The last three weeks, I’ve been having a massive test of trying to not get angry.

It started shortly before Rosh Hashana, when my two kids wound me up about the Rav, and then has just kind of continued unabated since then.

Having all the stress of dealing with my husband’s infected foot took things up a level, and long story short, I’ve been on the edge of losing it multiple times, the last three weeks.

First, let’s explain what happened with the foot.

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Long story short, the husband came back from Uman with a really, really bad foot infection, that has been incredibly stressful for my whole family.

Because it just wasn’t getting better, no matter what we did with it.

I shoved bentonite clay poultices on it; bathed it in strong tea tree solution, put my ‘miracle balm’ on it – and all that seemed to help to take down the swelling after 2-3 days.

BUT – then the sole of the foot erupted in a bunch of deep, painful and infected sores, that just seemed to be multiplying all over the place.

At that point, I admitted defeat and asked my husband to call a doctor.

(And I also started paying pidyonot, because the penny was starting to drop that whatever was going on, it was turning into a massive spiritual test for all of us.)

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My husband was on crutches, and literally hadn’t left the house for a week, when the Arab ‘doctor to your door’ showed up.

He stayed here exactly 26 seconds, he took one look at my husband’s foot, and told him he had ‘pitriot’, i.e. a fungal infection.

He prescribed him two antibiotic creams for five days, which I went to get, and my husband started enthusiastically slathering them all over his foot.

It was Friday lunchtime.

At the shabbos table, my husband’s foot started swelling up again, like it had right at the beginning, and it went a really yucky colour.

He had an allergic reaction to the creams, and we had to wash them off ASAP.

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At this point, the secret worry that something serious was going on with the foot started to really take hold for both of us.

My husband had a late uncle who spent the last year of his life having various toes, then a foot, then his lower leg cut off, thanks to diabetic foot infections. Visions of Uncle Fishel started haunting my sleep.

I started paying some serious amounts of pidyonot, and at the same time, I spent hours researching online for some natural alternatives to treating really bad foot infections that just wouldn’t heal up.

I also started doing a lot of cheshbon hanefesh about the spiritual / emotional causes of what was going on, and that led – and is continuing to lead – to a lot of teshuva, and a lot of things that need some work.

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Long story short….

After trying apple cider vinegar foot baths…smearing raw honey on the foot…dripping coconut oil around it…using more bentonite clay on it, which also worked to staunch the bleeding, even though it made it look even more gross….forcing my husband to drink ionic silver solution…and to take MMS drops…and probiotics…and to drink turmeric teas…

I got to the idea of using raw garlic on the foot to clear up the infection.

And Baruch Hashem, it’s been working.

Another thing that has really helped with the healing part of the equation is using a mixture of 1 tsp coconut oil, mixed with 2 drops of oregano essential oil and 5 drops of myrrh essential oil.

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In the meantime.

My kids kept panicking me that I was doing the wrong thing, by not just checking my husband into a hospital somewhere….

And my husband’s sister – a very senior pathologist – kept sending us messages telling us to do exactly the opposite of what we were doing…

And my husband kept glaring at me, every time I approached his foot with another slice of raw garlic…

And visions of Uncle Fishel continued to haunt my dreams….

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By the end of last week, I could see the garlic and myrrh mixture was finally working, BH.

But in the meantime, the toll of spending three hours a day bathing my husband’s foot and sticking garlic on it – while also trying to keep the household going, build a sukkah and cook meals for chag and shabbat all by myself – was really starting to take its toll.

By Erev Simchat Torah, I was at breaking point.

I’d spent the morning rushing around to get a wheelchair from Yad Sarah, so my husband could spend a little bit of the holiday with the Shuvu Banim kehilla, and then the idea was that I’d push him back home.

My kids had forgotten that I wanted a quiet holiday, and I ended up with 5-6 guests.

And I was just feeling totally sick of everything, and everyone, but especially my family.

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I had to get out of the house, or else I was going to explode at someone in a way I was probably going to seriously regret.

So, I popped off to the local health store to get a couple of kombuchas, my drug of choice, for the chag.

I get in there, and there is a hulk of a man with a ponytail, cowboy hat – and a massive mask pulled up to his eyebrows.

He’s inline, standing on the old ‘keep 2 meters apart’ sticker that was stuck there two years ago, but basically ignored ever since, and he was clearly expecting everyone to be doing the same.

Another cashier opened up just as I joined the queue, and the two people in front of me went there, so that left me directly behind the hulk – and I was in no mood to tip-toe around Covid-induced OCD mental illness, so I stood where I would have stood normally, i.e. not 2 metres away.

