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How to REALLY Daven for Your Husband

30/5/2017

One thing I found very frustrating when listening to perturbed wives was that therapists or advisers often labeled these tormented wives as “self-serving” or told these long-suffering women that “you only care about yourself” because of the wife’s insistence that her husband change behaviors that were causing her a lot of pain.

“You only want him to change for you,” these wives were told. “You don’t really care about him.”

The thing is, it’s almost impossible to separate one’s personal interest from the bad behavior of one’s spouse. If a husband’s behavior is causing enormous distress to the wife, then how can she filter out her own self-interest from her desire for him to change?

Furthermore, maybe she really doesn’t care about him so much at this point. If he’s been consistently distressing her, maybe she just wants him to knock it off and let her live in peace. Maybe she’s concerned about how his behavior is affecting the kids. Maybe she wouldn’t mind getting divorced, but doesn’t feel like the hassle is worth it.

What then?

The thing is, I understand what these well-meaning-yet-pretentious advisers mean. And technically, they’re right: Ideally, we should be focused on what’s good for the other person, and not just what’s more comfortable or pleasant for us.

Why Even the Most Caring Nagging Doesn't Work

Additionally, you can sense if a person is encouraging you to change because it’s better for you or because it’s better for them. And believe me, if a person is asking you to change for their own convenience, you feel like they’re just cramming you in a box and don’t care about you at all.

This makes you dig in your heels even more.

For example, picture a smoker being nagged by his wife about how bad his smoking smells and how much it bothers her and makes her cough. When that doesn’t work, she explains the damage smoking causes him (as if he didn’t know), which just sounds manipulative to him. He knows that it’s her own discomfort she cares about. Later on, she tells him how smoking can harm their children.

“Nu,” he says, “so I won’t smoke near their bedrooms. Anyway, all the pollution from the cars and factories outside is worse than a couple of cigarettes in the home. Maximum, I’ll open a window or bring home one of those air-cleaner things. What’s the big deal?”

Even if the wife in the above example starts off with the damage smoking causes him, rather than the discomfort it causes her, he can still sense that she’s bothered by the way his smoking affects her, and not just bothered by his potential suffering.

Finally, the wife in the above example is absolutely right: Her husband should stop smoking!

But he won’t.

The Benefit of Compassion...for You

And the above is just one example. There are husbands who really could be learning more, eat too much of the wrong thing, irresponsible and immature husbands, husbands who do drugs, are involved in criminal activities, fly into rages, neglect their wife and children, laze around like a good-for-nothing, constantly kvetch and whine like second-graders, suffer from mental illness and refuse to get help, act like helpless pansies, flirt (if not worse) with other women, spend their free time looking at things they shouldn’t, are critical and demanding, are addicted to something, and a whole variety of behaviors, whether minor or major.

And the wife is absolutely right to demand that a husband change in any of the above areas—both for hers and children’s sake and for his.

Many times, a wife gets someone else to talk to the husband, but this often bears mixed results.

For such a difficult husband, the Pele Yoetz recommends that she try talking to him herself:

…at an eit ratzon [a favorable time] in a pleasant manner, with charm and kindness, this certainly bears more fruits because in truth, they said, “A soft tongue will break a bone.” (Mishlei/Proverbs 25:16)

(Note: Rashi interprets “soft tongue” as “with prayer and supplications” and “bone” as “the severity of a decree.” So according to Rashi, the verse reads: “Prayer and supplication will break the severity of a decree.”)

Yet it’s rare that any of the above types change their behavior just because their wife says it’s hurting her.

Similarly, the Pele Yoetz makes no promises and it’s clear that the above is just a suggestion that is likely to be more effective (“certainly bears more fruits”) than other actions the wife can take, yet the Pele Yoetz ultimately encourages a wife to turn to Hashem as the most effective action:

Included in the love of a woman for her husband is that she should pray for him before God. Since the prayer of a woman emanates from her tender heart and her tears are near, if she calls out to God from the innermost walls of her heart, certainly her prayers will bear fruits.

A woman must also pray for her children because in the well-being of her husband and children, she will find peace and well-being.

And who will have pity on them more than she?

(Note: The word translated here as “pity” is “l’chus” or לחוס, which doesn’t have an ideal English equivalent, but it’s more empathetic and less pathetic than “pity” implies.)

But how can a wife actually filter out a chunk of her own self-interest in order daven for her husband’s well-being? How can she pray for her husband’s well-being from a place of pity and compassion for him?

First of all, the Pele Yoetz assumes a wife feels profound love and compassion for her husband, even though not all wives do today, especially if a wife has been struggling with consistently hurtful behavior from her husband.

And frankly, I don’t know how to tell a wife to feel this way if the feelings just aren’t there. (And like I said, those tender feelings of love and compassion simply may not be there through no fault of her own.)

Judaism is a lot about action and being proactive, whether spiritually or practically. So I think this is a situation where explaining things isn’t very helpful. On the contrary, it’s smarter and more effective to just start doing it, and then you’ll see how it works and how your inner feelings and attitude change.

Needless to say, it’s easier to make this transition if your husband is basically a decent guy, but just has some annoying traits that are holding him back from being his best. If your husband is a real ogre, you may not be able to cultivate these lofty feelings, but the davening can still be very helpful for you to achieve a better outcome, whether that outcome is shalom bayit or divorce or something else.

Like I said in a previous article How to be a REALLY Good Wife, we don’t know all the tikkunim for which God put us here. And it’s certainly difficult to know what other people need to rectify and how. So all this is meant to be helpful, but even the Pele Yoetz himself doesn’t guarantee a desired outcome.

He merely says that davening is often extremely effective and that he expects it to be effective within marriage too, but some people do suffer here a lot despite their best spiritual efforts and that’s impossible to deny.

Tips on Davening for Your Husband’s Sake

Start off with something that benefits him, but has no connection to you.
It doesn't matter how ridiculous or insignificant it seems.

Here are some suggestions:

He should have clear traffic any time he travels
Green lights at every intersection
A geshmak learning session
Any elevator should always arrive for him immediately
Finding favor in the eyes of everyone he meets
No technical malfunctions
Not getting caught in the rain
His shoes should be really comfortable
He should always be in a shady spot (whether cloud-cover or a tree) when outside in the sun
Your own idea

Now, if your husband is the kind of guy who takes out his frustration with traffic on you or the kids, then of course you do have personal interest in the above going well for him. That’s also fine.

Spiritual efforts tend to be about what you can do, and not pretending to be on a level or in a situation where you aren’t.

The point is to just start taking even the smallest steps in the ideal direction.

In addition to the davening, when doing the above, you’ll usually notice a change in yourself, however slight. You’ll start to feel more altruistic toward your husband in some way and this is good.

Even if your husband is genuinely a big problem, it’s much healthier and maintains your personal equilibrium to feel pained on his behalf (especially if he is too sunk in his own bad middot to be pained on his own behalf) and go in emuna with Hashem rather than:
“I hate this big, stupid jerk. Why can’t God have married me to a normal person?” or “Men stink.”

The Pele Yoetz also recommends maintaining the awareness that your husband's problems or bad middot aren't your problem, per se, and therefore, his badness doesn't reflect on you personally.

I want to emphasize that self-interest isn’t necessarily bad. The Pele Yoetz certainly acknowledges that a wife can and should also daven for her own self-interest.

A Summary of Principles

Looking around and listening, there does seem to be a lack of genuine compassion in a lot of marriages and a lack of real heartfelt davening—which is actually a problem in every aspect of a Jew’s life today, not just marriage.

Also, I don’t know who I’m talking to. In such a wide audience, you’re going to have a variety of situations.

For example, I’ve personally encountered:

wives married to decent husbands who don’t appreciate their husband's decency.
wives married to really good men with much better middot than the wife and the wife doesn’t see it at all (and thus treats him like dirt)
Problematic wives married to problematic husbands (but she thinks she’s basically fine and that he is the only real problem)
wives who know they need to and genuinely try to improve their general character married to duds, jerks, or ogres
wives with exemplary character married to ogres

…and much more.

So the above advice is based on classic Torah sources and personal observations and experiences, but may need to be tweaked to fit your individual circumstance.

What works for one person will not necessarily work for you and vice versa.

In other words, this post offers general principles based on Chazal and not modern psychology, which frees you to adjust any advice therein to suit your own tikkunim and current spiritual level and to keep growing at the pace set for you by God.

The main thing is that you merit to do whatever is the right thing for your personal situation.

To paraphrase a nice prayer appearing in many siddurim:
May Hashem help us all to complete our rectifications in this lifetime without trials or disgrace.

Photo courtesy of Mark Lord Photography

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Why You Need to Make God Your Top Adviser

29/5/2017

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When I first became frum, everyone I met chanted the same mantra:
"You need a rav! You need a rav!"

For women, a rebbetzin was also considered important.

Then when I started shidduchim, that mantra changed to:
"The main thing is that your husband has a rav...doesn't matter what rav! Any rav!"

And everywhere you turned, there was story upon story to illustrate the following:

A rav saves a person from himself. The person was going to make some mistake that would ruin his life, but his rav's advice saved him.

Here's a person who didn't consult with a rav...and now just LOOK at his terrible situation!

But despite the most rose-colored way I insisted on viewing many of the rabbis and rebbetzins with whom I met, eventually I could no longer hide from the fact they weren't necessarily wiser or better than anyone else. Furthermore, some of them certainly possessed worse middot than your average person and therefore, could not give correct direction or insight.

Even a very good rabbi or rebbetzin also possesses blind spots regarding certain issues.

And, speaking from personal experience, being a rabbi or rebbetzin is extremely stressful and even the most well-intended person doesn't function ideally under stress.

Initially, I thought there must be something wrong with me. Apparently, something about me brought out the sinat chinam, the hypocrisy, the bad middot, the egoism, or just the plain lack of good sense and compassion in rabbis and rebbetzins.
(Note: I'm not talking about gadolei hador, but regular rabbis and rebbetzins.)

But as the years went by, I noticed that the mantra changed to:
"You need a QUALIFIED rav! You need to find a husband with a really good rav!"

Hmm...what changed?

Slowly, I realized it wasn't just me; other people had also been burned by their rabbis or rebbetzins.

(And I don't even have any of those horror stories of being robbed or exploited or abused by a rav or rebbetzin.)

Furthermore, I give credit to the frum community for changing its tune on this particular issue. Contrary to popular belief, the frum community does pinpoint problems and takes the proper steps to adjust itself. Sometimes it's still wrong (like with its attitude toward mental health, in which they've taken on a wholly secular view based on that of the atheist psychiatric community), but it is well-meaning and it does try more than any community I've ever seen on the secular side.

But the idea that you need a rav, a rebbetzin, a chinuch advisor, etc., and that consulting with one of the above guarantees a healthy outcome?

Nope. It depends.

If you have an actual halachic question in Jewish Law, then yes...please consult a QUALIFIED Orthodox rabbi.

But if you need non-halachic advice? Then it depends.

Is the person truly qualified to advise you?
Does this person possess the wisdom and understanding (both in Torah and in the area under discussion) to give solid advice?
Does this person genuinely care about you and the damage their advice could possibly wreak on your life?
Is this person really better or on a higher level than you or, say, your next-door neighbor?
Does this person take halacha and mussar to heart?
Does this person do a regular cheshbon hanefesh?

