One of the truly bizarre aspects of the so-called "elites" is their complete lack of awareness of how abnormal their beliefs and behaviors are.
 
Their way of seeing the world is itself warped and distorted. And they genuinely have no idea.

For example, the level of violence and victimization acceptable within their families can stun you when you first encounter it.

In one instance, an older preteen sister bloodied her younger sister’s nose while having a minor spat in the back seat of their parents' Jaguar—and showing no remorse even years later, insisting that her younger sister deserved it.

And maybe she did.

​But the older sister expressed no awareness that maybe it was bad for her to respond that way.

Now, I grew up with people who were poor and somewhat violent. But even so, people did not treat their siblings like this.
 
In another family, the older brother bullied his little sister so relentlessly from the time they were young (including when he was already a teen athlete and physically much stronger and larger than she) that the only way she could stop him was to kick him in the nose, bloodying it and nearly breaking it, making him wary of messing with her again.
 
Again, this level of physical violence between teenage siblings is not the norm. Yet these are teenagers brought up in wealthy families who attended exclusive schools and are supposedly too cool to behave this way.

And yes, isn’t it interesting that although girls are less likely to act out violently and despite the cultural norms discouraging boy-on-girl bullying, these families are so dysfunctional, they create people who defy even these very basic norms.

In another case, a multimillionairess suspected her teenage daughter of stealing $50 from her bedside table. When confronted, her daughter denied it. The mother then repeated the accusation, but the daughter insisted on her innocence.
 
Each time the daughter asserted her innocence, the mother slapped her across the face again, then calmly repeated: “I said, where did you put the fifty dollars?”
 
This went on and on until the mother finally saw that she wasn’t getting the result she wanted. A couple of days later, the mother approached her daughter and said, “I found the fifty dollars. I forgot  I’d put it in a different place. I’m sorry.” And then she turned around and left.
 
Needless to say, with that last example, does fifty—or even a thousand dollars—matter when you have millions? Certainly, the mother would defend her actions by claiming that it is the principle about which she was so uncompromising (and so she's not really abusive—in her own mind). But she was so wrong both in principle and everything else. And can you imagine standing nose to nose with the pain on your child’s face and slapping her again and again?
 
Yet society considers this multimillionairess to be a successful and savvy woman.

Furthermore, it is well-known that financially successful people tend not to be pushovers and they do display some degree of competence (or else they wouldn’t be so successful).
 
Whether they are elegantly assertive or overtly aggressive (like Donald Trump), they usually know how to stay in charge.
 

Yet why are their children so often so out of control? What leaks into the media is only a drop from behind a whole dam. The physical abuse of siblings or girlfriends, promiscuity, drug use, reckless behavior is disturbingly common.
 
Their children maintain a certain amount of discretion and you may never actually see them abusive, drunk, or high. When they talk about their escapades, they tend to do so in a light-hearted manner, which makes things sound like they aren’t so bad.

For example, one told me about a “party” celebrated in a luxury chateau.

Basically, they all lay around on the plush carpet and kept injecting themselves with heroin over the next couple of weeks.

Too blitzed to keep up basic standards of—well--anything, she laughed as she told me about how the purebred Maltese and the exotic parrots they let free soiled the plush carpeting, with no one to clean up. (I guess they didn’t want any witnesses, so housekeeping was only ordered later.)

She told this over as if this was an innocently humorous anecdote. But when we just stared at her in reply, her laughter grew nervous and she bit her lip.

Finally, I said something like, “But, Tiffany, didn’t it bother you to wake up on the floor with your face a couple of feet a way from a pile of…?”

Everyone else nodded.

She laughed again, but this time like she wanted time to find the best evasive answer and said, “Well, it wasn’t exactly like that…”

Then she teased, “Well, I guess you wouldn’t understand…it’s hard to explain…”

(Meaning, it is hard to explain to someone who obviously could never afford to live in a chateau and buy that much heroin—not to mention the purebred dog and the expensive birds—and therefore, cannot understand.)

Or they might fix you with a hard stare, like how dare you judge them. Or they just turn away with a dismissive wave of their hand.

I think you’ll agree that even messy or lazy people would never agree to lay around on a carpet for days surrounded by parrot droppings and dog doo.
​
Just wealthy elites do things like that.
 
Now, this post used the example of a drug-fueled party, but the above reactions will be their standard responses to even the most innocent questioning of any of their experiences, no matter how bizarre, immoral, or illegal.

Again, they tend to discuss the disturbing activities in which they engage as if it’s completely normal.

​And that’s one of the most alarming aspects of their mindset—they honestly have no idea that their behavior is so out-of-whack.
 
Not surprisingly, all these people tend to have very liberal views.

​Even if they support Republican or conservative candidates for economic reasons, they are socially very liberal and look to impose their views on society.

​Likely you’ve met people with a high level of academic intelligence or who are extremely successful in one area of their life (like computers or entertainment or medicine, etc.), yet talking to them reveals a mind that cannot think rationally outside of their narrow strip of expertise.

They say things that make no sense and when you appear confused, they assume it’s because they are too lofty to be understood by a mere peon like you.

​This is unsettling because what they said was so obviously nonsensical, yet they appear so satisfied with themselves and so sure that the fault is in you, that unless you are strong in your own mind, it can cause you to second-guess yourself.

Someone who once worked in Hollywood asked me, “If you need validation for anything that you do, where are you going to point the camera?”

