to believe it! We’ve had so many false starts, haven’t we? It’s kind of hard to get too excited about it, but Bezrat Hashem, maybe we really are in touching distance of geula.

Time to work on the marriage plans even more…

UPDATE ON ELIEZER BEN ETIA:

Looks like it actually happened! Unbelievable. Go HERE to read it for yourself.

BREAKING: The autistics just announced the identity of Moshiach ben David

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Deconstructing Geula

Deconstructing Geula: When Moshiach shows up, we need to have some clue as to what happens next.

When a couple announces their engagement, it’s always interesting to see if the focus is going to be on the wedding, or on the marriage.

The more superficial the people involved, the more ‘Hollywood-headed’, the more they are trying to live life according to a Disney script, the more interest they’ll take in the big day – their chance to shine – with precious little thought to what really comes after.

Thousands of bucks will be spent on the pink champagne, the dress, the breath-taking venue in the Bahamas, flying the guests in on whatever replaced Concorde. And often, those types of ‘celebrity’ weddings hit the headlines in a blaze of glory and triumph.

Only for the marriage to fizzle out and fail, a little while later.

By contrast, when the focus is on the marriage, and not on the wedding, things are usually done pretty differently right from the beginning. The couple – and everyone else around them – is far more focused on what comes after the chuppa.

Where are the happy couple going to live? What are they going to eat? How are they going to get along together? How are they going to manage, day to day? Who’s going to be paying the bills?

Yes, of course, there’s still a do to arrange, and a dress to buy, and a band and hall to hire – it is a wedding, after all. But the wedding isn’t the focus, the marriage is.

All this came to mind, when I was thinking about what it really actually means to ‘live’ in the times of Moshiach.

So I decided, it’s time to knuckle down to the job of actually deconstructing geula.

Sure, it’s exciting to think about the ‘big day’ when Moshiach is finally revealed, and the geula gets underway in an open and revealed way.

But much like the wedding, that ‘big day’ is only the beginning of the process.

Over on ravberland.com, I recently drew together some of the more telling sources talking about what happens before, during and after Moshiach is revealed. You can see that post for yourselves HERE, and I’m not going to repeat all the information in this piece, other than to pull out a couple of pertinent observations.

Firstly, when the Rambam tells us that nothing is going to change when Moshiach is revealed, other than the subjugation of the nations, what he’s really telling us is that

There is no instant, ‘magical’, Disney-fied ending to all our troubles and tribulations.

We don’t step out of this reality, and step straight into a world where everything is an open miracle – not least, because most of couldn’t cope with that, and we’d probably either go even more stark, raving mad, or keel over with heart failure.

So let’s carry on deconstructing geula. Let’s drill down, and take a few examples.

Let’s say, you have a medical prescription you can’t do without. When Moshiach comes, how are you going to cope, if you can no longer pop out to the pharmacy for a refill, whenever you need to?

Or, let’s say Moshiach comes and you’re still living in the US, and no-one in your family knows Hebrew, and you don’t own a home in Israel, and you still have elderly parents to look after who are too old, or too ill, to be moved to a new country. But Moshiach came! So now, what happens next?

Or, let’s say Moshiach comes, and there’s a big announcement made in your shul that ‘some guy’ is saying he’s the Moshiach, and geula has now begun in earnest.

If you haven’t been doing some serious work on getting connected to your soul, and to God, and to the true Tzaddikim, how are you even going to believe it? And if you believe it yourself, how are you going to convince your husband, or your kids, or your siblings, that Moshiach really did come just now, and you all need to pack up the house and move to some tent city the Israeli government just set up in the Arava desert?

Who is going to come with you? Really?

If we’re serious about really deconstructing geula, and what it actually means for us all, let’s try to picture the scene:

“Honey, I know you’ve been waiting for Moshiach for years, but how do we know ‘some guy’ is really him?! I’m not prepared to throw our whole life away on a gamble…And think of our daughter, she’s got her final exams in four more months, but you want to up and move to some tent in the middle of the desert now?! You can’t eat sand, be reasonable, honey. When Moshiach really comes, we’ll all know about, and that’s when we’ll order the one way ticket, and finally make aliya. But I refuse to let you pressure me into making a rash decision, just because ‘some guy’ says he’s Moshiach….”

I wish what I just described is an exaggeration, a caricature, of the reaction the real Moshiach is going to get, but if anything, I’m playing down how bad it’s going to be.

Why?

Because as the sources in this article show:

  • There is going to be a huge machloket over Moshiach, when he first shows up – i.e. it’s really not going to be obvious to a lot of people, frum or not, that he is who he is claiming to be.
  • A war is going to kick off in Israel as soon as Moshiach is revealed – which means that no-one is going to be in a rush to move here right then, and even if they want to, there is no guarantee there will be any flights in or out of the country, depending on what’s actually happening here.
  • Moshiach showing up is going to be accompanied by a whole bunch of totally natural, un-miraculous dramatic events that could totally change the world as we know it.

Yes, I’m back to the earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis part of the equation.