You could actually just read Gate of Trust in Duties of the Heart to find the answers to the above questions.

(Hint: The Only One qualified for the above is...God.)

God Can Do ANYTHING - Literally!

Believe me, after extracting you from whatever muck you were in before you discovered the Torah-true path, God is not going to suddenly abandon you to some flesh-and-blood master of uncertain wisdom and integrity.

Coming from such a hishtadlut-oriented culture, it really took me years to even start internalizing this fact.

But in fact, however much Hashem liked you before, He likes you even more now that you have tossed away so much garbage in order to follow Him into the Midbar (Wilderness).

Hashem loves us so much and does so much for us, it is ridiculous to think that we can no longer trust Him as we did when we were steeped in sin.

Here are some proofs:

God Goes to the Ashram

I guess we can start with Sara Yoheved Rigler, whose story is well-known.

Here we have a lady invested heart and soul in the profound tumah of avodah zara well into her thirties...yet Hashem rescued her from amid all that spiritual sewage!

He even brought her to Eretz Yisrael to the holiest city in the world, where she raised a Torah-true family.

And He has done that not just for her, but for many other Jews steeped in tumah.

After going all the way to an ashram in India to extract you, Hashem isn’t going to suddenly dump you.

She’s the most famous, but there are a lot of ex-ashramers walking around the frum world.

As further proof, Hashem even goes after Jews who have no way of knowing that they are Jewish.

God Goes to a Christian Home

Rachel grew up in a very Christian family; her father was a minister.

Yet for some reason, as a 9-year-old in Sunday school, when a Catholic priest tried to give her a copy of the Christian bible for her very own, she refused.

“I don’t need it,” she said.

He kindly insisted.

“I don’t want it,” she said.

Smiling, he handed it to her.

“If you make me take it,” she said, “I’m just going to throw it in the garbage.”

He made her take it anyway, and sure enough, when no one was looking, the book went into the garbage. (Her only regret later was that she didn’t realize that the first part—the Tanach—was genuinely holy and didn’t belong in the garbage.)

In her teens, she became interested in Judaism and decided to go through the rigorous conversion process. Toward the end, she mentioned to her rabbi that she was adopted.

“Before we continue,” said the rabbi, “I’d like you to check and see if you can find out your birth mother’s religion.”

It was in her adoption file—her birth mother was listed a Jewish.

But because there was no solid proof, she still needed to go through the actual conversion, although in her case, the rabbis ruled that she shouldn’t say the full blessing. (I can’t remember whether she said it without Hashem’s name or whether she had kavanah during the tevilah without saying any blessing.)

This is incredible. There was absolutely no way she could ever know she was Jewish.

Yet Hashem ignited a spark in her heart for Torah and mitzvot.

Without that, there is no way she could have ever returned to her soul’s root.

Anyway, after doing all that, is Hashem just going to disappear from her life?

No, of course not.

God Goes to Royal Spain

In Eretz Yisrael, I met a religious Jewish woman related to Spain’s royal family.

She was raised as a Christian and went to exclusive schools for the upper class elites, yet she had unexplained terror of the nuns who taught there, even though the nuns were always perfectly nice.

Yet just before her mother died, this woman discovered that her family was from a long line of anousim who had always been particular to marry only other anousim...until either her mother or grandmother. One of them was the first to marry a non-Jew, and not just any non-Jew, but a royal one.

Yet when she tried to find out more, her mother fiercely rebuffed her until her dying day.

So the daughter set out on a spiritual journey that led her to Torah and to a kosher conversion (because there was no tangible proof of her family’s Jewishness throughout the generations even though they had a solid line of tradition).

When I met her, she exuded rock-solid contentment with her Torah life in her cozy Israeli apartment. Quite a change, I'm sure, from the luxury villas of the Spanish elite.

To me, her story is incredible testimony to Hashem’s intimate involvement with every Jew.

To have dwelt in such comfortable materialism only to leave it all for a much lower standard of living in a developing country, plus her willingness to enter the Jewish community and absorb Jewish Law, and also to be a minority in a Hebrew-speaking land where even among other immigrants, she is still a minority among the huge population of Russian- and English-speaking immigrants—Who can be behind such desire and determination?

Why didn’t she make the choice her mother made? On the contrary, why did she davka choose to embrace exactly that which so terrified her mother?

(Hint: Perhaps Hashem was guiding her?)

God Doesn't Dump His Faithful Ones

We know so many people like the above—and maybe this even resembles your personal story—and it all clearly shows Hashem’s great Love and Attentiveness and Power.

But according to the “Consult a rav!” enthusiasts, now that Hashem has personally extracted the Spanish lady out from centuries of luxury, fear, European culture, Christianity (and so much more), why does the “Consult a rav!” crowd still insist that this obviously special woman will not be able to choose a community or make a myriad of other non-halachic decisions without consulting Rabbi So-and-So (who is probably not as special as her and has probably not made sacrifices of that magnitude to follow Torah) of the local shul , seminary, or yeshivah?

So yeah, Hashem can pluck people out of ashrams, Christianity, Spanish royalty, and even Mitzrayim.

He can split apart the Yam Suf.

But only an all-too-human rabbi can tell you where to live or where to send your children to school!

Isn’t that all a little bit too wacky to really believe?

God is Perfect. People Are Not.

Look, if you have a rav or rebbetzin who really has been giving you good solid caring advice, then fine. That's also from Hashem. Apparently, they're very good shalichim for you.

It's a nice mazal.

But like anything else, it doesn't have to be that way.

Rabbis and rebbetzins aren't perfect and some aren't even decent.
They can be very good well-meaning people who are misguided, just like anyone else.
There's also a matter of chemistry, just like in any other human relationship.

Yet even though they almost drove me off the derech, I'm grateful for my disappointing experiences with rabbis and rebbetzins because that very lack is what pushed me into a relationship with Hashem and with Chazal that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I'm actually more frum and more committed to Torah without them.

And that's probably why it all happened.
____________
(Note: I do ask a rav if I have a halachic question. But God is my Address for advice, direction, and all other requests.)

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How to REALLY be a Good Wife

28/5/2017

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When I was first getting married, I happily took in lots of advice.

I wanted to be as close to achieving the perfect frum wifely ideal as possible!

And all the advice sounded very good.

And I was very idealistic.

But it didn’t always work out well. In fact, like with some of the parenting advice I received later, some of the marital advice seemed to backfire.

When I young and newly married, one rebbetzin insisted that good communication demanded that I force my husband to parrot back everything I tell him (well, not everything…just the stuff I felt necessary for him to understand and remember). I was really uncomfortable with this because it seemed very condescending. When I tentatively shared my hesitancy with the rebbetzin, she seemed confounded.

“Whyyyy?” she said in that creepy, utterly perplexed, vowel-dragging intonation some rabbis and rebbetzins adopt when being questioned.

So I very hesitantly explained, asking her if maybe it could be interpreted as condescending?

She looked dumbstruck. “Whyyyy would he ever consider such a thing con-de-sceeeending?” she asked.

Suddenly, the implication seemed to be that there was something wrong with my husband, not with the method. I felt really bad that I’d inadvertently engaged in a form of lashon hara about my own husband.

Intimidated by her and disoriented by the sudden turn in the conversation, I tried to stammer out my thoughts on the matter, but I didn’t want to offend her. After all, she was a very chashuv person and she was taking the time to help out little ol’ me.

She replied by saying, “Well, I can’t think of what could possibly be condescending about asking a person to do that!” She paused, then said, “Ohhhh…maybe for a Sephardi man, you feel it’s condescending? Because his kavod is very important to him?”
Oh, this was just getting worse. No, that’s not what I was thinking at all! Now this conversation was turning into lashon hara about a whole group!

“No,” I said. “No, it’s not that at all.”

My mind rushed to find a good explanation. The truth is that I couldn’t imagine my 3rd-generation American liberal Ashkenazi father responding well to my mother telling him to parrot back whatever she just said, as if he was some kind of errant kindergartener or something. But I didn’t want to have my words twisted into lashon hara about my father—it was bad enough that it happened regarding my husband. Anyway, why was this suddenly turning into a cultural issue?

I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot:
“The truth is, I don’t think…um…I’m not sure if I would like to be talked to like that either… I mean, if someone would want to make sure I understood them, I…I’m not sure if I’d understand why they’d need me to do it like that. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say…”

Not terribly coherent, of course, but I was trying my best. By using myself as the example, I meant to convey that this wasn’t a gender or cultural issue. See, Ms. Rebbetzin? Even an Ashkenazi female might find it condescending.

Yet now the rebbetzin turned her beady eye on me. “Ohhhhh,” she said, knowingly—and distastefully. “Well.”

I squirmed. Apparently, I must be a gaavadik piece of dirt to consider something so innocuous to be so condescending.

(Now I know better, but that was then.)

Anyway, after some more melodramatic vowel-dragging, she convinced me that the method was just fine, if only I’d just get over my own (gaavah-based) reservations.

My perceptions were wrong, hers were right.

She was the big important FFB rebbetzin married to a chashuv rav and I was just a young stupid baal teshuvah girl from America.

She didn’t say that outright, but the message was clear. (And it was a common message I heard repeatedly from all different rabbis and rebbetzins in different versions throughout the years.)

So next time my husband and I needed to sort some things out, I took a deep breath and asked him to repeat back to me what I just said.

And guess what? There really is no nice and uncondescending way to do exactly this.

And guess what? He was offended! And he didn’t know what I wanted from him.

Finally, I apologized and explained where I got it from and he just sighed and grumbled something about interfering rebbetzins.

In the end, he wasn't upset with me, he was upset with her.

Newsflash! Rabbis are For Chickens

My husband never was into this whole running to a rav or rebbetzin for every little thing. He didn’t grow up with it and he never saw anyone doing it in his Moroccan community. People went to the graves of tzaddikim to pray or to the tzaddikim themselves to receive blessings and get advice for truly complex halachic issues—but not day-to-day stuff.

As his mother once told me, “In Morocco, we [Jewish women] didn’t go ask rabbis and rebbetzins all the time—we already knew all by ourselves!”

She also meant that women turned to other women who intimately knew and cared about them for advice and even halachic direction.

(Just as an aside, my mother-in-law was also perplexed that women needed official sessions with a certified instructor to learn about taharat hamishpacha. You do need proper instruction for the actual halacha of it, but the hashkafic aspects of these classes can be problematic…)

Several Ashkenazi Yerushalmi women told me, “We have a saying: ‘Rabbis are for chickens!’ "

What??!!!

They explained:
"If you have a specific question about Jewish law (like a question about the kashrus of a chicken you’re preparing to eat), you ask a rabbi. But advice? How can he know what you—especially a woman!—is supposed to do? Is he in your situation? Is he in your head? Does he know what you experience? How can he really know what you need to do?”

But I’d been indoctrinated that consulting with rabbis and rebbetzins for advice (not halacha, but mere advice) is the age-old Jewish tradition (it’s not) and that something terrible will happen if I don't consult with someone greater and wiser than I (not true).

So it was hard to let go of.

Anyway, I went back to the rebbetzin and as tactfully as I could, explained what happened. She was nonplussed to hear that her method was indeed found insulting.

“Ahhhh,” she said sagely. “I guess it’s because he’s Sephaaaardi. Noooow, I understand. Okay. Everything’s clear. This just won’t work with Sephardi men; they can’t handle it. Okay, fine. I just learned something new.”