She pointed to herself.

“Here. You going to point the camera at yourself."

That way, you show everyone how you are totally fine and can portray your beliefs sympathetically (no matter how unethical or harmful those beliefs actually are).
 
Since its inception, Hollywood actors and directors have been committing adultery, conceiving extramarital pregnancies, and engaging in serial divorce.

But American society frowned on this.

So Hollywood increasingly turned the camera on its darkest parts to brainwash people into thinking that this was a perfectly normal way of behaving.
 
Finally (and the most disturbing), when I was in high school, a friend confided that she’d been abused as part of a cult ritual using death symbols and organized by her aunts, uncles, and other family members.

Her father was in on it, too, although he wasn’t present at the abuse. She said that her father was a lawyer of extremely high standing and that those same relatives served as judges and politicians.

There are more stories, but this is enough to make the point.
 
It’s also important to note that the above people ran the gamut of cultures.
 
Being British or European or American made no difference—it was all the same dysfunction.
 
Almost EVERYONE in charge is totally bonkers: media-bobbleheads, politicians, talk show hosts, actors, musicians, screenwriters, producers, judges, professors, scientists, chief doctors...
 
Yet they're the ones telling us what to think and how to behave.

The point of knowing all this is to really understand who is behind everything that’s affecting your life and why things are getting so crazy.
 
It’s been predicted throughout millennia of our Sages’ writings that the End of Days would be accompanied by extremely dysfunctional behavior and that people like the ones described above would be in charge.
 
Why would Hashem do that to us?
 
Well, there’s no other way to shake us free of our dependence on other human beings. By corrupting all other avenues of rescue, support and power, Hashem forces us to realize that we truly have no other on which to rely except Him.
 
May we always merit to place our full trust and faith in the One and Only King.

Growing up, my family religiously attended a Conservative (which actually entirely liberal) synagogue.

While Conservative Jews living near large frum communities (like New York) may seem indistinguishable from some Modern Orthodox Jews, those living far away from major frum communities range from the totally assimilated to the traditional, with the only Sabbath-observant members being the rabbi and cantor—maybe.
 
I always really liked our synagogue’s cantor and his wife.

I remember him passing out lollipops to all the kids each week.

When my youngest sister felt too shy to accept the lollipop from the open flap of the cantor’s pocket, I remember him getting down on one knee so that the lollipop would be within arm’s reach of the little girl. Then he inched it out so it would easier for her to take.

His gentle, thoughtful approach was so much more appealing than that of most adults I knew, who would make fun of a child’s shyness and play stupid little verbal games before finally giving the child the proffered candy.

The cantor’s wife, the child of Holocaust survivors, was a successful business woman with a natural warmth and candidness, who always related to me with the chumminess of a friend, even though I was just a child/teenager.

After I started keeping Shabbat, they once hosted me with great warmth so that I could attend a family simcha at the synagogue over Shabbat. He kept Shabbat and she kept everything except the prohibition of turning on and off lights.

​Coming of age when she did, the lures of feminism spoke to her and she allowed that to warp her Judaism, although she never saw it that way.

Both maintained a fondness for Medinat Yisrael and she always yearned to make aliyah.

In the frum world, the Reform movement and Christian proselytism receive the most criticism and censure.
 
But in my eyes, the Conservative movement caused the most destruction.
 
Maybe I am wrong.

But the Reform movement is all about shiny American liberal values. It makes no secret of its desire to encapsulate non-Jewish ideals.

Growing up, I remember my Reform peers making fun of their own temple for having an organ and such a tepid English service, calling their temple by derisive nicknames. They were all assimilated, but their Jewish souls rebelled at the obvious forgery.
 
And while every Jew is precious, missionaries entrap very few, relatively speaking.

(Although they are starting to become as insidious as the Conservative movement by twisting Torah concepts to grant themselves legitimacy.)

But the Conservative movement slithered into the Jewish people like a parasitical worm.

It came under the guise of being a legitimate Torah alternative, rationalizing itself as taking the path of Hillel as opposed to the Orthodox (who they claim took the path of Shammai).

​Many of its rabbis, cantors, and youth leaders feel genuine passion about Judaism and are proud of their heritage. They bring a freshness and enthusiasm to their congregations.

They’re also completely brainwashed by the Conservative movement’s propaganda.
 
For example, Conservative leaders acknowledge that there is a Torah prohibition to drive on Shabbat. At the same time, they acknowledge that there is a mitzvah to daven in a minyan and a prohibition against separating from the community.
 
So guess which takes precedence?

This is why most Conservative Jews feel perfectly comfortable driving on Shabbat. Never mind that many of them could care less about attending a regular minyan...
 
For Shabbos Koidesh, they are mesirus nefesh to drive to daven in a minyan for Shabbos Shacharis(!)
 
By twisting things around and omitting certain information, you can even legitimize eating poultry with dairy as "kosher." This type of thing is what Christianity did with the Torah, too.

​The Conservative movement survives by exploiting the ignorance of its adherents.
 
When I was a kid, some of the adults had received a Jewish day school education up until eighth grade and taught by Orthodox teachers (and how that was defined, I'm not sure).

But back in the Fifties, the education and methodology were often tepid, depending.

Yet my parents’ entire generation of non-Orthodox Jews were left with the impression that’s all there was to Torah-observance and, with a few exceptions, refuse to delve any deeper until this very day.

