In the Rav Moshe Chaim Luzatto's Derech Hashem, he describes the act of shaking the lulav (or "pumping" it, according to Sefardi minhag -- it's all the same in Hebrew: "mina'ane'ah") has the power to inspire fear and dread in the hearts of the haters of Am Yisrael.

(To this, one of my teenagers quipped, "What a good feeling to know that when I was mina'ane'ah the lulav, some ISIS terrorist somewhere started shaking in his boots." Heh-heh. Exactly.)

Combined with hakafot (marching in a circle at shul with the lulav), this has the power to subjugate our enemies to the point that they want to serve Am Yisrael. 

(Therefore, I asked my male family members to please engage in some really heartfelt hakafot because I'm overwhelmed by all my responsibilities and could really use a knock on the door from a miraculously reformed Hamas terrorista wishing to help me out.)

Most religious Jews have read Derech Hashem (as have I) and are familiar with this concept, but I'd forgotten about it and enjoyed being reminded.

(Also goes to show the much-lauded importance in the frum world of reviewing the writings of our holy Sages. You get something new each time.)

It's a deceptively simple mitzvah with tremendous beneficial power.

May everyone have a chag sameach and a gut yantiv!

May this Sukkot see revealed protection and joy for Am Yisrael.

(BTW, if you haven't tried it yourself, but always wondered...the bark of an etrog tree really does taste like an etrog minus the juiciness.)

​Here's a sukkah gallery:

In case you missed them, here are some past posts for Sukkot inspiration:

Judaism: The REAL Religion of Love
Special Sukkot Yahrtzeits
Parshat Emor - The Kli Yakar
​(Delves into the beautiful symbolism of the 4 Minim, plus other powerful aspects of Sukkot that impact the rest of the year, including other chagim.)

One of my great-grandfathers became a maskil in Eastern Europe.

But he never lost his passion for Aggadah and used to entertain his grandchildren with stories from Aggadata.

He typed out a memoir of his life, then destroyed it and typed up another memoir. I've read it and possibly his last experience in a sukkah occurred as a young man when he obtained a pork sausage and wanted to eat treifus for the first time in his life -- without getting caught.

So he decided to hide out in the sukkah his father built.

Just as he was about to chomp down on the revolting treif sausage, a rock suddenly fell through the schach and hit him smack on the head.

This rattled him, but he emphatically stated something like: "I in NO WAY believe this was min haShamayim! It was JUST a COINCIDENCE!"

Of course, it's a very unlikely "coincidence."

Where did the rock come from?

Since sukkahs can't be built under anything, where could the rock have fallen from?

​And how did it manage to get through all the schach and land right on Alter Zeide's head at the exact moment he opened his mouth to chomp treifus for the first time?

Anyway, he determinedly continued to eat the sausage in a great demonstration of his commitment to the haskalah.

Then he suffered terrible stomach cramps all night long, which was also supposedly a coincidence and solely due to being unused to pork sausage -- or perhaps the poor quality of this particular sausage.

His rejection of Judaism and embrace of haskalah left him with relatively few descendants. 

​Of those descendants, nearly all are either assimilated Jews or not Jewish at all (except us).

From reading his memoir, I think I would have liked him had I known him.

But he should have listened to the rock.

May we all merit doing true teshuvah from love & not from yissurim.

I just wanted to point out 2 powerfully positive developments (H/T Yeranen Yaakov):
​
Ben Gurion Airport to Shut Down for Yom Kippur

For the First Time, Kinneret Beaches to be Closed for Yom Kippur

These are steps in the right direction.

​Eretz Yisrael is spiritually sensitive and cannot tolerate desecration, which is why she is described as a Land that can vomit out her inhabitants.

Particularly with the shut-down of a major airport, I'd think that the logistics of doing so are quite complex. 

And of course, there are those who rage against these advances (although the beaches were also closed for Memorial Day and that was fine with these same inconsistent protesters). 

But the truth is that observing halacha ultimately saves lives and only brings blessing in the end, especially when mesirut nefesh is involved.

This is a big zechut for Am Yisrael and may it only increase.

Kol hakavod to all those involved.

May everyone have an easy fast and may we all merit to do complete teshuvah & have our teshuvah accepted by Hashem.

I wanted to speak a bit about Ari Fuld, who was horrifically murdered in Gush Etzion yesterday during these 10 Days of Teshuvah.