It’s seems so ridiculous that I fell for her garbage back then.
It’s such obviously passive-aggressive sniping and sinat chinam.

We're the Chosen People, Not the Cloned People

Another problem is all the “advice” and “shitahs” (methods) and taking verses out of context and misapplying Gemaras and blah, blah, blah.

It really messes with your head.

ESPECIALLY the verses and Gemaras taken out of context and skewed to fit the speaker’s agenda. Many, if not most, of the people quoting stuff supposedly about and for women have not actually looked into how the mefarshim themselves interpret these sources.

In addition, for a lot of things, but especially for child-rearing and marriage, two people cannot apply the same whole chunk of advice or shitah.

Yes, many people offering courses and classes and advice really do want to help. And yes, you can definitely pick up some good stuff in what they have to offer.

But you’ll also get some head-wrecking stuff in the mix.

And depending on you, your spouse, your child(ren), and your specific situation (health, finances, community, or anything else), the stuff that worked wonders for someone else may slam you into an abyss that is very hard to scrape out of.

We’re all too different and even more essentially, we all have different tikkunim to rectify via our relationships and roles in life.

In a nutshell, you aren't necessarily supposed to be doing what your neighbor is doing and she's not necessarily supposed to be doing what you're supposed to be doing.

Don't Trust Agendas...Trust God!

But I learned with time.

At this point, I’m very, very picky about shiurim and what I read. It’s very hard to be a rabbi or rebbetzin and I know because I’ve actually been a rebbetzin for a blessedly short time. And, to put it politely, it’s extremely challenging to maintain your spiritual equilibrium in such a position. (I’m not talking about gadolei hador, but regular rabbis and rebbetzins of a community, pulpit, or kiruv.)

Baruch Hashem, God made many of these people so unbearable that I ended up turning directly to Him and to classic Torah sources (like Duties of the Heart and so on) in way I wouldn't have otherwise.

And because Western society has become increasingly agenda-driven, it’s hard for people from such societies to keep their agendas off their hashkafah.
(Getting agenda-free takes a lot of emuna and self-awareness. Ask me how I know...)

And the following is very important to realize:
The classic Torah books and commentaries were written by tzaddikim.
Your rabbi or rebbetzin may be a good person (or maybe not...), but it is VERY unlikely that he or she is a tzaddik.

So who is actually going to impart to you true wisdom?

The tzaddik?
Or the guy with a certificate that only proves he's got good academic skills...and his wife?

So, with a few exceptions, I try to stick to stuff that was written a couple of centuries or more ago. And I’m much happier now!

Anyway...what are wives supposed to be doing?

Davening! Praying! Tefillah!

When I read original sources written by tzaddikim a century or more ago, this is what they emphasize for women: tefillah.

Yes, they also talk about actual behavioral things, like nurturing, honoring, and forgiving your husband, and treating him with patience.

(And their standards for how husbands should treat their wives are even higher their standards are for wives. But we’re talking about the wifely role right now.)

At the same time, the Sages were also very aware that there are difficult, temperamental, and even abusive husbands.

(For example, the Pele Yoetz states that in the case of a very abusive husband, it is “fitting for whoever has the authority to punish [the abusive husband] to the best of their ability” and that it is important to help an abused wife get divorced if that’s what she wants because it is “a great mitzvah” to “save the oppressed from the hand of their oppressors.”)

Regardless of how good or successful he is or isn't, the Sages emphasize davening for your husband.
Rav Eliezer Papo in particular expounds on this in Pele Yoetz:

She should pour out her soul before God day after day. Perhaps God will be gracious and her prayers will bear fruits to return her husband to the good path. Then she too will find menucha/rest.

Included in the love of a woman for her husband is that she should pray for him before God. Since the prayer of a woman emanates from her tender heart and her tears are near, if she calls out to God from the innermost walls of her heart, certainly her prayers will bear fruits.

A woman must also pray for her children because in the well-being of her husband and children, she will find peace and well-being.

And who will have pity on them more than she?

(And in a later book, he composed special prayers for wives to pray for their husbands.)

Rav Papo's words are very moving.

It doesn’t matter whether your husband is best thing that ever happened to you or if he’s just a heavy millstone around your neck or anything in between.

A wife’s tefillah for her husband is so incredibly powerful.

Even if you're very happy in your marriage and couldn't ask for more, you should still daven for the welfare of your husband in his life and health.

Notice that the Pele Yoetz assumes that no one can feel more compassion for a woman’s husband and children than she.

Not her husband’s rav, not his siblings, not his best friends, not his rosh yeshivah, and not even his own parents--HER.

This isn't always true, of course, but it often is true.

So if your husband is doing well, you can talk to Hashem about him succeeding even more. And if your husband is faltering in some area—whether it’s his livelihood, his physical health, his mental health, his character, his Torah learning, his spirituality, or anything else—you can have some heart-to-heart talks with Hashem about that.

You both benefit.

Now, it needs to be acknowledged: We don’t know what our tikkunim are exactly.

Oftentimes, pouring out your heart to Hashem leads to improved circumstances in your marriage, but sometimes it results in a divorce with a happy second marriage later on.
But then again, some people don’t seem to get a break.
There are no guarantees.

But looking around, I do see that turning to Hashem on behalf of your husband is much more effective in every way than all these books and classes and “experts.”

May Hashem grant feelings of true love and unity throughout the entire Jewish Nation.

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The Real Saviors of Am Yisrael

26/5/2017

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I once met a college-age young woman at a seminary for baalot teshuvah.

She was a plain girl wearing shorts, and there was something very nice and serious about her.

We got to talking and asking the usual questions asked at these places:
“How did you get here? What made you come?” and so on.

Surprisingly, she explained that she'd actually attended a local frum girls high school when her parents had started on their journey toward Torah observance.

As she related this, her demeanor started to change. She started closing her eyes more as she spoke and she tossed her hair stiffly a couple of times to hold on to the casual tone of the conversation.

She also started taking a breath between sentences in the way people do when they want to steel themselves.

“My parents meant well and wanted to do the right thing,” she said. “And I was happy to try it out. Being frum sounded nice, I enjoyed Shabbos and stuff, and the way they explained things made sense.”

But the school was just awful, to put it bluntly.

The little she told me was appalling:

The girl’s new peers held each other to very high material standards, which this girl and her family simply couldn’t afford, which led to discrimination against this girl.

This is just disgusting.
It goes against everything a Jew stands for: mercy, compassion…and bushah. Bushah isn’t easy to translate, even though it’s often translated as “shyness” or “shame.”

UPDATED: Bushah is a certain embarrassment or shame about doing the wrong thing or having done the wrong thing. It can also mean a certain kind of inner refinement that holds one back from calling attention to oneself or one’s attributes (including material attributes) unnecessarily. It’s bad enough that the wealthier girls were being show-offy about their family’s economic status, but to bully their poorer peers into maintaining this level of gashmiut is revolting.

Every peirush and mussar sefer in Torah literature insists that even the wealthiest Jews keep things toned down and sternly warn against any kind of ostentatiousness, whether regarding clothing or the exterior of one's home.

Of course, this doesn't even begin to cover the lack of shame than ongoing bullying indicates. How were they not ashamed or embarrassed to behave as they did?

The girl did not speak or behave or possess the same knowledge exactly like the girls brought up oh-so frum since birth.

This is totally normal and acceptable. Taking on just the basics of Torah is a long process. But it is clear that this girl possessed classically good middot in spades. I can’t imagine that she was behaving in a particularly shocking manner or was a problematic influence.

(And even if she was, that is a reason to try to encourage a person, not to torment them, especially when we are talking about such a young teenage girl.)

Anyway, as she just made superficial mention of the torment she endured at that school for not being up to her peers’ standard of material or “religious” observance…her head reflexively jerked to the side as one side of her face also jerked in an uncontrollable tic.

She stopped to take a steadying breath, then said, “Well, let’s just say that it was a very unpleasant experience.”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” I said.

Her tic revealed profound trauma. After all, people’s bodies don’t snap into tics when relating “normal” unpleasant memories.

I felt a rush of rage at the school that so badly traumatized this really nice girl.

Beis Yaakov? More like Beis Esav, if you ask me!

“So I just left the frum world,” she said.

“I really understand you,” I said, thinking that I for sure would’ve done the same and done so with a lot of vocal resentment.

Yet she had a “But” that explained why she was here in this frum seminary.

Basically, she felt like the Torah was good and true (despite her horrible experiences with Beis Esav's version of frumkeit), she believed in God, and wanted to give it all a second chance.

“I want to hear about it on its own terms,” she said, “at my own pace, and really think things over as I go.”

I was astounded and thought she was one of the most special people I’d ever met. What a great neshamah she possessed!

Who's REALLY the Fairest of Them All?

You see, it’s like this:

She’s not like the regular off-the-derech kids.

She has no frum family longing for her to come back to the fold—well, maybe just her parents (if they stayed frum; I can't remember), but not anyone else. And frum life isn’t the comfortable or natural way for her. It's not like she grew up that way. After all, she was pretty secular until her teens.

She was seriously traumatized and abused by a very frum-seeming community.

Both the adults and her peers either allowed or actively participated in her abuse. And of course, they were doing it under the impression that they themselves were soooo frum. This is really hard to recover from because it’s not just one or two individuals misrepresenting Torah, it’s a whole group, including some very chashuv-seeming models of frumkeit. Barf.

And it was all so bad that just mentioning it gives her a tic.

The fact that she’s able to and even wants to give God a second chance is amazing to my mind.

I’m sure that her neshamah comes from a very high place, if she is able to perform such a feat of gevurah.

Yet if you’d seen her, you’d see just a regular girl, a very quiet and very nice young woman who didn't look particularly frum.

No one’s going to write a book or even an article about her, or give a shiur about her amazing mesirut nefesh and her exemplary hitgabrut.

But I truly believe it’s people like her who are saving the Nation.

Just the bare fact that, against all odds, she was willing to give God and the Torah a second chance after being so harshly rejected, after being so revoltingly spit in her face (spiritually speaking)…this is a massive merit for the fidelity of the Jewish people.

This is real mesirut nefesh to keep the mitzvot.

Could you stand up to a nisayon like that?

I'm not sure I could have. But she did.

Everything I've learned tells me that it’s people like her who end up weighing down the Heavenly scales on the side of merit for the Jewish people.

It’s unsung Jews like her who say, “God, as a sincere, hopeful, and vulnerable young girl, I tried to come close to You, but You rammed me back. You spit in my face, You made my life Hell…but I’m still willing to give You another chance—on YOUR terms. I’m willing to hear You out. So here I am.”

She’s the example to follow.

The Gemara says that Olam Hazeh is an upside-down world, with the truly special people toward the bottom and the lesser people at the top.

It’s really a lesson to take to heart.
____________________________

Note: Her Beis Esav school should not be taken as representative of Beis Yaakov schools. I’ve definitely heard of Beis Yaakov schools in both America and Israel who accepted and nurtured girls from atypical backgrounds out of a feeling of responsibility to provide each bat Yisrael with a genuine Torah education.

I’ve heard of frum Beis Yaakov girls speak of a more secular classmate with admiration and affection, even as the school didn’t hold that classmate to the same standard as the other girls. For example, at one Beis Yaakov, the more secular girl wore jeans outside of school, something that the girls from properly frum homes would have been expelled for, and the other girls still liked and accepted her.