Some of the elderly men had attended cheder in Europe until the age of 12-14, spoke Yiddish, and had grown up going through the motions of Torah observance. I didn't get their humor or their Yiddishisms, yet I liked them very much.

But again, their impression of Torah Judaism was superficial. For them, Conservative Judaism offered them the best of both worlds—or so they thought.

They were a warm and rollicking little group, but as they aged even more and their children assimilated, they grew embittered and haggard. When I first started coming closer to Judaism, one elderly man used to approach me every time he saw me and beg me to marry his son.
 
“I’ll buy you a house—a nice one!” he said. “A nice house in a good neighborhood!”

I laughingly rejected his offer.

Each time, he grew increasingly agitated and upped his offer. “I’ll leave you a million dollars. A million dollars! I promise—I’ll write it in my will with lawyers and everything! I’ll prove it to you. I promise. And with me, a promise is a promise!”
 
I remember the last time he approached me.

When I turned down his offer for the final time, he shot me a look of disgust and flapped his hand at me. “You kids today,” he said. “You have no appreciation for the value of money and property! Look at what I’m offering you. How can you say no?”
 
Strangely, I wasn’t offended.

I think because underneath his disgust lay some very legitimate Jewish grief and frustration. He wasn’t disgusted by my priorities; he was disgusted by his own that led him into the desperate situation he now found himself.
 
But to my teenage self, it seemed like a scene out of Fiddler on the Roof that should be acted out by people with funny names I’d never heard anywhere else, like Tzeitel and Mottel.

I deeply regret that I was insensitive enough to laugh when the man was clearly in pain. But the whole idea of matchmaking and promising material rewards—buying your child a spouse, in a sense—seemed outlandish and comedic to me.

And I also couldn’t imagine that his son would want me under such conditions—not to mention that his son was around thirty, which seemed middle-aged and gross to my teenage mind.
 
Anyway, the whole idea seemed embarrassing.

So despite the anguish etched in his wrinkled face, I was convinced he was joking.

In a world of breezy intermarriages, drive-thru “conversions,” and people who only kept the mitzvot they found personally meaningful (and even then, not the whole mitzvah; only the parts of it they found meaningful and convenient).

​It never occurred to me that a Jew could care that deeply about preserving his Jewish continuity.

The Conservative movement's patriots live in this bizarre bubble of fire, enthusiasm, and innovative kiruv ideas for their brand of Judaism, while waxing with perky lyricism about the firm ground they’re standing on and weaving wild fantasies of how successful they are.
 
But the whole time, they’re sinking lower and lower into the quicksand of anti-Torah ideas—and they drag a lot of innocent people down with them.
 

 
The Conservative movement is also the most responsible for the phenomenon of non-Jews who, sincerely thinking they’re Jewish, declare themselves Jewish and even insist on marrying Jews and participating in minyanim and Jewish activities, with real Jews none the wiser.
 
And while the Reform movement offers "conversions," it’s the Conservative movement that insists on illegitimate conversions, considering all the offspring of marriage with such a female "convert" as Jewish, when basic halachah proves they are not.
 
I remember one such family.

When the Jewish patriarch died, his not-Jewish-but-thinks-she’s-Jewish wife still held a yearly Seder with all their children and grandchildren—not one of whom is Jewish.

You also get these bizarre scenarios in which the not-Jewish-but-thinks-they-are parent or fiancée try to convince the non-Jewish love interest to "convert" to Judaism.
 
I dread the phone calls or emails I get from or about the not-Jewish-but-think-they-are in which they obviously feel the need to “break the news” to me (the fanatical Orthodox Jew) that they/their child is marrying a non-Jew and hope that’s okay with me.

Or sometimes they don’t hope, but assert: “I know that this may offend you, however….”
 
I always tell them it is more than okay with me, and even preferred.

Depending on who they are and how they feel about their pseudo-Jewish identity, I may even tell them why. The reaction is always surprised and sometimes even disappointed.

(Disappointed because they were hoping for a religious attack so they could go back to their family and friends and talk about how persecuted they were by me, the religious zealot. And then everyone could feel victimized and commiserate. But alas…)
 
What I really hate, though, are the phone calls and emails that chirp things like: "Your cousin's wife attended the Purim Megillah reading! I think she's really starting to come around! Maybe a conversion is in the works???"

My cousin isn't Jewish, but thinks he is. His wife isn't Jewish and knows she's not. Everything is fine. But people who don't know any better tell me this because they think it'll make me happy.

It doesn't.
 
It makes very, very sad to see non-Jews-who-think-they're-Jewish and Conservative Jews running around trying to convert people's non-Jewish spouses with the freneticness of a freshly caught fish flapping out its last moments on the dock in the open air.
 
I also find it bizarre that they are blind to how obnoxious and hypocritical they are.

I mean, Conservative Jews HATE it when Christians proselytize them and when frum Jews try to impose "their" values and beliefs on them. Conservative Jews also battle at the forefront to stop public expressions of Christian holidays and a moment of silence in schools.

But then they insist that their child's intended spouse bow to their ways and switch religions. They can be very friendly about it, but they are still persistent.

It’s a point of humbling gratitude to Hashem that He pulled any of us out of this quicksand and scoured that duplicitous gunk from our minds.

​This is when “Dayenu” really speaks to me. I’m not different or better than the people I grew up with. So why was I rescued and not them? It’s such a huge unearned kindness that I can’t wrap my mind around it.