Despite Ari Fuld's deadly injuries, he fought back NOT just to save himself, but to save other people from being murdered by that evil terrorist.

It seems that his courage and determination came from love.

It's an amazing act of ahavat Yisrael to pursue a terrorist while he himself suffers a fatal wound.

My husband saw Ari Fuld weekly, as Ari Fuld passed through my husband's place of work. Their relationship consisted of exchanging "Shalom-shalom!" because Ari Fuld acknowledge and greeted every Jew, even if he didn't know them. My husband said that Ari Fuld always had a smile for everyone, was a great ohev Yisrael, and whole-heartedly encouraged his fellow Jews to make aliyah.

My husband said that even without knowing him well at all, he always sensed something special and admirable about Ari Fuld, emphasizing that his ahavat Yisrael really shined through even in such brief interactions.

Some people greet you to be polite or admired, while some people greet you because they truly feel connected to you at the soul level.

Ari Fuld died al kiddush Hashem and has likely merited a very beautiful chelek in Olam Haba. May we all become fully Torah Jews, internalizing Torah principles in our heart and always listen to our yetzer hatov while blocking out the voice of our yetzer hara, and need not the death of our truly good and special individuals as a kaparah for our sins.

Saying mishnayot and Tehillim is good at this time.

There is also a fund to provide for Ari Fuld's family here (H/T Shirat Devorah):
​www.gofundme.com/ari-fuld

May the fact that so much money was raised with such good will by so many caring and alacritous Jews in such a short amount of time be a zechut for Am Yisrael in our time of Judgement.

I just read a very useful article on talking to God.
 
He explains that by talking through your entire day with Hashem, you can rectify that day.
 
Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender also mentions this in Words of Faith.
 
The idea is that you should sit down and start talking to Hashem as if He is your Most Caring & Intimate Friend, who is Totally Trustworthy and Forever Forgiving.
 
In other words, the Unlimited Infinite Wholly-Omnipotent Master of the Universe is your personal BFF.
 
And then you speak about everything that passed over you during the day and everything you did—like a chatty report of your day.
 
This really chirked me up because as I’ve said before, I was always a dreamy type. Not ADD because I can focus well-enough, but sometimes what’s going on in my head can be more compelling than what’s going on around me, even if it’s something I’m actively doing myself.
 
Because I read Rav Arush's article at late morning, I felt it would be doable to start with the moment I woke up this morning. It seemed I could avoid getting distracted in the middle because we are only talking about a few hours, not 24 hours.
 
So I started with how my husband woke me up nicely and even though I was initially extremely sleepy due to having gone to bed way too late the night before, I still managed to get up at my husband’s first mumble and a minute later, I really felt fine and not sleep-deprived at all.
 
Yet I fully realized that this was nothing for which I could take credit because it is irrational to think that not only can I get up after such little sleep, but also feel perfectly fine a minute after doing so (especially since I haven’t gotten much sleep over the past few weeks AND a child already woke me up for a moment even earlier this morning)—and manage this all on my own koach.
 
Absurd, right?
 
So once again, it was “Thanks, Hashem! Very Nice & Generous of You—especially since it was my own fault that I went to bed so late in the first place!”

See? Very Forgiving is He.
 
And so it continued. I found things I did wrong (even though I’d only been awake for 5 hours so far), got some great insight into something I thought was innocent or neutral but was actually inconsiderate to Hashem, and also saw that anything good I seemed to have accomplished was yet another manifestation of Hashem’s Kindness to me because it involved accomplishments that I’m not capable of on my own (like not overeating, not obsessing over something worrisome, etc.).
 
So it was some nice fault-finding, slate-cleansing…and most importantly, feeling The Love.
 
I think this is a good way to start small if you tend to get distracted, overwhelmed, bored, or bogged down with the whole talking-to-God-in-your-own-words thing.  
 
Please read Rav Arush’s article for more inspiration and a tip for when you’re truly tongue-tied:
A Prayer-Insurance Policy

And also, please read a previous post which is sort of Part I to this post:
The #1 Thing You Can Do to Cancel Negative Decrees

Well, I hope this works for you (if you hadn't been doing it already) and I hope it continues to work for me too because God knows I really need it.

Many people are suffering through Hurricane Florence right now.

And while these hurricanes are rarely as severe as they are hyped up to be, people have still been killed and property destroyed.

Our brothers and sisters in America’s southeast may be temporary homeless right now. What difficulty and stress they must feel upon facing Yom Kippur and Sukkot during such a meteorological assault, in addition to everything else they must be going through right now.
 