Charedi and Beis Yaakov schools are perfectly capable of making the Torah journey a pleasant experience for students of all backgrounds.

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When Survivor's Pride becomes a Survivor's Pitfall

24/5/2017

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What is “Survivor’s Pride”?

It’s when a victim rises up after his or her trauma and says:

“I will NOT be like my abuser!"

"I will not give into my baser nature!"

"I will be different!”

"I will be better!"

Survivor’s Pride is the scaling tool victims need to pry themselves out of their pit of trauma and break a possible pattern of abuse.

Well-intended people develop Survivor's Pride after:

childhood abuse
coming out of a sick society
recovering from a traumatic incident
suffering bullying
workplace dysfunction
a terrible teacher
any number of traumatic experiences

It is also the main way survivors of family abuse become good spouses and parents.

So initially, Survivor's Pride is a GOOD thing.

In modern psychology, Survivor’s Pride is seen as a goal of sorts. This is because it’s so necessary and effective in breaking out of trauma and a cycle of abuse.

However, it’s like any other form of medication or propulsion.

For example, large doses of vitamin C may be necessary to cure a disease.
Some kind of anesthesia may be necessary to go through surgery.
Pressing the trigger mechanism of a gun propels a bullet out in self-defense, saving your life.

Similarly, an intense dose of Survivor’s Pride may be necessary to propel the person out of the effects of trauma.

But to keep running on Survivor’s Pride eventually leads to what I call “Survivor’s Pitfall.”

If a person continues to take large doses of vitamin C beyond what healing dictates, daily anesthesia without surgery, or holds a gun that never stops firing, then their quality of life basically ends.

They end up hurting themselves (or others).

Sadistic Hostess or Prideful Disassociated Survivor?

When I was around 7-months pregnant with our first child, my husband and I spent Shabbat as guests in the home of a couple with one five-year-old named “Gitty.”

The mother was a highly intelligent medical professional with an assertive personality.

At one point, Gitty decided she wanted to walk around the table using the seats in which we were sitting. Without further ado, she squeezed her foot into the miniscule space between my husband’s back and the chair’s back, and hoisted herself up.

Startled, my husband scooted forward to give her enough room. (He wasn't comfortable getting all assertive and confrontational with a 5-year-old girl.) She shuffled across his seat, then stretched out her foot to mine. Not wanting to get into a confrontation with the hostess with whom we were trapped for the rest of Shabbat (and who was sitting there pretending not to notice while a satisfied little smile played about her lips) or knock the child off-balance (she was stretched between the two chairs), I also scooted forward.

The child made a couple of rounds like this (with my husband growing more and more appalled and me feeling increasingly victimized) before her father noticed and told her to stop while subtly shooting his wife a frown and a muttered inquiry. (Apparently, he felt his wife should have picked up on the daughter’s behavior first because his wife was sitting directly across from and facing us while he was at the head of the table, off to the side.)

“Oh!” said the wife with obvious delight and just as obviously fake surprise. “Come here, Gitty, and sit next to me!” she said pleasantly.

Would you do this to your Shabbat guests?

Is that how you treat a pregnant lady?

And how do you think my husband felt as the girl placed the dusty soles of her shoes on the bottom back of his Shabbat suit while forcing him to eat on the edge of his chair? How do you think a 7-months pregnant woman feels forced to sit on the edge of a hard chair while eating?

And why was this intelligent, assertive, cultured woman behaving this way?

Well, I know this woman’s parents and I also know a bit about how she grew up, and her behavior is SO COMMON in people who grew up with...physically abusive parents.

The Process of Survivor's Pride

Survivor's Pride goes something like this:

As an abused child, she realized that constantly threatening or hitting one’s children with a belt is really bad and unnecessary. (This is the first step in Survivor’s Pride and is often experienced at a very young age.)

She resolved not to do it as a parent. (This is the second step.)

But at some point, she realized that she possibly could repeat this terrible behavior herself and needs to actively prevent it. (This is the third step.) Either she saw anger in herself and/or she came across that tired old psych-notion that people who suffered abuse are quite likely to become abusers themselves.

Note: 80% of people abused as children do NOT become abusive parents.
They DON’T.
Yes, abusers were themselves abused. That’s true. Behind every abuser is some kind of abuse. Victimizers were previously victims at one point.
That’s the 20%.
But it doesn’t mean that victims eventually become abusers themselves. The vast majority don’t.
So if you were abused, do you have a higher chance of becoming an abuser yourself?
Yes, you could become one of that 20%.
But it’s much more likely that you’ll be one of the 80%.

Modern psychology has ingrained this idea that if you’ve suffered abuse, it’s like being bitten by a werewolf:

You’ve been infected and now you’re going to turn into a monster.

Not true.

But because this notion has been flung around so often for so long, people believe in it.

Because any honest self-aware person sees ugly attributes in him- or herself which, if left unbridled, could lead to becoming abusive, people take this notion to heart.

Consequently, it makes people very afraid of their own self, causing them to spend their lives walking on inner eggshells so as not to awaken the monster they’re convinced is secretly inside.

I’ve seen this more times than I can count.

Anyway, back to this particular woman (and many other survivors of abuse):

She waits for trigger situations to occur.

(Trigger situations are those that her parents responded to with physical abuse. It could be spilled milk, a dawdling child, a hyperactively overtired child, a crying child, or anything else.)

And when she’s finally a mother and she finds herself in those same trigger situations and she responds differently (yet another step of Survivor’s Pride), she feels great.

She has overcome her upbringing! Yay! She really IS different than her abusive parents! She has broken the cycle! Her kids are going to be better, too! She did it! Woo-hoo!

And yes, she feels very accomplished. She is soooo proud of herself.

So that’s Survivor’s Pride and how it works.

The "Me" Disguised as "You"

The problem is that Survivor’s Pride is exactly that: pride.
Gaavah.
Chazal very clearly and repeatedly tell us that God cannot be in the same space as a gaavtan, as one who experiences pride.
(God can’t be in the same space as a liar or flatterer, either.)

In fact, gaavah is so problematic while humility is so ideal that mussar books almost always dedicate entire chapters to either gaavah or humility...or even to both.

In the above example with Gitty's mother, it looks like our hostess was kind of sadistic, right? She’s obviously enjoying our discomfort. She enjoys using her child to torment her helpless guests.

Right?

Nope, that’s not what was going on.

Usually, people in the grip of Survivor’s Pride disassociate a bit.

In a trigger situation, they hyperfocus on themselves.

It becomes all about them: their reaction, their victory, their proof of having overcome their “programming” and keeping their imagined inner monster at bay.

And while they will say—and sincerely believe—that they are acting in their child’s best interests, it’s just not true.

Yes, they very much want to act in their child's best interests. But at some point, the Pride in Survivor's Pride gets in their way.

At that moment, they are disassociated and their child isn’t really there.
Neither is anybody else.

Suddenly, it’s all about them.

Is Permissive Parenting a Form of Survivor's Pride? Not Usually.

"Permissive parenting" isn't the same thing as operating in Survivor's Pride Mode.

Yes, some permissive parents are responding to strict or repressive childhoods.
But in contrast, permissive parents...

usually don’t really care about their children
aren’t ever really thinking about them.
may be unconsciously angry at their children, and so leave them to their own devices.
can be passive-aggressives who allow their children to act out the parents’ aggressions and annoy the wits out of other people.

In contrast, parents acting on Survivor’s Pride think about their children all the time, even obsessively. They are willing to go to great lengths to do whatever they think is best for their children regardless of time, costs, efforts, or anything else.

Parents functioning within Survivor’s Pride are constantly competing against the memories of their own parents AND against their own imagined inner monster.

They often don’t realize how foolish or irresponsible they look to outsiders.
They often imagine that observers are secretly amazed at or admiring of their supernatural patience.

The Survivor's "Smirk"

I once watched as a mother shuffled around the house with her 12-year-old son attached to her.

He held on to the back of her shirt and didn’t let go. She couldn’t walk normally or faster than he allowed. He continued to hold on even as his mother bent over to pick up a toddler or needed to do things in the kitchen. He wore a foolish smile the whole time and she had that same self-satisfied little smile I saw on the mother of Gitty in the above example.

(Mothers operating under Survivor’s Pride always wear this same little smile when they disassociate in the face of their child's challenging behavior.)

Now, I found this very hard to watch. Personally, I would be going out of mind if one of my kids had attached himself to me—and such an episode wouldn’t last more than a second by me—so it was very difficult to watch it for so long.

But I knew how she'd grown up with a very rage-filled, abusive father and a detached mother, and I understood what was going on in her mind. She was gliding around in the joy and satisfaction of knowing how her parents would've responded to such a child and how much more tolerant and patient she was as a parent. (She'd expressed this kind of thinking on several occasions before.) She was high on the pride of being mitgaber (overcoming a negative character trait).

After her son finally detached himself, she turned to me with a glowing smile.

“Your son is very attached to you, isn’t he?” I said for lack of a better thing to say.

“Oh, he is!” she enthused, bursting with pride and an ear-splitting grin.

Well, she and her husband ended up having some unbearably challenging issues with this same child—and some of their other children too. And the challenges just kept going on and on.

I’ve seen this with a lot of Survivor’s Pride-oriented parents.

That self-satisfied little smile while their kids are going bonkers or screaming or acting like jerks...or while the Survivor's Pride Parent is slaving away, cooking up an exhaustive meal or performing intensive cleaning while sick or about to go into labor.

And so on.

There are different manifestations of Survivor’s Pride (it depends on what they interpret as the root problem in their dysfunctional family), but as long as they’re operating under Survivor’s Pride, they’re not really focused on what their child needs.

While in Survivor’s Pride Mode, the focus is on the parent’s needs.

And this will always lead to problems because in chinuch, the focus must be on the child.
And a parent must strive to give that child whatever the child actually needs (not wants, but needs), no matter how challenging that is for the parent.

And you can’t do that while you’re in Survivor’s Pride Mode.

You want to. You're a good person and you really want to give your child what he or she truly needs.

But believe me, you ultimately can't as long as you're cocooned in Survivor's Pride.

Even more importantly, God isn’t really with you at that moment that you’re feeling sooo proud of yourself for (yet again!) overcoming your childhood.

If God isn’t really with you, then you can’t have siyata d’Shmaya in raising your child.
_________________
So just to be clear: Survivor’s Pride is a great and necessary tool.

It really is wonderful that you're overcoming your trauma and negative programming.

God created Survivor's Pride for your benefit, just like He created vitamin C, anesthesia, and gun triggers.

Yet eventually, you need to wean yourself off of it.

But how?

Before Stumbling, There’s a Haughty Spirit…It Is Better To Be Of Humble Spirit With The Lowly Than To Divide The Spoils With The Haughty (Mishlei/Proverbs 16)

The most effective antidote to pride is the acknowledgement of God’s Involvement in every single thing.

If you’ve managed to overcome trauma and abuse, it’s because of God’s Compassion toward you. It’s because of His Great Love for you.

It's a sign that God has big plans for you.

You wanted something good—to be a better person than you were raised to be—and Hashem happily helped you along that chosen path.

Even more, He imbibed you with that good desire in the first place.

In Instilling Humility in Children, Sarah Chana Radcliffe recommends taking pleasure rather than pride in one’s accomplishments.

And that sounds about right.

Judaism emphasizes joy. God wants you to be happy.

