Here are some posts from the frum blogosphere worth delving into:

A Sichah From Reb Levi Yitzchok Bender, zatzal
I keep referencing Rav Levi Yitzchok Bender on this blog. Finally, here is a direct translation of one of his talks. It's truly inspiring and he empathetically addresses those times when you feel "dry" about your connection to Hashem and your avodah. 

Full of fiery encouragement, a tzaddik's unwavering confidence in your ability to make it (spiritually speaking), and understanding, this talk shows different angles to the idea of "keep on going" even when things feel "dry" or meaningless.

How to Deal with Obnoxious People by Y.Y. Jacobson
(H/T Shirat Devorah)
This is one of the most helpful articles I've ever read on this topic. Why? Because many people like to take quotes from tzaddikim and then use them in a very superficial (and therefore harmful) manner -- especially the idea that seeing a flaw in others indicates a the same flaw in you. 

The idea that seeing a flaw in others indicates a flaw in you has been used in such a superficial bibbity-bobbity-boo manner, more as a slap-in-the-face "Shut up" mechanism (usually accompanied by a superior knowing smile).

Being whomped in the eye by another's bad middot COULD mean that you are as bad as they or even that you're worse.

But not necessarily.

As explained in the article, seeing someone exhibit, for example, extreme cruelty does NOT automatically mean you indulge in extreme cruelty too!

Judaism contains much more profundity and complexity than that. When people start using the words of tzaddikim as battering ram-platitudes, it's a sign that you need to take a deeper look into the tzaddik's words and figure out what he REALLY meant.

Remember, tzaddikim always speak from a place of caring and compassion. 

If you're not feeling inspired by their words -- or even worse, if you're feeling battered or crushed by their words, then it's time to push their "mouthpiece" aside and delve into what the tzaddikim REALLY meant.

Mishkoltz Rebbe Shlit"a: Geula This Year - If...
Very important words of chizuk and direction. Especially important to read the comment section for further elucidation.

Solid Change Takes Time
Dr. Zev Ballen takes on the issue of a person stopping medication as they're working on emuna, then expands the lesson within to cover all spiritual processes. It's an important read because even though Rav Shalom Arush is generally against medication, everything really is from Hashem and a person stopping her medication before she's ready can cause harm, both to herself and others. (In other words, maybe Hashem doesn't want her to stop her medication yet. And who knows why?)

As someone who is against long-term medication (short-term medication can be okay in some situations) to treat mental illness, this article is an important reminder against being too superficial & indulging in black-and-white thinking. Each person's situation needs to be looked at individually, and not according to one's agendas or while one's mind is in superficial "snap-solution" mode.  

Then & Now
I've discovered a tremendous amount of good sense on the blog, My Perspective. Very well-written and concise, it's a hidden gem in the Jewish blogosphere.

The best advice I've gotten has also been from fellow mothers and caring friends. Note that in the 3rd example, the correct advice was not just given by an experienced mother, but by a woman who knew the child well. This is what's missing in most situations of "official capacity" with either therapists or yoetzim (advisers) and exactly what is very hard -- yet so essential -- to have in order to offer the best advice.

Empathy and a real desire to both hear and see the other person (including that person's positive potential) are also essential and can easily be missing in "official capacity."

If you go to the post Mishkoltz Rebbe Shlit"a: Geula This Year - If... and also read the comments, you'll see a clarifying discussion of the Rebbe's valuable directive.

The Mishkoltz Rebbe apparently claimed that we will merit Mashiach this year if we strengthen ourselves in the following 3 ways:

1. Emuna in the Creator of the World
2. Torah
3. Achdut (Unity) within Am Yisrael

I admit that I also automatically interpreted this in mind as doing teshuvah until my extrapolation (an extrapolation which another reader apparently also made & fortunately mentioned) was clarified in the comments.

And I think it's important to note that crucial difference.

The Rebbe apparently said l'hitchazek (to strengthen) ourselves in those 3 areas.

​He didn't say to do teshuvah (even though, yes, strengthening these areas is definitely an aspect of teshuvah).

He didn't say to become perfect.

He didn't say to conquer even one bad middah.

He didn't even say to perfect yourself in "just" those 3 areas (or in even 1 of them).

He said l'hitchazek.

Wherever you are, whatever level you're holding on: l'hitchazek.

Bulk it up.

In other words: Go 1 babystep beyond your current level or comfort zone.

Emuna means more than faith; it means knowing that Hashem Himself really is behind every single thing and He has only your best interests in mind.

L'hitchazek in emuna can mean saying "Gam zu l'tovah" or "Thank you" (even through gritted teeth or tears), or "Hashem, I understand that my suffering is seemingly very bad. I even feel tremendous pain. My tribulations seem unbearable, but I believe they're all for the best despite the fact that I don't see how..."

It can mean talking to Hashem more, going over your day (or even just the past hour) and discussing with Him what happened and what you think  or how you feel about it.

It can mean staying silent in the face of an insult and mentally requesting something you really want from Hashem instead of answering back.

Force yourself to smile (at Hashem), even when things are going wrong and even when the smile feels more like a grimace, all awkward and tight.

It can mean a whole lot of things.

​L'hitchazek means you don't need to be completely victorious, just up your game a bit.

This can mean so much, it's hard to know where to start. 