Our tefillot and hearts are with them.
 
A Category 5 hurricane (Typhoon Mangkhut) has also hit the Philippines and is headed for China. I remember when a Chabad family sheltered in their mikveh during a Caribbean hurricane, miraculously saved at the last minute. Let’s daven that the zechuyot of the Jews in these areas also sweetens the decree behind this Typhoon Mangkhut, Hurricane Florence, and all other assaults by nature.
 
And for those of us whose homes and property aren’t under assault from a hurricane right now, let’s be truly grateful as we pray for everyone and their property to be spared & restored.
 
(Please see the previous post on how to “distract” Hashem from enacting such difficult decrees.)

May our tefillot & maasim tovim cancel all negative decrees.

​Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender lived as a humble tzaddik in the Ukraine despite targeted Communist persecution. Because of their dedication to mitzvah observance, he and Rav Eliyahu Chaim Rosen even spent several weeks in a KGB prison, not knowing until the moment of release whether they would be murdered and discarded in an unknown grave.
 
In the book of his lectures, Words of Faith, Rav Bender stresses the importance of knowing that your prayers and words of Torah are of tremendous significance to Hashem.
 
ANY mitzvah or holy act is significant in the eyes of God.
 
On page 325, Vol I, Rav Bender exhorts you to have faith in yourself, explaining that you must say to yourself and to your yetzer hara:

​He defines this as “ ‘faith in oneself,’ which is imperative to advance in serving Hashem…”

​Rav Bender explains the power of speaking to Hashem in your own words in a focused manner:

So according to Rav Bender, you need to:

• ​Have faith in yourself & the power of your prayers.
• Know that your heartfelt words and good deeds (however imperfect they may be) are of tremendous significance.
• Clear your mind of other distractions.
• Focus your heart & mind toward Hashem.
• Speak to Hashem as you'd speak to a close & genuinely caring friend.​

In the Pele Yoetz's chapter on Rosh Hashanah, he provides recommendations for reading Tehillim:

• Every place that mentions enemies (oyavim), haters (sonim), oppressors (tzarim), etc., you should have in mind the Heavenly prosecutors (mekatrigim), who are are the true enemies: enemies of our souls.
• Every place that mentions misfortune (tzarah), distress (tzukah), etc., you should have in mind your own personal distress
• Every place that mentions "life," you should have in mind 2 things:

1) Your spiritual existence:

• that you should be alive
• that you should feel the love of God all your days
• that you should feel the fear of God all your days

2) Your physical existence:

• you should want to live in order to serve your Creator
• you should not be the cause of any anger or grief for Hashem or the Shechinah
• you should complete the rectification (tikkun) of your body, spirit, and soul.

The Pele Yoetz repeats the well-known recommendation to read all of Tehillim twice because there are 150 chapters of Psalms and 150+150=300, which is the numeric equivalent of kaper (atone).

He recommends doing this over Rosh Hashanah (read all of Tehillim each day for those 2 days), but I've heard others recommend doing this over the 10 Days of Teshuvah, which comes out to a book day. (Tehillim is split up into 5 books containing around 30-40 chapters each.)

While the Pele Yoetz lauds the recitation containing proper understanding of the meaning of the words, he adds that if one doesn't know the actual meaning, one should at least read them carefully letter by letter, word by word.

(I'm assuming there was no Bulgarian translation of Tehillim available at that time because he doesn't mention reading Tehillim in another language for those who can't understand the Hebrew, which is admittedly very hard Hebrew, harder than the Hebrew of Chumash. In Israel, they sell Tehillim with the modern Hebrew "translation" underneath each word because the syntax and vocabulary of Tehillim can be so challenging until you learn it well enough.)

Needless to say, translations of Tehillim exist in almost every language, so you can use that too.

I personally know of illiterate women who cannot even read the words. Instead, they place their finger on each word and look at it. And in this way, they can participate in saying Tehillim, even as they technically remain completely silent.

It's the heart and the intention that counts.

At the same time, the Pele Yoetz repeats a well-known statement of the Sages in Tur, Orach Chaim, Siman 1:
"A small amount with proper intent is better than a large amount without proper intent."
("Tov me'at b'kavanah m'harbot b'lo kavanah.")

So each person needs to know his or her own heart and capabilities.

And again, more than anything else, it's the heart that counts.