So if you accomplish something, it’s very important to say “Baruch Hashem!”
Thank God!
Thank You, God, for enabling me to be different than my parents.
Thank You, God, for enabling me to better.
Thank You, God, for enabling me to achieve my goals.
I feel soooo happy!
I guess You must really like me a lot.
After all, I see that You don’t do this for everyone. You didn’t do it for my parents, for example.
But You’ve done it for me. Wow. Gosh…well, I love You too. Thanks!

I felt like I needed to say all this because I’ve seen too many good people stumble while trying their best and juggling all those bowling balls thrust on them by well-meaning Survivor’s Pride.

And these very good people are really suffering as a result.

I hate suffering.

I hate suffering myself and I hate to see other people suffering, especially if they don't really have to.

So to sum up:

Hitgabrut (Overcoming)? Yes, 100% YES.
Pride? No.

After the initial boost of Survivor’s Pride, the survivor must switch into Gratitude-Based Survivor’s Pleasure in order to continue the path of becoming an emotionally healthy person and a truly good parent.

The path to Survivor's Pleasure:

Acknowledge your accomplishments - they're real!
Take pleasure in your accomplishments.
Thank God for all the good things you're managing to accomplish.
Remember: Hashem really loves you and wants you to be both happy and good.

Well, I hope this helps.

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Getting the Right Answer to the Most Pressing Problems

23/5/2017

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Listening to a recent Rabbi Wallerstein shiur, It’s Black Friday Every Day, I was struck by what Rav Kanievsky said during Rabbi Wallerstein’s most recent visit to Eretz Yisrael.

(In this same class, Rabbi Wallerstein also taught a profound lesson on commitment from Ruth and Boaz and brought down a fascinating story from the Kav Hayashar regarding the Ramban.)

But first, Rabbi Wallerstein spoke about the tradition of a chatan/groom and kallah/bride to exchange gifts.

Showing How Much You Both Care

When Hashem “married” Am Yisrael on Shavuot, Hashem gave us the Torah.

And He "remarries" us, so to speak, every year again on Shavuot.

But what do we, the kallah, bring?

“The biggest present you can bring to God is to break your nature for Him.”

Then Rabbi Wallerstein offered suggestions, like a man could come to daven ten minutes early or a woman could light candles ten minutes before Shabbat.

(He heard this recommendation straight from Rav Kanievsky’s daughter at 41:45 in the class. She insisted that any female who lit Shabbat candles 10 minutes early would see miracles. You’re anyway supposed to light no later than 18 minutes before sunset, so it’s not clear to me whether she meant 10 minutes before the 18-minute mark, making candle-lighting 28 minutes before sunset.)

Anyone who works should leave work earlier than usual on Fridays (and make it up during the week).
Really, Rabbi Wallerstein said in the name of Chazal, it’s preferable to stop work by the earliest Mincha/Afternoon Prayer.

Of course, these are just suggestions. You can pick something that for you individually would be a very powerful gift to present to Hashem on Shavuot.

The Advice of a Real Gadol

Then Rabbi Wallerstein went to speak with Rav Chaim Kanievsky (43:15) and Rabbi Wallerstein said:

Listen, I work in kiruv with kids. If the gadol hador could tell me one ingredient to use to really be successful in kiruv, Rav Chaim, what would you say?

And he didn’t answer me right away. He sat there for a moment. And he says…"Tefillah."

“Tefillah?”

“Yeah. Get the person’s name—the mother’s name and the person’s name—and daven for them." That will do more than any speech or anything else.

Look, I thought he was going to say, "LOVE! Keep the door open!" You know, everything that’s very hot in kiruv…so I’m asking him…should we go to seminars? Should we go to projects and zachen and meises? Should we become kiruv professionals? You know…should we read books? Should we go to therapy?...What? What is it?

And he blew me away! Because it wasn’t the answer I expected. He’s like, "Get their name…and daven for them."

It wasn’t the answer I wanted either. Right? I wanted some, like, "boutique" answer.

And then Rabbi Wallerstein spoke in favor of the real power of prayer, displaying this power via some compelling true stories.

How to Stop Juggling Bowling Balls

Anyway, I could totally relate to his initial desire for a "boutique" answer. In some ways, pouring out your heart to Hashem for even only 5 minutes can seem more difficult, repetitive, and boring than acting upon a “boutique” recommendation.

It seems that way…until you actually do it.

Okay, sure, if you think (like how I used to think) that davening is mouthing words (with or without kavanah) or just saying, “Please bring my daughter back to Torah and mitzvos” 100 times, then yes, that feels like nothing.

(Although even such tepid prayer still adds up at the end of the day.)

But when you really just sit down with God and start talking to Him, thanking Him for this opportunity, gushing to Him about how grateful you are that He’s so Available because for human officials, you need an appointment and the right appearance and certain courtesies…but with God, you can just sit down in your pajamas and start talking - well, that comes out in your own words from your heart.

And He really listens! He doesn’t just pretend like human officials often do.

And then you can talk about about how pained you are about the spiritual state of your child or yourself or your family member or your friend or that of the Nation as a whole.

And once you’ve gotten yourself worked up into that state, you can really beg from your heart for positive change and mercy.

And going back to what Rabbi Wallerstein mentioned before about the importance of breaking your nature, which is a way to do teshuvah and improve yourself, you can ask Hashem about what message He wants to give you or what you think you need to work on.

It’s not boring or repetitive or by rote.

Is it difficult? Kind of, yes—but kind of not.

It’s often very fulfilling. It's often cathartic in the healthiest way.

But most of all, it’s effective.

I have the same yetzer hara as anyone else in that I’ll feel like physically doing something or going somewhere is more effective and more “real” than sitting on a bed and emoting.

I call this kind of physical hishtadlut “juggling bowling balls.”

You exhaust yourself to keep all those big heavy balls in the air and feel like you’re doing something. People may even praise you for your strength and coordination, and you may secretly pride yourself on your accomplished juggling—such mesirut nefesh!

But the second you glance away or your arm weakens a tad, the balls come crashing down, causing injury to yourself and others.

Because those hard, giant balls came crashing down on me so hard so many times, it’s generally easy for me to shove the "boutique" answers aside and focus on prayer.

I mean, Hashem really slammed me with those bowling balls until I finally—finally!—got the message loud and clear.

And thank God. Because I see people who don’t get the message and who not only keep juggling, but also keep adding more and more bowling balls to the act (which is what I did too).

And their lives are a mess and just keep getting messier. (Just like mine did.)

Okay, my life isn’t so neat now either. But it used to be MUCH worse.

And even more wondrous, I'm often even happy.

And this is what Rav Kanievsky said. Not learning 2 halachot a day or a daf (although these are very important and necessary), not making sure you give 3 positives for every negative, not any specific "shitah"...

...just good old-fashioned bare-bones tefillah.

******************
Because words taken out of context, especially in transcript, can come off very differently than when you actually hear them directly from the speaker within the context of the entire class, I strongly recommend you go to Torah Anytime and listen to the shiur yourself:
https://www.torahanytime.com/#/lectures?v=42722

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Breaking Out of the Big Lie about Motherhood

22/5/2017

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Girls in my generation were encouraged to push off marriage and child-bearing because that particular institution was considered “limiting.”

The path was set thusly:

Thou shalt graduate high school.
Thou shalt enter college and pick a major.
Thou shalt graduate college.
If necessary, thou shalt continue college to get an even higher degree.
Thou shalt fly/backpack around to different places in between semesters.
Heavy-duty partying on the weekends is another college requirement, but just don't let on to your parents exactly how much you're abusing & debasing yourself.
Thou shalt get a serious boyfriend at some point.
Thou shalt shack up together to see if marriage is a possibility OR because it’s more convenient.
Thou shalt get married ONLY AFTER dating/shacking up together for a couple of years.
Thou shalt continue to work and prevent conception after the wedding to save up for the one or two children you plan to have AND to solidify your marriage AND really make sure your relationship has staying power BEFORE you have children (because, for some reason, the 2-7 years you were already together wasn’t enough to ascertain all this).
After a couple of years (or more) of marriage, you can finally have a child or two—IF you want and REALLY feel ready for it.

(Anyone who veered from this set path was looked down on as “impulsive” or “making a big mistake” or “making poor choices” or “can’t settle down” or has psychological issues or whatever.)

And a lot of women got pregnant at that late age with no problem.
On the other hand, it’s well-known that after age 35, fertility problems increase.

Free to be You, But Not to be Me

Personally, I ended up living a life that I didn’t really want to live under the guise of being “free to choose” and having no gender-imposed “limitations.”

But if you look at the path set for girls, it’s a very narrow path that tramples over years of your life and ultimately trips you into the very serious limitation of finding a spouse and having children only when you see age 40 up ahead.

Of course we all know that people can start looking for a spouse and having children at age 20, and yet they still suffer years of singlehood or infertility. People can also get married young and then get divorced or widowed.

Nothing’s guaranteed.

But it is a well-known social and biological fact that the earlier you start in the domestic part of the game, the easier it goes—barring some exceptions, as already stated.

I remember my orthodontist, of whom I was very fond, telling me that she and her husband put off having a baby until they were close to 40 because “I wanted to make sure that if I couldn’t just go out to dinner or the theater, I wouldn’t be resentful.”

I heard that kind of thing ALL THE TIME.

So as a teenage girl, it sounded mature. And it was often said by people whom I liked and respected.

But in the back of mind, it bothered me.

Yet I wasn’t really allowed to think about it in a negative way.

Finding fault in that mentality was anti-feminist.

And being anti-feminist was the same as being a bad, backwards, abusive person.

The Great Big Lie

So the Great Big Lie is that your life “ends” when you have children.

Okay, yes...children are limiting.

But "limiting" is not "life-ending."

You may not be able to go out to dinner that night or even that week because you’re too exhausted, because the baby’s teething or sick, or because there isn’t a babysitter available for that particular night or week.

Yeah, that’s the reality.

But it’s so weird that NO ONE puts off college, or a medical internship, or ANYTHING else because it’s “limiting.” And exams, internships, job interviews, work hours, job demands, office politics, etc, are all incredibly limiting and stressful!

So what was the gagged thought bothering me in the back of my mind?

It’s the fact that your own child isn’t worth it.

Your baby isn’t worth missing dinner or a movie for.

Everything else—college, academic degrees, internships, work, travel—is worth doing NOW. Despite costs, time, and inconvenience, it’s all worth doing and doing early on.

Only YOUR child isn’t worth it.

So where am I leading up to?

Bliss and Betrayal

I became frum and then got married at 23, and had my first child at 24 (which is normal to late, depending what frum community you ask, but REALLY EARLY in secular society).

And one of my first thoughts during my son's first day of life was:
“This is so great! I wish I’d done this sooner! Why didn’t anybody ever say how great this was?”

And I felt kind of betrayed, like I’d been lied to my whole life (which, indeed, I had been).

And I felt so lucky that Hashem plucked me out of that world of lies and agendas to bring me to a place where I could experience this true happiness.

Now I want to be very clear: Things did not go smoothly.

The labor and birth was a nightmare and the recovery wasn’t much better.

The nursing was so painful for so long and, after expecting to love nursing, I was so disappointed at how unpleasant and wearying it actually was.

Yet despite all that, I was overjoyed with my son and deeply convinced that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

And I genuinely felt that everything else I’d ever done was meaningless compared to him.