He didn’t notice, he was busy paying.

But then his masked-up wife suddenly rushed over to him – she’d been standing way over on the other side of the store, to avoid being next to anybody who could breathe germs on her – and started frantically gesturing at me, as she whispered to him to do something!!!

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The guy turned around, and in bad Hebrew told me that I was too close to him, and could I please move back.

I told him:

No, I can’t. If you have a problem, you need to stay at home and get your stuff ordered in.

He had no idea what to do with that, so he turned back around and continued paying, while his wife continued glaring at me. From the other side of the store, where Covid germs apparently didn’t get to.

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I left the store in such a bad mood.

Partially, I was worrying that the mentally-ill crazies were going to force the rest of us into another lockdown again. Partially, I was conflicted about whether I was just meant to have ‘bitull-ed’, instead of standing up for myself. And partially, I was feeling like no matter where I go, no matter what I do, I just couldn’t seem to run away from the test of anger.

Which I kept failing.

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Yesterday evening, I wheeled my husband to the men’s section of the big Shuvu Banim temporary Sukkah on HaAyin Het Road, then found a chair in the women’s section.

We got there early, so I had a really good view of the Rav, because I was standing on my chair and peering over the mechitzah.

Even though it was Simchat Torah, I was feeling so sad and broken, about everything that had been going on the last few weeks, and my own inability to deal with all this stuff without constantly feeling frazzled and angry.

Long story short…. I spent a couple of intense, but awesome hours there. I started off so sad, but by the end, I started to feel so much better, so much happier again.

I got home, and I just knew what the spiritual cause of my husband’s infected foot was: suppressed anger.

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This morning, I dug out the small booklet, the Tefilla L’ani, of prayers and advice written by the Rav, to help overcome anger.

I’ve read it a few times before, and it has always worked immediately, to defuse the angry feelings that seem to just be overwhelming me.

As I read, I found a whole bunch of stuff that seemed to be tailored exactly to the situation with the infected foot, and it’s connection to angry thoughts, and suppressed anger, self-righteousness and holding grudges against people and God, that life isn’t exactly the way we think it should be.

But I also found some information that explains why so many of us are currently facing the test of anger at the moment, in its many different incantations.

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Here’s what I read:

[W]hen a person gets angry, he is in a state of lacking self-control, and evil forces control him. But when a person prays and pleads to overcome anger, the he will merit to see the face of Moshiach Tzidkaynu, about whom it’s written: “He will be imbued with a spirit of fear of Hashem,” “the breath of our nostrils, Hashem’s anointed.”

And he gives strength to the kingdom of Moshiach to reveal itself in the world, and all of this comes by way of his nullifying his anger with mercy.

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Take-away message:

Each of has a job to do, to:

1. Acknowledge our anger.
2. Understand it’s a problem, instead of always justifying it by blaming other people, or situations for ‘making us angry’.
3. Pray profusely, to ask Hashem to make our anger go away.

And every time we make an effort to engage in this process of overcoming our anger, we are literally bringing the open revelation of Moshiach a step closer.

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The last three weeks, I’ve been telling myself and my husband over and over again, that nothing ‘bad’ comes from a person going to Uman for Rosh Hashana.

I knew my husband’s infected foot was some sort of blessing in disguise, but figuring the whole thing out (without losing my marbles) has been really hard.

Once I came across this piece of information, I finally could see what’s been going on.

My husband is a British ashkenazi – his anger is of the firmly suppressed and internalised variety, that leads to no end of health issues, God forbid.

So, Rabbenu fixed things that all that ‘suppressed anger’ should show up in horrible foot sores that just wouldn’t heal, no matter what. This whole process has brought so much of the ‘suppressed anger’ up, in so many ways, so that now it can properly acknowledged, dealt with and prayed about.

BH, it’s actually been a huge kindness, because:

[W]hen a person prays and pleads to overcome anger, the he will merit to see the face of Moshiach Tzidkaynu.

But first, they have to be able to acknowledge their anger!

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There are a lot of angry people around at the moment.

There are a lot of us dealing with the ‘test of anger’, because all this is directly connected to Moshiach being revealed.

People are always annoying. Situations are always frustrating.

But our test is to stop blaming others for everything that’s ‘wrong’ in the world, no matter how justified, and to just knuckle down to working on overcoming our own anger.

It’s a process that lasts a full 120 years.

But the point is to engage in that process, get God involved, and to pray and plead to overcome our own anger, so that we merit to see the ‘face of Moshiach Tzidkaynu’.

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May Hashem help us all to pass this test.

While still sticking up for what’s right.

And not letting the psychos win.

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