Technically, I have no right to ask Hashem for anything more. (But I still do.)

Dayeni!

With kiruv websites up and running for almost 20 years now and kiruv organizations alive and kicking since the Seventies and all that frum kiruv only growing in popularity and prominence, Conservative adherents have very little excuse for their continued brainwashing.
 
And getting back to the lovely couple with which this post started off:

There are already a lot of well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning destroyers in Eretz Yisrael.

​And while I tend to believe that coming to Eretz Yisrael inspires a return to Torah (hey, it worked for me!), it clearly doesn’t for many people (although for many people, it does). And maybe it wouldn’t have either for the cantor and his wife.

Maybe they would have become part of the problem here instead of part of the solution.

So Hashem saved both them and us from that.
 
It hurts because I like the cantor and his wife so much. And I see them as victims of the greater Conservative movement, even though as enthusiastic participants, they became an active part of its destructive force.

There is still always the opportunity for them to do teshuvah.
And we can pray for their children along with all the other lost Jewish children.
 
But in the end, maybe what I said wasn’t so wacky after all. They made their decisions.
 
And maybe because of that, Hashem truly didn’t want them here.
 
(But real teshuvah can still change all that!)

During a race between Netanyahu and Peres, Rav Shach came out with the statement that people should vote for Netanyahu because “this one is less bad than that one.”

("Zeh pachot ra m’zeh.")


Just to reiterate, when Rav Shach told people to vote for Netanyahu, it wasn't because Netanyahu was good or decent or covered in smileys.
 
Rav Shach merely stated that Netanyahu wasn’t as bad (or wicked, depending on how you translate “ra”) as Peres.

The truth is that with exception of gedolim like Rav Shach, it’s difficult for rabbis to know the truth about candidates. Theoretically, they don’t go digging into candidates’ backgrounds and may not even have access or know how to access the information necessary.

It’s also a problem when frum publications do a whole spread or even make a candidate their cover story, as the candidate's views may be only barely acceptable while maintaining other positions that can ultimately lead to the destruction of the place they want to lead.

​Or candidates who come off as pro-Israel and make compelling speeches about Israel's importance, but support a two-state solution.

I’m far from the first to express this opinion.

Frum Jews have being saying this for over a decade.
 
A positive example is when Rabbi Wallerstein agreed to do a robocall about a candidate. He was clear that it was regarding one pivotal issue and did not endorse anything else about that candidate—that’s the Rav Shach method: no frills or flattery, just straight to the point.
 
But you can form opinions totally on your own. You just have to know what you're seeing when you see it.

Bayit Yehudi immediately soared to glory.

Yet the minute they turned their back on their halachically correct position of supporting IDF soldiers who refuse to clear out Jewish settlements, a great many of us knew they were just another blip on the wash-out screen.
 
This was a well-known act, yet some Orthodox rabbis continued to support them.

It took more research to see how ridiculously far the party was willing to go.

When pressed on this issue, one candidate insisted, “I am not a soldier, so I cannot comment on what soldiers should do in this situation.”
 
Oh, really?

Does that mean since I am not a man, I cannot comment on whether Jewish men should wear tefillin?

I am a Jew, so I cannot comment on whether a non-Jew is allowed to commit murder?

I am white, so I cannot comment on how blacks should have equal rights to me?
 
To give the benefit of the doubt, I think many frum voters assumed that Bayit Yehudi used this position as subterfuge to get elected, and would return to their first position upon winning.
 
But what would we say about a Jew who pretended not to keep Shabbat in order to get elected? Or who pretended that treif restaurants in Jerusalem are okay—just to get elected?
 
And I can’t remember who said it first, but the point was made at that time that of course soldiers can refuse orders!

For example, what if soldiers were told: “Go into the preemie ward and behead all the babies”? Or, “Go to the zoo and barbecue all the koala bears!”
 
Would Bayit Yehudi claim that since they are no longer soldiers, then they have no right to decide how soldiers should respond to such commands? And should you write off their noncommittal reply as clever subterfuge meant to win the election?
 
I mean, sheesh. It’s either manipulative or cowardly or heretical.

So while I wouldn’t expect a serious rabbi to dig into political interviews and the like, Bayit Yehudi made clear from the outset their fundamental insincerity and duplicity.
 
(And just for knowing, I refused to vote for several other religious parties for similar reasons. I went for Yachad instead.)

Barak Obama
Like many others, I suspected Barak Obama from the beginning.

Yet upon learning of Obama’s active support in Kenya in favor of his cousin’s Sharia candidacy over a pro-Democracy candidate, it was obvious that Obama was no good at his core.
 
What remotely decent person would ever actively campaign for a Sharia candidate over a Democracy candidate?
 
(Not that I would believe for a minute that a Third World democracy would be anything like a First World democracy, but in these cases, it’s the thought that counts.)
 
And unlike many other American Leftist bobble-heads, Obama grew up in an Islamic environment. He knows about FGM, honor killings, thief amputations, floggings, wife-beating, and all that.
 
Expectedly, carnage followed when the Democracy party won, with hundreds of pro-Democracy Christians being burned in churches by the pro-Sharia poor losers. While you can’t blame Obama directly for the resulting massacre, this kind of thing always happens in the Third World. Are you going to try to tell me that Obama had no idea the party he supported was capable of this? If I, suburban-raised, Israel-dwelling housewife knew, then he for sure knew.