Now, people told me in response, “Okay, you wish you’d done this sooner, but were you ready before now?”

And I wavered on the answer. Because the answer is, “Kind of…but kind of not.”

The reason why I might not have been ready at, say, eighteen is because I was conditioned my whole life NOT to be ready for children before thirty.

I was actively conditioned NOT to be ready.

And so were most of the other girls in my generation.

We were always given the message that being a mother is SO HARD and SO LIMITING and SO EXHAUSTING.

And thankless.
(Of course, the "thankless" aspect was only hinted at or joked about. People still gave lip-service to the idea of gratitude for their children.)

And because of that, you need to put it off as late as possible so that you can be “really ready” and only then, will you have a chance of doing it “right.”

And that was the Big Whitewash:
Children are sooo important that you need to delay having them until you are “really ready” because raising children is sooo important, it needs to be “done right.”

Wow, it sounds like people really value children, right?

But they don’t.

Raising Children with "Esav Dearest"

Like everything else in the big fake culture of Esav, it’s photoshopped to look good and sound good. Really, the main reason people either put off childbearing or don’t have children at all is because they’re afraid of the limitations and work that comes with all the rewards.

After all, how many "afterschool specials" did I see on TV in which someone screamed at a pregnant teenage girl:
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO RUSH TO THE HOSPITAL AT FOUR IN THE MORNING BECAUSE YOUR BABY HAS A HIGH FEVER??!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE UP ALL NIGHT WITH A CRYING BABY? AND THE ENDLESS DIAPERS—UGH! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!”

(The show always ended with her happily giving the baby up for adoption, no second thoughts or regrets.)

But the thing is, no TV show ever had someone screaming:
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE AT THE HOSPITAL FOR YOUR INTERNSHIP AND MAKE LIFE-ENDANGERING DECISIONS AT FOUR IN THE MORNING? DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE UP ALL NIGHT AT A COLLEGE PARTY TAKING CARE OF A VOMITING OR UNCONSCIOUS FRIEND WHO DRANK WAY TOO MUCH??!! AND THE ENDLESS COLLEGE DEBT—UGH! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!”

Also, you see couples in real life who actually discuss (or even argue) whose turn it is to change the baby’s diaper each time, making it seem like it’s this crushing chore, like cleaning out an elephant stall or something.

And that’s not to mention all the shows in which a parent always responded to a crying baby by bursting into tears herself and fighting an overwhelming urge to kill her baby.

So I went into motherhood nervous about diapers and I also wondered whether my baby’s cries would turn me into a homicidal monster.

So I was surprised to see that with a few exceptions, changing little baby disposable diapers wasn’t onerous, I never need to rush a baby to the hospital for any reason (older kids who fell on their lip or collarbone—yes; newborn babies—no), and that colicky crying babies aren’t something that MUST happen (and even if they do, both the baby and the mother almost always survive the experience).

And I say this all with a big, heartfelt BARUCH HASHEM. (Bli ayin hara!)

Why? Because these things can happen. And they do happen.

But my point is that they aren’t a given.

Yes, I have friends who were so traumatized by their baby’s unending colic that they put off having more children for a few years. (Completely understandable, BTW.) I also have friends who rushed a baby to the hospital at four in the morning for a high fever. In fact, I have friends whose babies were born with problems and needed to be rushed to the hospital many, many times, may Hashem have mercy.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And yes, I sometimes get sick of changing diapers, especially if it’s in the middle of the night or if the child has tummy troubles.

But in the culture I grew up, we were indoctrinated that regarding babies, the WORST was SURE to happen.

That’s my point.

The Thankful Privilege, Not the Thankless Chore

Furthermore, having hard days or grueling weeks doesn’t mean that motherhood stinks and isn’t worth it.

Just because you'll sometimes want a break from it all doesn't mean it's something to be dreaded.

Just because you'll sometimes be exasperated, resentful, bored, frustrated, or disappointed doesn't mean that your life is “over.”

(Especially in the frum community, look at how many mothers of all ages and at all stages are working and taking classes and getting degrees. Sometimes, they even overdo it, if you ask me. But you get my drift.)

If I’d been smart enough and brave enough after high school, I’d have gone straight to a baal teshuvah seminary for two years to shore up my frumkeit, and then gotten married and ended up having kids a couple of years earlier than I actually did.

And I wish I had.

Yes, I wish I had gotten married and had kids even EARLIER.

How often do you hear someone say that nowadays?

You’re not allowed to say it.

But that’s how I honestly feel.

(Anyway, it would’ve been better for my husband too. He’d been on shidduchim for almost 7 years by the time we met. Knocking off a couple of years of that aggravation would’ve been nicer for him too, eh?)

And that’s it.

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I’m a Woman...No, I'm an Elf—No! I’m SUPERMAAAAN!

17/5/2017

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There’s still very little understood in mental illness, particularly in field of disorders that affect a person’s very identity.

Out of the mental disorders that affect how one sees and perceives oneself, the most well-known is Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder).

But there are also:

Gender Dysphoria/Gender Identity Disorder (when a person identifies as the opposite gender)
Cotard Delusion (when a person thinks he’s dead)
Clinical Lycanthropy (when a person thinks he is or can transform into an animal)
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (when a person either imagines he has a bodily flaw or he has a small flaw, but his mind wildly exaggerates its prominence)
Delusions of grandeur (thinking you’re Napoleon)

...and so on.

And psychology recognizes that mentally ill people can still be quite high-functioning.

Those functioning under sociopathy or personality disorders can still become quite wealthy and successful in their material lives. The man I read about with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) also performed outstandingly in his career, officiating beside the President of the USA and other bigwigs while switching personalities inside his head!

But because science—including sciences like psychology—is by nature atheist (because that’s what’s considered most objective), it can’t really acknowledge the possibility of spiritual or metaphysical causes for a mental illness.

What If Mental Illness is a Symptom of Something Bigger or Spookier?

I can’t find the original article I read about a girl named Penelope who thinks she’s a boy, but in the original article I read, not only did Penelope describe herself as a male, but she described other things—something like owning or steering a boat?—and something about the kind of job her male identity had or the place he lived.

I can’t remember exactly and no other article I’ve read about her since quotes her discussing anything more than her gender, but originally, she described other things that immediately reminded me of how children speak when they recall past lives.

Furthermore, when I read one account of a man who has DID, parts of it also reminded me of past-life memories. It made me wonder whether at least some of the alternate personalities in this disorder are people whom the DID actually were in past lives, and if that’s why some of the personalities can be so well defined.

Who knows?

Interestingly, people with DID sometimes have alternate personalities that are mythical creatures—like elves or dragons—or alternates that are animals. In many cases, some alternate personalities are the opposite gender of the “host” person.

From a spiritual point of view, Judaism has long recognized that a person can be possessed by a dybbuk (a lost soul looking for refuge from punishing angels) or can make contact with demons or other kochot hatumah (impure spiritual forces).

The thing is, very little is understood about the human mind. Not only are we still at the edge of brain science and genetics, but as always, there is terrible competition for renown and funding, plus normal human subjectivity - all of which interfere with honest research.

Cult Tactics in Science & the Media: Don't "Confuse" People with the Facts

Peer pressure and veiled threats have always been a part of the world of science.

Even the genius Thomas Edison got together with JP Morgan to fight Nikola Tesla, going so far as to print bogus news in the local newspapers to scare investors away from Tesla, which effectively halted Tesla’s experiments and progress.

Real science has been and still is sometimes shoved aside, actively blocked, or mocked in favor of pet beliefs based on pseudo-science, making it very difficult to get to the truth of the matter.

Yet we’re having Gender Dysphoria pushed on us as a natural and acceptable way to be despite the fact that:

flooding a body with hormones could eventually cause cancer
the fact that gender surgeries render the patient sterile and there is demand to perform it on teenagers and other people who’ve never had children
the majority of children who identify as the opposite gender do grow out of it
we don’t know the harm to the brain and the cells that these treatments and surgeries ultimately have on a person
even after surgery and therapy, the rate of suicide attempts stands at 41%
many adults and teenagers identifying as the opposite gender have previously undergone some sort of trauma
men claiming to identify as women still behave and think very much like men (and like psychologically unhealthy men, at that) as described HERE.
we don’t know WHY a person identifies as the opposite gender…is it a mental illness of its own? Past-life recollection? Is the person possessed or somehow influenced by unseen entities, i.e. kochot hatumah? Is it a brain malfunction? Is it a dissociated identity disorder similar to those people who have multiple alternate personalities of different genders and even different species? A combination of the above? None of them?

…yet despite all that, there is enormous pressure to indulge this dysphoria.

Insistence on referring to men-identifying-as-women as “she” or vice-versa, while meant as a sign of respect, is actually playing right into this malignant game.

I don’t think we should be nasty to or rage at people who identify as the opposite gender, but indulging and even encouraging this dysphoria is harmful, both to the sufferer and to society at large.

Furthermore, there are frum people who've also been influenced against halacha (by finagling "halachic" loopholes to make allowances for modern Western morality and "science").

It's difficult because no matter how gently and compassionately you try to present the truth and the morality, many people will still feel hurt, enraged, and invalidated.

When Help isn't on the Way and the Calvary isn't Coming

Despite courageous push-back from right-wing conservatives (and especially by one of the best of them, Ben Shapiro), Western society has crossed a line that I don't think it can cross back over. Even the right-wing conservatives are still a lot more liberal in certain areas than liberals were fifty years ago.

In short, the values and knowledge just aren't there on either side.

Depending where you live, it's getting harder and harder to hang on to the Truth.

But hang on we must.

And may Hashem help us all.

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The Venus Effect: Lots of Fun Insanity

12/5/2017

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Infrared map of what Venus possibly looks like under its massive cloud cover

Hi, we’re going to discuss Venus again today.

Why?

Well, a friend lent me a copy of The Velikovsky Heresies: Worlds in Collision and Ancient Catastrophes Revisited, which among other things provides a shocking amount of evidence to support Velikovsky’s theory that Venus is actually a comet caught in orbit between Mercury and Earth.

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Disclaimer: I am not a chasid of Immanuel Velikovsky, and it's fine with me if his stuff is proven dead wrong. I've no vested interest in whether Venus is a planet or a comet, nor whether Venus is old or young.
God's Narrative is more than good enough for me.
But Velikovsky's theories are pretty interesting, more in line with Torah (though not in line enough), and some have compelling evidence, as you'll soon see.
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Because I like to check things out myself, I happened upon pseudo-science regarding an anomaly discovered in Venus’s hemisphere, which led me to write my first Venus post, Yet Another Stunning Discovery: Heck, We Haven’t Got a Clue!

But then I started coming across more weird stuff.

For example, there are mounds of entire articles dedicated to Venus’s surface.

But the thing is...we can’t see Venus’s surface—not with telescopes, nor with specially designed spacecraft put in orbit around Venus, nothing.

The only concrete picture we have of the Venusian surface are a couple of photos photographed by specially designed spacecraft just before they were cooked and pressurized to death by Venus’s hellish environment.

(If you want to see all the photos from all the missions to Venus, including the actual surface in both color and black and white, please go HERE.)