So now, let’s try to deconstruct geula a bit more, to see what the Rambam actually means, when he says:

The ‘subjugation of the foreign nations’ will cease.

What’s going to get that to stop, in our ‘deconstructing geula’ real-time breakdown?

What on earth is going to be happening in the world, to cause all the anti-semitic, Jew-hating countries who hate Israel to suddenly stop pressuring us to hold-off building more homes in the West Bank? Or to stop fighting back against the missiles and rockets from Gaza (even when they send over 400 in just one day)? Or to refrain from taking out Hezbollah tunnels into Israel that were dug over a whole decade, and that the Israeli army ‘apparently’ knew all about?

What’s going to change?

How is Trump’s mind going to get taken off his ‘deal of the century’ in the Middle East, which will boil down to some variant on forcing Israel to let go of land that God Himself gave to the Jewish people, in the name of ‘peace’?

How are the EU and its proxies suddenly going to stop funding all the lefty, anti-Israel ‘charities’ like B’tselem and Yesh Gvul? How is the UN suddenly going to take Israel off its agenda, and turn its attention to other things?

What’s going to change?

Clearly, something pretty big is going to have to happen, for our reality to change that drastically, and if you ask me, that’s where all the earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis come in.

And where are these natural disasters going to strike the hardest?

Answer: The same places they’ve struck in the past, namely the so-called ‘New World’.

Did you ever wonder, why the ‘New World’ was so sparsely populated, if it’s been there for billions of years?

Why were there so few people in North and South America? Why so few people in Australia and New Zealand? Why were the native cultures in these places relatively so stone-age?

Could it be, that no-one was building roads, or factories, or permanent dwelling places, because the ground there is fundamentally so unstable, and so prone to massive natural disasters? Could it be, that every time these civilizations started to make a little technical progress, another natural disaster hit to take everything back to square one?

Is that why it was so easy for the ‘advanced’ Europeans to cross the ocean and conquer the native peoples in the ‘New World’?

There is plenty of scientific evidence out there that the world is now entering another period of global cooling, and that this typically coincides with a massive uptick in seismic activity, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and a bunch of other weird and often dramatic geologic phenomena.

Every 200-400 years, the Americas are wracked by earth-shaking, massive quakes.

And we’re not just talking about San Francisco here. We’re talking about most of the continent.

And we’re not just talking about one, singular ‘big one’. We’re talking about a serious of dramatic geological events that are going to continue for a while, and come one after the other.

Again, let’s just try to come out of the Disney bubble, and ask ourselves what would happen if the modern USA, or modern Australia, got hit with the sort of earth-wrecking massive quakes and tsunamis that have clearly happened there in very recent times, tomorrow?

  • If the highways all got cracked up, what then?
  • If the underground water pipes, or gas pipes, all got broken up and shifted around, what then?
  • If a local nuclear power station got jolted around by a massive earthquake, or flooded by a massive tsunami – as happened at Fukishima in Japan, in 2011 – what then?

Let’s bring it back to deconstructing geula:

If the planes are all grounded because of geological disasters, if society is fast sinking into chaos and mayhem – as happened post-Katrina – how are the Cohen family actually going to make it out of Brooklyn, to the promised land?

Tachlis, what happens next?

An open miracle?

The Rambam told us clearly – no open miracles at the beginning of the geula process, except that the subjugation of the nations will cease.

So what does all this actually mean?

==

Again, deconstructing geula is serious stuff.

Sure, it’s great to breathlessly discuss the flowers, and the menu, and the special beading on the kallah’s dress, but tachlis, what happens the day after the ‘big day’?

That’s what I hope more of us will start to turn our attention to now, because we can’t just use the coming of Moshiach as some sort of emotional crutch, to help us get through our difficult, stressful lives, or to give us a bit of a spiritual ‘buzz’.

I know that’s tempting, and I’ve certainly spent a few years doing that myself, until I realized it’s actually not helpful, and if anything, it’s slowing up geula.

Why?

Because the Jewish people have a lot of work to do, to get ready for Moshiach and geula.

Moshiach is not a Disney movie, it’s not a fairy tale, where ‘some guy’ shows up and starts granting everyone three wishes, like some sort of Santa Claus, or genie in a bottle. We have to seriously start the process of deconstructing geula because:

  • Moshiach will show up, and there will be a big war.
  • Moshiach will show up, and there will be massive civil unrest and disruption occurring around the globe.
  • Moshiach will show up, and there will be 4 sceptics for every single ‘true believer’, telling you that Moshiach didn’t show up, or telling you that you’ve got the wrong guy.

And then what?

  • What are you going to do next?
  • Where is your family going to live?
  • How are they going to eat?
  • How are you going to schlep all those sceptical family members into actually being ready for geula?

What’s the plan, tachlis for getting out of galut and getting across to the holy land? How long are you going to leave things, before you move? Where are you going to come to? How are you going to cope, mentally, if you have to leave your home and loved ones behind? How are you going to persuade even your closest family members to join you?

This is all stuff that we need to start thinking about, and especially, praying on, now.