Obama sure knows how to pick a winner, I guess.

Anyway, America either knew or chose not to know. And they voted for him anyway.

Hillary Clinton
Her heinous history is so well-documented and easily researched.

We have audio, video, textual evidence of her heartlessness and hypocrisy going way, way back.
 
As far as I can tell, she is a malignant narcissist at best and a sociopath at worst.

But even without research, I think she revealed her true colors when she didn’t divorce Bill after his presidency ended. While it’s understandable why a woman wouldn’t initiate a divorce in the middle of her husband’s presidency, no self-respecting woman would ever stay with such a man (unless he forced her to in some way, which is clearly not the case with the Clintons).
 
There isn't much more to say because I haven’t heard of any serious frum rabbi who’d even dream of supporting her, so there's no need to debunk her here.
 
Next!

Donald Trump
Even though I don't think Trump is in the same league as Obama or Hillary, I just want to point out that so many frum people back him for the wrong reasons.
 
If you plan to vote in the American elections (and I don't), then this would be a good time to follow Rav Shach’s dictum of voting.

However, there are many people I respect who warmly support Trump—and not necessarily for the right reasons.
 
I don’t fully understand the warm support of some frum journalists, bloggers, rabbis etc., for Trump. 

2020 UPDATE: President Trump has surpassed the low expectations. I'm not going to start swooning over a politician, but he definitely has done some good things. Much, much better than Obama for sure.

And just to prove to you that disagreeing with a rabbi over a political situation does not in and of itself imply disrespect or arrogance, here is an example:
 
In the incredible book A Sun and a Shield, the Illeander Rav was one of the only Jews to escape the Dej ghetto with his family. The other was a young widow and her son.

​The Illeander Rav Yosef Paneth's daughter, Brandele, got caught in Poland under Nazi occupation and was eyewitness to years of Nazi atrocities before she managed to escape back to her family in Dej, Transylvania.
 
The Illeander Rav's brother, the Dejer Rebbe, was a tzaddik in his own right, yet he did not believe the testimony of his niece nor the persuasions of his holy brother. (pg. 176)

Even after the two tzaddikim were dumped with over 7500 fellow Jews in a forest with just a few planks for shelter and surrounded by barbed wire, the Dejer Rebbe said to his brother, "I can't believe what I'm hearing. Why would anyone want to kill innocent people?" He added that he also couldn't leave his community and his weaker family members.
 
The Illeander Rav begged his brother to let him save at least one child from the Dejer Rebbe's family. But no. Later, the Dejer Rebbe said, "What is it with my brother?...What could happen to us? The Magyars are not the Poles. They have been very decent to us all these years...."

On the cattle trains to Auschwitz, the Dejer Rebbe never lost his faith or his composure. He remained a source of comfort and encouragement to his fellow passengers the entire nightmarish journey that ended in the gas chambers.
 
So please don't think that by disagreeing with rabbis and people cleverer than me that I think I'm better than them or that I'm such a smartypants or whatever. We see throughout history that for incomprehensible reasons, Hashem sometimes chooses to blind even the wisest people. But that doesn't mean He's blinding you, too.
 
Although it's worth pointing out that, in the above example, Hashem was not blinding the Illeander Rav, who was a real Gadol.

Anyway, there are things that are well-known about Trump that I remember from my teens.

You're either aware or you aren't.

So I’m going to assume that at the bare minimum, the frum Trump supporters know whatever they need to know and ignore whatever's convenient.
 
And with only a tiny bit of digging, Trump’s liberal positions come to light. His history shows that in contrast to his support base, he is socially VERY liberal. 

Yes, he is much better than the Democrat options. But we needn't glue rose-colored glasses to our faces.

Narcissists are always self-destructive. ALWAYS.

Even when they succeed for a while, they always end up self-destructing—and taking others with them.

This means that a narcissist will not do what’s good for America just because it’ll be good for his or her ego or whatever. S/He will not fight for America the way he fights for himself.

Narcissists have the same weird masochistic streak as suicide bombers.

Figuratively speaking, narcissists will drill under their own seat in a boat and then try to escape when it starts sinking, stomping over everyone else in their way while vehemently declaring their innocence and victimhood, and insisting that others need to risk their lives to save them from the damage they themselves caused.

But don’t take my word for it.

Ask anyone who has ever grown up with, married, or worked for a narcissist.

Many popular politicians on either side of the aisle demonstrate narcissism.

It's easy enough to see in their speeches and books.

After things not working out at two other schools, the yeshiva katanah my son (who later went into the army) ended up attending was a place self-defined as "a yeshiva for boys who don't like to learn"—and my son liked it a lot. 

He started in 8th grade & continued throughout yeshivah katanah (yeshivah katanah=the high school years) until graduation.

Each class mostly comprised boys whom, in their previous schools, had been the hardest kid in the class.

Not all of them were exuberant young men, of course, but most were.
 
And a few once performed as top students at one point, but then something happened.

Anyway, the staff and student body are primarily comprised of Sephardim, even though it is not a Sephardi institution, and even though they accept any boy of any background whose needs are suited to what this yeshiva can provide.
 
At one point, an Ashkenazi boy from a Yiddish-speaking environment came to join my son's class. This boy also hailed from one of the more structured & sheltered Chassidish groups.
 
The Yemenite rav of that year's class warned my son and his friends to treat this new boy nicely, no matter how strange or different he seemed to them.
 