Yet any article on Venus will go on and on about:

Venus’s large and populous volcanoes
its massive lava flows
its total absence of tectonic plates and therefore subduction zones
its surface that keeps “refreshing” itself to look “young”
how its surface is soooo hot and pressurized (around 450 C/850 F and 90 times the pressure of Earth, so it's like standing at the bottom of an Earth ocean)
how Venus has soooo many craters—none of which are smaller than 2 km, oddly enough
and how its ongoing “greenhouse gas” effect is a warning to Earthlings.

(And some of this stuff is contradictory, as you'll soon see.)

And gosh...how do scientists know all this stuff—especially since they can’t see past Venus’s clouds nor can they land a spacecraft easily on Venus’s surface (and when they have done it, it didn’t work as well as it should have and the spacecraft died pretty quickly after landing)?

First of all, the spacecraft that actually landed on Venus measured its pressure and temperature.

Second of all, scientists mapped out Venus’s surface by pinging radar waves all over it from special spacecraft. While they couldn’t ping all of Venus’s surface, they managed to ping the vast majority of it.

Here an oversimplified explanation of how that worked:

A wave that took a long time to bounce back evidently must have hit a low point on the surface (like the bottom of a crater).
A wave that took a much shorter time to bounce back must have hit something tall, like the peak of a mountain.

And while there’s a margin of error in this kind of mapping, it seems to be considered accurate enough.

Very nice, you might be saying. But do pings also tell us whether there is lava? Or erupting volcanoes? Or tectonic plates and subduction zones?
And what are those anyway?

Okay, so first of all…

Tectonic plates
On Earth, the land we stand on is said to be gigantic plates—tectonic plates, to be exact—that are floating on a sea of mantle.

This is called: The Theory of Plate Tectonics.

Tectonic: building, constructing (i.e. moving around to form stuff)

(On Venus, scientists think there are tectonics—they think the ground moves around a bit, which is what formed those rifts and mountains indicated by their radar pings, but their information indicates that Venus’s surface is all one big thing, and not split into different “plates.”)

Divergent plates (they split apart, making small volcanos or shallow earthquakes possible) @Domdomegg

Plates rubbing back and forth against each other (and one way earthquakes occur) @Domdomegg

The above are diagrams of plates on Earth. Venus is said NOT to have these.

Subduction Zones
According to plate tectonics, these gigantic plates of land sometimes start moving around. When that happens, one plate might slip under the other. (This is one of several ways earthquakes occurs.)

Volcanoes and mountain ranges are thought to usually form this way, through this act of subduction. Subduction zones are large areas in which the plates meet and interact this way, by shoving one plate edge under another plate edge.

Subduction in action: One plate getting shoved under another. (Image by Domdomegg)

Super-detailed image of tectonic plates in subduction. (Author: KDS4444 Photo Credit: Subduction-en.svg from Wikimedia Commons - License: CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Scientists state that Venus does NOT have either of these.

Except how do they know?

They don’t!

Why are scientists so sure that Venus has volcanoes?
(I mean, there were no volcanoes nor lava in the Venera photos, right?)

There are 6 reasons:
1) Sometimes, a part of Venus’s clouds really heats up in the way that Earth’s atmosphere does above a volcanic eruption. They don’t know exactly how hot those clouds heat up, so they guess it’s as hot as a volcanic eruption. The area that heats up is also similar to the amount of area that heats up above an Earth volcano.

2) In a place where the radar pinged a map of rifts rising from the ground, scientists detected places where the surface got much hotter, then cooled down again.

3) At one point, they spotted a sharp rise of sulfuric oxide in Venus’s atmosphere, followed by a gradual drop.

4) They spotted lightning in Venusian clouds that reminded them of the kind of lightning produced by volcanoes here on Earth.

5) Venus’s surface doesn’t show much erosion or as many craters as an old planet should.
In fact, Venus’s surface looks downright “fresh” or “young,” which is extremely irritating to scientists because a young Venus is exactly what Velikovsky described and they hate Velikovsky like how ISIS hates infidels.
Also, scientists cling to their faith in an old Universe that takes millions of years to form, and a young Venus shakes this faith.

6) You will constantly read about “mantle plumes” on Venus, which many scientists believe to be the source of Venus’s volcanoes. On Earth, volcanoes are generally (but not always) considered to be caused by tectonic plates shoving one under the other (subduction). Very simplistically speaking, plumes consist of hot stuff that simply rise from the hot inner core to the surface forming a mushroom-shaped “plume” along the way.
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Now, before you say, “Well, that all sounds pretty convincing to me!”, I’d just like to remind you that Venus’s atmosphere is very different than Earth’s. It’s made up of mostly carbon dioxide with some nitrogen and other stuff, moves around Venus faster than Venus can rotate, and its noxious and volatile cloud cover is dozens of kilometers thick.

In fact, all of Venus is vastly different than Earth - except its size and distance from the Sun.

Using Earth as the model for what's going on with Venus isn't very reasonable.

So to answer each belief from above:

1) Venus’s atmosphere is so different and so much more volatile than Earth’s.
If a part of a cloud heated up, even if the area it covered resembles that of an Earthly volcano, that doesn’t prove—and hardly indicates—that a volcano caused that hotspot.
With all those volatile chemicals around, you can assume that hotspots could be caused by the weather.
Really, if you can't know, then the weather is a logical assumption.
What’s more, scientists don’t know exactly how hot that hotspot really was.

2) Jumping to conclusions based on very little evidence
Infrared imaging of one area: “It is the most tantalizing evidence yet for active volcanism,” says Eugene Shalygin from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. (See HERE.)
First of all, they’ve been talking about Venusian volcanoes for decades and this very recent 2008 observation is the best evidence they have?
Then what have they been so sure of all this time?
And remember, they can’t see anything or measure anything.
(Also very important: They don’t know the chemical composition of Venus’s lower layer of clouds...just the upper layer. So maybe there are explosive things in there? See HERE.)
Also, the heat was discovered in only one small area of the entire planet (or comet!).

This is a far cry from assuming that Venus is dotted with active or even once-active volcanoes.

Furthermore, MUST heat mean lava? Does it really have to?

Could it also mean steam?
Or gases?
Plasma?
Or maybe a weather anomaly threw something hot from Venus’s sky (like from that unknown lower layer)?
Or perhaps a not-yet-discovered Venusian dragon belched?

If you read the whole article on hot lava flows on Venus (which was published by the European Space Agency in 2015), I’d like to direct you to the many speculative unscientific statements:

"hot regions on the surface below are probably much smaller"
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"the team calculate that the feature may only be around 1 square kilometre in size, with a temperature of 830°C"
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"Rift zones are results of fracturing of the surface, which is often associated with upwelling of magma below the crust. This process can bring hot material to the surface, where it may be released through fractures as a lava flow."
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"Some models of planetary evolution suggest that Venus was resurfaced in a cataclysmic flood of lava around half a billion years ago."
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"Although changes in wind patterns could have caused this, the more intriguing possibility is that episodes of volcanic activity..."
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"This heat has to escape somehow, and one possibility is that it does so in the form of volcanic eruptions."
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"is likely to have an internal heat source, perhaps due to radioactive heating." [Emphases mine - MR]

(But to my mind, the most intriguing possibility is the belching-dragon possibility.)

Anyway, this is incredibly pathetic.

3) Using Fiction Plot Techniques as Science
Most unscientifically, they state the following regarding the rise and drop of sulfuric acid in Venus’s atmosphere:

“Although changes in wind patterns could have caused this, the more intriguing possibility is that episodes of volcanic activity were injecting vast amounts of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere.”

[Emphases mine - MR]

Okay, so based on everything they know, there are two possibilities for a rise and drop of sulfuric acid:

Changes in wind patterns
Volcanic activity

So rather than researching which possibility is more realistic—or even provable (remember, they can detect wind patterns to a certain extent)—they go for the possibility which is more intriguing. Basically, they say, “Volcanoes are more fun than wind, so let’s go with volcanoes.”

How rational! How objective! How scientific!

4) They didn’t actually spot lightning.
Instead, they detected “visible flashes in the atmosphere” and “localised emissions of radio waves”…which could just as easily result from sulfuric acid droplets because they are extremely and electrically charged. (See HERE.)

5) Making Stuff Up
Rather than taking whatever handful of actual facts they possess about Venus and running with that, we see that scientists start inventing “facts” out of thin air.
Many articles about Venus blather about how Venus’s surface “refreshes” itself via lava flow even though there is no hard evidence for lava or even volcanoes—except for some interesting spots of extreme heat in certain areas of Venus, which lie about rifts in ways that sometimes Earthly lava does.
Rather than considering the idea of a young Venus (which is what the evidence they DO have actually points to), scientists turn themselves inside out to make up stuff with absolutely NO evidence.

For example, even if there is volcanic activity on Venus, it doesn’t mean there is so much that it “refreshes” the entire surface of this Earth-size object.

6) Scientists aren’t even sure whether “mantle plumes” even exist.
No, really!
It’s just a theory.
Isn’t that shocking?
You read about mantle plumes all over the place, but there is no proof. In fact, The Geological Society of London organized The Great Plumes Debate in 2003.
Gosh, how did we miss that one?
Anyway, the prestigious Nature magazine published a whole paper dedicated to the possibility of mantle plumes on Venus. See a detailed summary of that HERE.
Yet we don’t even know if mantle plumes are real.
Seriously. Do a search on "mantle plumes" and see what comes up.
Notice that the entire experiment took place in a laboratory using nano-sand, water, and a heating plate. (Just like Venus!—sarc) The little they know about Venus was too much to put through their computer.

Please also note the following quote from the article:

“The team believes that a phenomenon underlying plate tectonics on Earth also creates Venus’ coronae: mantle plumes.”

See what they did? They declared mantle plumes an Earthly phenomenon when it is only an unproven theory, then they based their belief on that.

More on Tectonic Plates
It took me a lot of searching to figure out why scientists are so bothered by Venus’s lack of tectonic plates.

In fact, Venus’s lack of plates seems to be one thing that all scientists agree on as fact, but I couldn’t find out how they got that information. However, I did discover why they are so bothered by it:

Lack of tectonic plates indicate a young Venus.

According to science, tectonic plates take 1 billion years to form. And after those 1 billion years, it takes even more time for the plates to form subduction zones (which would then lead to volcanic activity).

So the fact that Venus lacks tectonic plates hints at Venus being VERY young and new, relatively speaking—which is exactly what Velikovsky said it was.

Okay, I’m going to quote now from one of the most recent reports on Venus, a Nature abstract, published in April 2017:

“Why Venus lacks plate tectonics remains an unanswered question in terrestrial planet evolution.”

Maybe because Venus is young!

“There is observational evidence for subduction—a requirement for plate tectonics—on Venus, but it is unclear why the features have characteristics of both mantle plumes and subduction zones.”

Okay, but I thought you needed actual PLATES in order for, well, plates to be shoved one under the other—AKA "subduction"? And what is the deal with mantle plumes?
We don’t even know if they really exist!

Anyway, the abstract goes on to described some fun laboratory experiments they conducted to see if what they propose could even be possible.

Then it says something very cool at the end:

“Scaling analysis suggests that this regime with limited, plume-induced subduction is favoured by a hot lithosphere, such as that found on early Earth or present-day Venus.”

“…early Earth” eh? (In other words, Venus seems young.)

Oh, and this one is funny. Also published in Nature in April 2017:

Planetary Tectonics: Sinking Plates on Venus
“Unlike Earth, Venus lacks discrete, moving plates. Analogue model experiments suggest that observed hints at plate recycling do indeed indicate current, localized destruction of the Venusian surface.”