You can learn more Torah. You can learn your same Torah, but with more enthusiasm or satisfaction. You can work on internalizing what you learned; how can you apply it practically within the next hour?

You can learn more mussar -- even one line a day from a classic sefer like Mesilat Yesharim or Chassidus or Orchot Tzaddikim or Pele Yoetz.

You can learn more halacha, even just 1 a day.

​You can look into the commentaries for a deeper understanding of your favorite Tehillim or a particularly interesting part of Tanach.

What strengthens unity among Jews?

Giving tzedakah. (Chabad has a lovely custom of saying, "Hareini mekabel/mekabelet alei mitzvat asei 'V'ahavta l're'echa k'mocha' -- Behold, I now accept upon myself fulfillment of the positive mitzvah 'And you shall love to your fellow as yourself'.")

Visiting the sick (can include making a meal or even just a salad).

​Babysitting.

Hospitality.

Giving the benefit of the doubt.

Davening for someone.

Finding some positive quality within even a truly repellent person (not to justify or excuse their awfulness, but just to note that the good point exists).

Forgiving someone.

Accepting an apology.

Greeting others (of your own gender).

Doing a favor.

Resisting the urge to speak any kind of lashon hara (even if it's true), imagining that the person is your twin sister or brother, or your child. How would you feel about them then?

Again, the list could go on. A lot depends on your personality, individual situation and resources, including your challenges and your areas of strength.

The above are things that even a relatively secular person could do (or be pleasantly encouraged to do) because it's about strengthening, not achieving an entire spiritual makeover (although if one could manage it, that would be really good too).

May we all merit l'hitchazek in emuna, Torah, and achdut this year.

The time between Yom Kippur and Hoshanah Rabbah presents the opportunity to get in your last bit of teshuvah to sweeten your verdict for the coming year.

I've found that Hashem throws a couple of trials at people during this time, often a watered-down version of trials they've previously failed.

If you're aware (and I wasn't until the past several years), you can identify a trial during this time period as a repeat of a challenge you've failed before.

So if you can identify it, you can also assume that whatever the trial is, it'll likely end with the end of Sukkot (no promises, though).

Therefore, if your usual response to that particular trial is, for example, an outburst of lashon hara or of raging temper, a drink or a sedative (legal or not), sarcasm, secular music or movies, scarfing down fat-laden carbs, or anything else that indulges subpar behavior, then this is your last chance to get it right.

Or to at least get it less wrong.

I've been going through it myself now and it has been up-and-down.

Sometimes, you don't even know what the better behavior is. How EXACTLY are you supposed to handle it?

Saying, "Thanks, Hashem" or "Gam zu l'tovah -- this too is for the best" is always a good fallback position, even when it feels like that's not enough.

So I've lost some, but also won some.

And that's how it goes.

For tzaddikim, it's different. They've done their work & now they're the Holy Winners.

But for the rest of us, it entails falling to the ground with a thud, then struggle to get back on your feet again.

So as long as you're not letting yourself remain sprawled face-down in the dust, then you're probably doing all right -- even if you feel like you aren't.

May we all merit a sweetening of the final verdict!

My kids have been building the sukkah by themselves for the past few years now (because my husband both learns full-time & is also the main breadwinner -- way to go, Hubby!).

This year, we replaced last year's plain white cloth (ruined by last year's heavy rains & disintegrated sukkah decorations) with decorated plastic wall covering and we're quite enjoying the pseudo-palace look.

Gosh, look at how nice it all sounds: "My kids built the sukkah all by themselves" -- ooh, sounds like some kind of idyllic barn-raising party, eh?

Well, the truth is that one child in particular is very into it and galvanizes his sibs into helping (which they do partly out of fun and partly out of a sense of duty that the entire task shouldn't fall on just one sibling). Then another child decided to run off with a friend at a critical sukkah-constructing moment, promising to be back in an hour but returned after 2 hours, at which point it was too late to continue. (As is often true with your average happy-go-lucky type, he was shocked that his spontaneous detour into something more exciting caused so much inconvenience.)

After disgruntlement expressed by some and a sincere apology on his part, the sukkah-building continued the next day. The happy-go-lucky child and the galvanizer then eagerly invested time and energy in decorating the sukkah. Then my husband, who has a fondness for interior design, put the final touches on the schach hangings.

​And there you have it.

So at their request (particularly the one who invested so much effort in the whole process from humble beginning to glorious end), here is a photo of our sukkah:

One of the best parts about it is that the kids who chose the pictures made sure to choose rabbis representing different groups.

So you have the late Lubavitcher Rebbe with the Baba Sali and with Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rav Ovadia Yosef, and Rav Chaim Shlomo Leibovitch of Ponovezh Yeshivah, plus the Chafetz Chaim (on the other side of the sukkah) and more.

I actually don't think it's so great to show off your family or home too much online or anywhere else, but one kid in particular really wanted me to post his hard work on the blog, so here it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May everyone have a chag sameach and a gut yantiv!

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

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

​Here's a sukkah gallery:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where did the rock come from?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he should have listened to the rock.

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

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

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

These are steps in the right direction.

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

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

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

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

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

Kol hakavod to all those involved.

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

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

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

It seems that his courage and determination came from love.

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

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

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

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

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

Saying mishnayot and Tehillim is good at this time.

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

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