And different he was.
 
Even his name was different.

As "Finkelshtayn" (not his real name, but very similar in flavor), he stood out among Suissa, Alchadef, Tuito, Siman-Tov, and Chajaj.
 
Because Finkelshtayn mostly knew Hebrew from books, his spoken Hebrew was proper and formal, and not casual and peppered with Arabic slang like the Hebrew of his classmates.

(Note: A large degree of the Arabic slang is because the boys have grandparents whose first language is Arabic.)

The boys were also bemused by Finkelshtayn's insistence on slathering himself with sunscreen (SPF 38!) before joining them on boating excursions & class trips to the sea.
 
And, unlike the other boys, Finkelshtayn didn't enjoy loud Mizrachi-style music, nor did he feel compelled to drench himself with Axe's Black deodorant body-spray as if it was DDT and he was a giant mosquito.
 
But the boys accepted him as their own, despite his peculiarities.
 
Yet unbeknownst to Finkelshtayn at the beginning, Sephardi males hug each other.

​Yes—even the tough macho ones.

And if you're an exuberant Sephardi male, you hug exuberantly.
 
In fact, Moroccan minyanim here in Eretz Yisrael have a custom on Shabbat to kiss all their fellow congregants after Shabbat Arvit (Evening Prayer) and also often at the end of Shabbat Shacharit (Morning Prayer).

Yet why not after Shabbat Mincha?

Nobody seems to know....
 
Anyway, when the boys first used to go in for a hug, Finkelshtayn tried to cringe away, saying, "No, no, that's okay; a handshake will do...."
 
But nothin' doing, Finkelshtayn. You're with Moroccans now (along with a sprinkling of Persians & Yemenites) and you WILL learn to hug.

Kol Yisrael achim (all Jews are brothers), after all—whether you like it or not.
 
After graduation, my son turned to me and demanded, "Do have any idea how long it took to teach Finkelshtayn to hug?"
 
"No," I said. "How long?"
 
"A long time!" My son grimaced. "And even now, he's only willing to accept a hug—he won't actually give one."

He stood up to demonstrate.

"When Finkelshtayn meets one of us," continued my son, "he stands out at a distance and stretches his arm out all the way to shake hands. Then we have to grab him by that arm and reel him in for a hug!"

My son thought for a moment, then said, "But at least he's able to accept hugs now. He used to protest the entire time, and now he just nods and smiles and says, 'Okay, okay' like he hopes it's almost over. But still, he's improved."
 
So in the end, despite their differences, they all adjusted.

And even if they didn't like or understand each other's cultural peccadilloes, that didn't stop them from liking and appreciating each other.

​Sinat Chinam Disclaimer:
​Not ALL Sephardi teenage boys drench themselves in Axe or listen to loud Mizrachi music or compel Chassidim to hug them, and so on.

​This post describes only a certain type of bachur within a certain milieu.

​No offense to all the fine, upstanding Sephardi males who use roll-on deodorant and sunscreen, listen to Avraham Fried at a normal volume, and display their achvah with a simple handshake, etc.

Needless to say, it's always good to sweeten dinim.
 
Often translated as "judgements," dinim are actually the natural spiritual consequences of one's deeds & thoughts.

Of course, these spiritual consequences are often experienced physically, i.e. illness, financial loss, etc.  
 
With Tisha B'Av upon us and then dealing with the rest of Av and its Lion mazal, and then sliding into Elul, this is a particularly important time to sweeten any harsh stuff hanging overhead, whether on a personal level or the national level—or both.
 
I am still not Breslov, but I've been going through Sefer Hamiddot (you can download a free PDF of it here) and found the chapter on Sweetening Judgement/Hamtakat Hadinim particularly helpful:
 

1. Recite Tikkun Chatzot.
2. "When you stay awake the whole night, by this you are saved from dinim." (This is something comforting for parents of wakeful or colicky--chas v'shalom!—children to keep in mind.)
3. Learning the mishnayot of Zeraim sweetens dinim.
4. Tzedakah transforms dinim into chessed (loving-kindness).
5. Reciting Tehillim 39 and 77 sweetens dinim.
6. To battle the decrees of the nations against the Jewish people, recite Tehillim 62.
7. "Through bitachon [trust in Hashem], the din is sweetened & chessed is drawn forth."
8. Crying [not in accusation or self-pity against Hashem] sweetens dinim.
9. Being depressed draws forth bad mazal. Via bad mazal, the attribute of harsh din dominates. [So try to fight depression by expressing gratitude for whatever you can.]
10. "One who wants to sweeten dinim should not drink any wine the entire day."
11. When you hear someone making accusations against the Jewish people, you should toil to find a meritorious reason behind the criticized actions.
12. Immersing in a mikveh annuls suffering and brings salvation.
13. One who accepts suffering with love is as if he (or she!) brought a sacrifice. [Bringing a sacrifice to the Beit Hamikdash sweetened dinim. The Kli Yakar in Parshat Tzav explains how that works.]
14. When a person sees that dinim rest upon him, he should tell of those who hate him and justify them. [To me, "tell" implies telling Hashem and not other people, as that would be lashon hara. But may I'm misunderstanding something...]

 
Now, that last one is interesting.

Contrary to certain stereotypes, we know that Judaism does not encourage masochism or codependency.

Justifying those who hate you should not lead to: "I deserve to be punished and abused because deep down inside, I am innately very bad and icky."