I know it’s hard. It’s hard to really drill down, and to start deconstructing geula to see what it actually means, especially for people who didn’t already take that massive leap of faith, and move to the holy land.

Actually moving to Israel is definitely a big part of the process, no doubt (and it’s also the main reason why I tend to take ‘rose-tinted’ pronouncements about geula from people who don’t actually live here with a huge pinch of salt.)

But it’s not the whole enchilada, not by any measure. Even if a person already lives in Israel, there is a lot of work to do, and no guarantees that just being here is enough to guarantee a person will ‘make it’ through the geula process.

There are so many crazy people here, so many people who are ‘anti’ religious Jews, ‘anti’ rabbonim, ‘anti’ anyone who really could be the bona fide Moshiach.

When war breaks out here, who knows who will actually have the courage to stay and see it through, and who is going to try and run away as fast as their legs will carry them?

And there’s one more thing to throw into the ‘Deconstructing Geula’ mix, too, which is that our Sages say that the redemption from Egypt is the blueprint for the future and final redemption.

That means that at some point, Moshiach / Moshe Rabbenu will probably show up in Mitzrayim / Miami to give the people chizzuk, and to lead them out of a country that is being devastated by what appears to be a series of massive, back-to-back, natural disasters.

God isn’t going to just turn His back on people, because they didn’t manage to move to Israel yet. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean they are going to get a ‘free ride’ when geula really kicks off.

Because make no mistake, unless something huge changes, there is no way in the world that the USA would let 6 million of its wealthiest and most highly-educated, productive citizens leave to Israel en masse with their possessions and talents. Its economy would go into meltdown, and we all know that money is really the only thing that motivates Uncle Sam, for good and for bad.

So then what happens?

Moshiach / Moshe Rabbenu will return to Mitzrayim / Miami to lead the Jewish people out, and to reassure the Fed that the American Jews are only leaving for three days, and then they’ll come back and go back to work, and that all the money they want to remove from the US banking system will be repaid, and really nothing to worry about.

And America won’t let them, until America is broken by a number of massive geological disasters, and the country is left in complete disarray.

And then what?

4/5 of the Jews still won’t make it out, because even after all the miracles, they can’t quite bring themselves to believe in Moshiach / Moshe Rabbenu, and they really aren’t so keen on swapping the flesh pots of Brooklyn for some tent city in the middle of the Arava.

Maybe you’ll say that’s a stretch, but does this scenario really sound so far-fetched?

SO WHAT CAN WE DO NOW, TACHLIS, TO GET READY FOR THE ‘MARRIAGE’ AND THE DAY AFTER?

The main piece of advice is to start talking to God, every single day.

If you’re regularly talking to God, He’ll start helping you to figure out what’s coming from a place of truth, and what isn’t. He’ll start cluing you in to which people, which leaders, which rabbis, which writers are really ‘real’ out there, and who is a faker and distraction.

He’ll help you to work out which bad middot, which negative character traits, are getting in the way of you being able to actually make real plans to really ‘live’ geula, practically speaking, and to move past all the breathless, frothy excitement of ‘Disney-does-geula’.

Here’s a few other suggestions to ponder on the subject of Deconstructing Geula:

  • Tachlis, can you buy something in Israel, maybe even something small and in completely the wrong location?
  • Can you start to learn more Hebrew? And / or send your kids to a school where the focus is put on learning to really speak and interact in Hebrew?
  • Can you start to at least spend a bit more time in Israel, getting more acclimatized to the country, and yearning for it more?
  • Can you start to maybe just broach the subject with your spouse, or with your kids, about what happens the day after Moshiach comes, and how that might look, and what plans you might need to start working on, to come through it in one piece?
  • Can you start to encourage your family to at least just think about how life could look in Israel?
  • Can you start working on your emuna, and especially on your emunat tzaddikim, so that when Moshiach really does show up you aren’t actually just ignoring him, or worse, scoffing at him and calling him a ‘false messiah’?
  • Can you start working up to talking to God for an hour a day, so you really have the spiritual strength you need to make the right decisions as required? Because Israel and redemption, like everything else worthwhile, is not going to come ‘easy’ to anyone.

I know, we all love Disney so much because they always have those cute happy endings:

Allakazam, the wand waves, and you step out of your big house in Five Towns, step into a jet, and 10 hours later, step out again to your big house in Jerusalem, with a great view of the rebuilt Temple.

But I can’t find a single authentic Jewish source that says that this is how geula is really going to be.

But there are plenty of sources telling us that it’s going to be hard work, dramatic, and like all birth processes, anything but easy.

So, it’s time to stop talking about the ‘wedding’ and to turn our attention to the ‘marriage’ that comes after. Because that is where the real discussion is to be had, and where the real work needs to be done.

Also see: Deconstructing Aliyah.

UPDATE ON ELIEZER BEN ETIA:

So, it looks like the Deconstructing Geula scenario I described above is about to start playing out in real time.

This just in:

And this:

BREAKING: The autistics just announced the identity of Moshiach ben David

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