The abstract contradicts the title.

Actually, the abstract kind of contradicts itself from one sentence to another.

I thought that Venus had NO plates.

You can read thousands of articles online stating that Venus has NO TECTONIC PLATES.

Notice also that this isn’t a real discovery. It is just a bunch of model experiments that merely indicate destruction/recycling of Venus’s surface (which remember, scientists MUST believe in...or else! Or else they must admit that Venus’s surface is pretty new).
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Electric Venus

There is at least one really cool and fairly new fact (an actual fact!) about Venus:
Venus is electric.

When the European Space Agency is not pretending that wind currents are volcanoes, they are able to actually detect real stuff—like the fact that Venus is the only planet with a strong electric field. (Maybe because Venus is actually a comet?) They estimate it at 10 volts.

In contrast, Mars and Earth’s electric field is estimated at less than 2 volts.

(Actually, they don’t even know this! They can’t detect the electric field of Earth or Mars, so they ASSUME it is less than 2 volts. All they seem to know is that Venus’s field is 5 times that of Earth’s.)

Scientists are very happy about this 2016 discovery because now they can go back to their beloved Old Ancient Venus belief, postulating that Venus indeed had oceans and all that fully-developed-planet stuff, but then its electric winds stripped that all away.

Note: It could be that the original researchers writing up the papers would like to be completely forthright about everything, but their papers won’t get published unless they invent suggestions and turn things away from anything Velikovsky proposed. After all, science is and has always been highly politicized. Furthermore, there is a lot of nasty cutthroat competition for prestige and funding going on within the Ivory Towers.
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OTHER COOL STUFF ABOUT VENUS

It looks like the atmosphere (all its clouds and stuff) rotating around Venus has sped up. (In 2006, everything in Venus’s “sky” moved at 300 kph, but later the atmosphere whizzed around at 400 kph. Sometimes it takes 3.9 days to complete one journey around the planet, other times it takes 5.3 days.)

It looks like the rotation of the planet itself has slowed down by 6.5 minutes.

There are massive wildly spinning vortices at the poles of Venus.

Despite its nearness to the Sun, Venus’s poles are even colder than Earth’s poles: -157 C/-251F

In fact, the entire “line” around Venus dividing it between the day section and the night section (officially known as a "terminator") is extremely cold: -175 degrees C. (Could it be global warming? sarc!)

At least, I think that’s the temperatures of the poles and the terminator. It could be that the articles got the order of the “7” and the “5” confused.
Maybe the poles and the terminator are actually the same temperature.

Venus spins in the opposite direction of the other planets in our Solar System.

A year on Venus is shorter than a day on Venus: 225 Earth days and 243 Earth days respectively

In contrast to the rest of the atmosphere, the winds closest to the surface are slow and gentle.

There is more cool stuff about Venus, but I'm going cross-eyed from needing to read between the lines of every single article in order to ferret out the actual facts.

So that's it for now!
_________

SCIENTIFIC DELUSIONS

Here’s a fun quote from Astronomy Magazine:

“While Venus lies in the habitable zone of our solar system, something happened in its past to take it from a more lush, verdant world into a dry planet with a runaway greenhouse effect from the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

Gosh, how does he know that Venus was once a lush, verdant world?
He says is as a statement of fact.
And then something happened—for SURE!
There is no evidence, not even the remotest indication, that Venus was ever a “lush, verdant world.”

Yet he states it has if it actually happened.
_______________________
This has been such a shocking and disappointing journey for me.

Even stuff I learned as fact as a little girl aren’t really true. Or haven't been proven.

Basically, what scientists have done in the Venus field is to believe with their faith in an Extremely Old Universe - and with no hard evidence - that Venus is millions upon millions of years old.

Then every time they run up against indications that Venus is actually a lot younger (and maybe not even a true planet), they twist around and actually MAKE THINGS UP OUT OF THIN AIR to match their Ancient Venus Theory.

And they say things as FACT. They don’t even tell you all the time “we assume.”

They tell you as FACT:

Venus WAS as Earth is now—“lush” and “verdant”—but then self-destructed in a “runaway greenhouse effect.”
Venus has volcanoes.
Venus has erupting volcanoes.
Venus recycles/refreshes/destroys its own surface.
Venus has mantle plumes.
Venus is millions upon millions of years old

There. Is. NO. Actual. Proof.

In fact, there's even very little evidence - or no evidence at all. And the evidence they do have indicates the opposite conclusions than those which the faithful scientists reached.

Apparently, scientists will do anything to twist science away from the theories of the infidel, Immanuel Velikovsky.

And why are Velikovsky’s theories so threatening?

Because they lead down the road to a Torah narrative.
(They don't actually make it to the Torah narrative, but they do support it much more than other scientific theories.)

Science is No Longer Just For Left-Brains! Creative Right-Brains Finally Have an Equal Shot!

So I think I’ll also become a scientist of Venus. I'm certainly creative enough to become one! I look forward to publishing my research paper in the top science journals.

My abstract will read like this:

"Unusually thick-skinned dragons (whose skin we assume may operate similarly to the same anti-pressure suits found on Earth) may populate the surface of Venus, possibly living in the rifts detected by radar pings.

We suggest that these dragons exhale - and sometimes even belch - electrically charged plumes, which account for hotspots and flashes of light observed by the Venus Express orbiter.

In addition, very tiny yet powerful ice fairies seem to have vastly lowered the temperature in the terminator layer around Venus.

Experiments conducted with detailed SIMS simulations indicate that there could be dragons and fairies of this nature. Also, we’ve been inhaling a lot of laboratory chemicals and spending entire weeks playing extremely sophisticated video games. So that helps too."

__________________
P.S. Just for knowing, recent research into Mercury is also showing evidence a being fairly “young” for a planet. For some reason, Mercury scientists are much more open about saying the Mercury seems young.
Perhaps it’s because they don’t have a Velikovsky controversy to quash regarding Mercury.
Or perhaps it’s because people who study Mercury are actually less mercurial (ha!) than those who study Venus.
_____________________

Well, if you've stuck around till the end of this way-too-long post, then you deserve a prize!

Here's a funny comic strip:

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When a Woman's "Right" is a Moral Wrong

10/5/2017

6 Comments

When I was in college in America, there was a girl in our daily seminar whom I'll call “Toni.” She was a petite brunette with a gutsy, exuberant personality that bordered on obnoxious.
But she was so good-natured that everyone liked (or at least tolerated) her anyway.

She was also passionately and fanatically liberal.

Raised by a rabidly feminist single mother, Toni threw herself into battle for the liberal side in every class discussion.

Abortion is obviously the pet cause of every feminist extremist, and Toni’s mother had been no exception.

Except that her mother's abortion history was exceptional, even for the craziest fanatic.

One day in class, we were debating abortion and, as can be expected, the discussion went nuclear. Toni thrashed out all the standard talking points in favor of abortion, including the “right” to abortion for any reason and at any stage of the pregnancy.

Due to Toni’s increasing vehemence, people started quieting out of the debate. While nearly everyone present supported a "right" to abortion, most people also felt that having an abortion for what they considered a weak reason (like gender selection) or past a certain point pushed certain moral boundaries.

I seem to remember Toni up on a chair, shouting, and thrusting her finger at a male classmate who was calmly and somewhat anxiously trying to reason with her, validating her feelings, but just pleading for a fair hearing of the different angles of abortion.

But Toni only grew louder and more forceful about her position.

Finally, Toni shouted something like, “Abortion is a woman’s inalienable right that NO ONE has any right to take away! AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT ABORTION BECAUSE MY MOTHER HAD THIRTY* ABORTIONS AND I TOTALLY DEFEND HER RIGHT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE EVEN THOUGH I—I…”

Then her voice cracked.

The room went silent as everyone just stared at Toni, who crumpled back down onto her chair, trying to hold back the tears that started streaming down her face.

Then she said, “Even though I always wondered why I wasn’t aborted too. When I was five or six, I asked my mom why she didn’t abort me, like she had and continued to do with her other pregnancies. ‘Is it because you knew it was me?’ I asked. But of course she didn’t know it was me. I was just lucky. And I don't know why. It was all so random.”

She looked around helplessly at us. “I’ve always gone through life with this feeling like I just missed the knife. But really, I should have been aborted too. I shouldn’t even be here. But I am. And who knows why?” She paused, then forced a smile through her pain. “And I always wondered about my siblings and who they would’ve been?”

“It sounds kinda like you have survivor’s guilt,” someone said gently.

“Yeah,” Toni said with a vigorous nod and a rueful laugh as she rubbed off her tears with the back of her hand. “I’ve always had this major survivor’s guilt. How was I the only one to escape the knife? Or whatever it was…”

That same day, two maternalistic girls named Julie and Nancy took Toni under their wing. They didn’t look like the maternal, nurturing type with their jeans and plaid flannel shirts (and Nancy, who always enjoyed a good day at the shooting range), but they both saw that vulnerable little Toni desperately needed some nurturing.

Women's Liberation as Ego Liberation

Unfortunately, radical feminists usually make terrible mothers. (Actually, even mainstream feminists often make terrible mothers.) They’re incredibly self-centered, resentful, and demanding. And what happens is that their children must validate their mother’s every action and view—even if it hurts the child—or lose that mother’s love completely.

This is why you have children of non-nurturing career-obsessed materialistic women who proclaim their undying admiration of their mother and insist they loved how she raised them (though she just shunted them out of her way).

If the children don’t do this, their mother wholly rejects and despises them.
(This is exactly what happened to Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist icon Alice Walker.)

In Toni’s case, Toni even needed to defend the killing of her unborn siblings and the theoretical annihilation of her own existence in utero in order to keep her mother’s love. Especially with no father around, young Toni would have subconsciously realized as a child that she was wholly dependent on this heartless woman for her bare existence.

And that’s pretty terrifying.

Baruch Hashem, the survival-driven façade of defending her mother’s “right” to commit heart-breaking depravity simply crumbled.

That day, Julie and Nancy headed over to Toni’s apartment to spend the night there, making sure Toni was okay.

The rest of the year, they made a cute threesome, with Julie and Nancy affectionately calling Toni “Li’l Ton-Ton” and stuff like that. They weren’t overbearing; they were gentle, supportive, and honest and just what Toni needed. And while Toni kept her outgoing, high-spirited nature, she lost the blaring coarse behavior she used to sometimes engage in.

The Freedom to be a Slave - How Liberating!

But it was true that in the encroaching Leftist environment of the Nineties, Toni wasn’t allowed to have her say until it just came gushing out by mistake. You really weren’t allowed to have normal feelings or even basic morality. (Sort of like the Nazi era or the Communist era.) A lot of people, especially girls, were in a lot of pain, but they weren't allowed to acknowledge the real reason why because that would've demanded healthy accountability from the adults of either gender.

Despite all the liberal propaganda, you weren't really allowed a choice and there was no real freedom.

You were just a slave to the agenda of the most degenerate, selfish people who were running things, whether it was government, social programs, schools, the media, and all the regular people influenced by them.

And that’s why I left it all behind.
_____________________________
*While I’m writing this to the best of my memory, it still happened over 20 years ago, so maybe some details are off. Even if Toni's mother didn’t have 30 abortions, it was still some shockingly high number that left even the most degenerate Leftist wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

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Myrtle Rising

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