And contrary to what you sometimes hear in some classes, halachically forbidden behavior (i.e. hating you unless you are completely and intentionally evil) is never "okay" or acceptable or excusable.
 
Just for knowing, the Hebrew word translated here as "justify" is יצדיק, the root meaning "right" or "just."

If I understand it correctly, it's very similar to thanking Hashem for suffering.

Even if you can't emotionally appreciate your suffering, it's possible to intellectually accept that it is somehow for your benefit in a way that only Hashem understands.
 
Basically, you are just seeing the other person's point of view.
 
For example, did you once do something that gave someone else the totally wrong impression of you and they just can't let go of it?

Even if they're wrong and should really give you the benefit of the doubt, can you at least understand intellectually and objectively why they feel the way they do?
 
Or maybe you really did do something wrong and the other person just can't forgive you--even though you sincerely apologized and tried to make it up to them.

While they're wrong not to forgive, can you understand why they can't?

Given their background, their experiences, their blind spots and stumbling blocks, and their personality, can you somehow "justify" their feelings about you?
 
Or you might discover that you actually did do something wrong, and this grants you the opportunity to make amends for and rectify it.

Doing all this should not lead to depression or self-hatred.
 
Remember the paradox of us having free choice while Hashem is still deciding every last little detail of our lives and actions.
 
Whether you did something to create a hater or if someone hates you for no reason (or for the wrong reason), that's also from Hashem.

It seems that this exercise is not about the other person, per se, but about Hashem.
 
I think it's hard and uncomfortable to do at first, but difficult and uncomfortable acts are usually the most powerful.

​I do not know how the following will sound to you, but the first time I tried this, a young cat suddenly entered my little yard just as I finished justifying my haters.

​In Perek Shira, the song of the cat is:

“I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them, and I did not return until they were destroyed.” (Tehillim 18:38)
 
That sounds pretty sweet to me!
 
I felt sure this was a sign that justifying my haters had worked.
 
Then the seat of my chair collapsed and I fell through and got stuck.
 
Fortunately, my then-13-year-old was around and he held out his arm to let me grab hold of him while using a pear tree for leverage as the chair's legs collapsed, too.

I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear I made it out okay.

Thank God for bar mitzvah boys! (And conveniently located pear trees!)

Anyway, perhaps Hashem transferred the harsh dinim to my chair and it was all a kaparah (atonement).

(For more information on dealing with Av's Lion mazal, please see the Kli Yakar on Parshat Devarim)
 
May Hashem greatly sweeten ALL our dinim, both our individual dinim and our National dinim.  

​With all the politics and just the current state of things, it's easy to forget that Eretz Yisrael is actually much bigger than Medinat Yisrael.

Here's Rav Avigdor Miller, who refused to align with the Zionist movement (out of love for Hashem, Torah principles & Am Yisrael), held a purely religious view on Eretz Yisrael & stated:

We don't need to give up Land for 2 reasons:
 
1) This is the MAIN and MOST IMPORTANT reason:
UPDATE 2020: The Lubavitcher Rebbe stated that we have no right to give up Land that does not belong to us; it belongs to HASHEM:
The Lubavitcher Rebbe: Israel is Not Yours to Give Away

We are halachically forbidden from giving Land to those to whom it doesn't belong, particularly to people who despise us and want us dead. Therefore, giving away Land brings harm, not blessing. And needless to say, any reasons stated by Chazal permitting us to give up Land do not in any way apply to the situation we've been in for decades now.
 
If anything, the whole episode with Bnot Tzelafchad, as mentioned in the recent parshas, bring this point home.

2) We've already given up too much. Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and teeny bit of Turkey (just to name a few) are all squatting on Land that Hashem designated for Jews and command us to settle.
So which nation(s) REALLY need to compromise?
That's right! NOT us.
 
(Okay, and yes I know that exact boundaries are disputed by Chazal, and that Reuven, Gad, and Menashe II are outside of Eretz Yisrael proper, etc.)

Below are photos of our Tribal Lands. Keep scrolling and enjoy the view!

So please remember the actual boundaries of Eretz Yisrael and the inheritance given to the Jewish people the next time you hear talk of Land for "peace" or covetous people who have no portion in Eretz Yisrael complaining about "their" territorial rights.
 
May all of Bnei Yisrael be gathered into Eretz Yisrael very soon! 

With no one to vote for on either side of the aisle, many Americans are looking for another option, even if it means the usually denigrated Third-Party option.
 
And among sincere right-wing conservatives, there is even talk of creating a new movement.
 

But spiritually speaking, it just doesn’t seem viable at this point.
 
First of all, Hashem is taking down all the lies and obfuscations, both on the personal level and on the global level. I see this in my personal life and others have mentioned seeing this, too.
 
He's just not letting us get away with poor behavior and faulty thinking anymore.
 
And there are just too many lies and obfuscations, even among right-wing conservatives.
 
Here are some examples...

As great as the American Constitution has been (historically speaking), the fact is that the Pursuit of Happiness as an inalienable right is ultimately a bad idea.

Pursuit of Meaning or Pursuit of Truth or the Pursuit of Self-Betterment would have been more in line with what Hashem really wants from us.
 
Of course, the Founding Fathers never imagined the level of debauchery and indolence pursued by Americans today.

That Puritan culture could not have foreseen that people would want to be so dependent and mindless.

So a revolutionary movement based on the Constitution, which emphasizes the Pursuit of Happiness, can’t succeed at this point.

​There are too many individuals who define happiness as being plugged into chemicals (legal or otherwise), mindless & snarky entertainment, and electro-magnetic gadgets. 

Secondly, the vast majority of right-wing conservatives believe in some form of Christianity (or if they are Jewish, they believe in others' right to believe in Christianity).
 
Okay, this gets a bit tricky because the Constitutional right to practice your own religion without persecution has been a tremendous chessed for the Jewish people and unparalleled in Jewish history.
 
Yet Christianity is just plain false. So you can't support its "right."
 
Anything beneficial in it was paraphrased from Judaism.

So if you want the good stuff, you might as well go straight to the original Jewish source.

Furthermore, at this point, there really isn’t any excuse to believe in Christianity today (and all the more so, any other religions—particularly openly idolatrous ones).

There is just too much information available, both from a Torah point of view (the Torah is very clear about monotheism, Jews as His Chosen Nation, and not adding to or subtracting from the Torah, etc.) and from a historical point of view.

I mean, Christians don't even have a singular bible.

(Their bible consists of a bunch of letters tacked on to the end of ours.)

It's the most bizarre thing.
 
So many people correctly abandoned Christianity upon discovering that it is based on a bunch of letters written by regular people.

(Unfortunately, they end up as atheists, agnostics, worshippers of anglicized Buddhism, or a wishy-washy liberalized belief in some kind of greater power—all of which has been, ironically, worse for society than Christianity. But hardly anyone wants to admit this.)

There isn't even a one authentic source-copy of this gospel collection, not to mention that hardly anyone can read the original letters because they consist of a hodge-podge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

Altogether, no reasonable person could possibly buy into this, which accounts for the increase of converts to Judaism and bnei Noach.

Reading accounts from America's earlier days, you find people who believed wholeheartedly in God, but do not mention Christianity's founder as a synonym for God as Christians do today:
 

• Thomas Jefferson's bible famously had all references to human divinity blocked out.

 

• John and Abigail Adams referred often to God specifically in their diaries and letters. John Adams worried about guarding his eyes and keeping his mind pure as a single man while Abigail Adams felt that an outbreak of cholera was God's punishment for slave-ownership.

 

• Maine midwife Martha Ballard (1735-1812) mentions Hashem repeatedly in her diary, but she calls Him "Lord," "God," and "our Great Parent;" she never interchanges Him with their founder. In fact, as far as I could tell, she never mentions their founder at all and she only went to church when compelled.

​

• Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) mentions God only, both in her fictionalized books and in her original biography. She only attended churches if she liked the preacher, but like many Americans of her time, she felt perfectly capable of conducting a relationship with God on her own.

 

• Whether black or white, earlier Americans frequently referred to the Jewish Bible and found great inspiration specifically within the Tanach as opposed to the Christian bible. Many of the most popular names of that time were clearly taken from the Tanach.

 
Yet today's Christians seem to be more "Christian" than their forebears.

Mindlessly interchanging "God" and "Lord" with the name of their founder is a particularly disturbing example of this.

And this is despite today's easily available scholarship to the contrary.
 
Hashem shomer peta'im, but what excuse exists today for being such a peti?
 
In His Great Compassion, Hashem judges us by the resources we have available to us and by our capabilities.

Theologically speaking, the capabilities and resources apply to everyone today.

Yes, I respect and am sympathetic to the tremendous emotional hardship in breaking away from their deeply ingrained tri-theistic belief system.

​But still. People can become (or at least start on the path to becoming) either Torah-observant Jews or Noachides. 
 
I honestly believe that any movement which denies the Truth of Torah and basically considers Hashem to be a liar (may He have mercy) can no longer succeed.
 
There are just no more excuses. 

Thirdly, too many truly right-wing conservatives have proudly absorbed the seedy values of the Left.

You can barely read or listen to a right-wing conservative article or podcast without being assaulted by bawdy images or foul language.

And that's not all.

Self-defined religious conservative women have chosen to objectify themselves almost as much as secular Liberal women.  

Today, we have female-only versions like:

• the “Hot” Judge
• the “Hot” Pregnant Mommy
• the “Hot” Newscaster
• the “Hot” Geek...

...which Christian conservatives have imposed upon themselves by creating:

• the “Hot” Christian
• the “Hot” Right-Wing Conservative Pundit
• the “Hot” Pro-Lifer
• ...and so on.

Men never do the above, nor are they encouraged to. 

On the contrary, they'd look foolish doing so & face mass mockery for it.

The raunchiness permeating this otherwise religious and conservative group is something you’ve probably noticed yourself by now.

​In sum, a group in which women knowingly & eagerly make themselves eye-candy (with the enthusiastic approval of their like-minded male idealists) cannot succeed.
 
And like secular Liberals, prominent right-wing conservatives have even given up on pushing pre-marital abstinence, despite this being a strong tenet of their religion.

Instead, they focus on fighting abortion by promoting adoption and birth control.

This is just a sample of reasons why I truly believe that things cannot get better in America and why even a well-intentioned revolutionary movement is doomed to failure.
 
There are other reasons, too, but this post just focuses on the spiritual ones.

All in all, we could know better and there is enough information and enough people speaking the Truth for us to know better.

​Hashem has been stamping out our excuses and giving us plenty of time to figure out the right way.

L'sheker ein regalim - Falsehood has no feet to stand on.