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How the Texas Cold Disaster Revealed Torah Wisdom

10/3/2021

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As Jews, we're supposed to view the big picture as much as we can in our limited 3-dimensional state.

And most people (including me) struggle to maintain the balance between normal derech-hateva understanding & efforts versus maintaining a solid knowledge that Hashem is orchestrating everything down to the tiniest detail.

That's normal. But it's a paradox and not an easy one to live in (which is a massive part of our job here in This World).

Furthermore, all the different analyzations about a variety of subjects available today with finely tuned theories (which often include profound bias—or undergo adjustment to fit political correctness) often seem intriguing.

It's easy to get caught up in all the debate & analysis surrounding a hot topic or an intriguing phenomenon.

I have the same tendency, of course. So I try to rein it in as much as I can.

But over the years, I discovered that listening to our real Torah Sages and their conclusions help one arrive at the truth much faster—and putting it all together under a Torah lens proves even more intriguing than a sound-clip-oriented TV debate or the flaming back-and-forth in a forum or comment section.

A Brief Look at Winter in Texas throughout the Century

Let's look at Texas in February 2021, for example.

Shockingly cold weather hit Texas.

First of all, most people don't know that the state of Texas is huge:
268,596 square miles/695,662 square kilometers

The entire United Kingdom could fit into Texas.

Or the Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Luxembourg and Hungary could easily move into Texas together.

​Some Texas ranchers own property reaching over 400 square miles.

So when we're talking about a polar vortex covering Texas, we're talking about something massive.

Climate-wise, most of Texas is hot-subtropical. The next biggest climates are hot semi-arid, cold semi-arid—with pockets registering as hot or cold deserts.

​See here:
Picture
By <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Redtitan" title="User:Redtitan">Adam Peterson</a> - <span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
In much of Texas, winter temperatures rarely dip below the 40s (Fahrenheit) with many days of weather in the 60s.

A friend who grew up in Texas recalled going outside in summer clothes when it snowed in the winter.

Why?

The air was so hot, the snow melted on its way down. It never made it to the ground.

I never heard of such a thing. She said they watched the snow come down, then melt in midair.

That's a snow day in Texas.

In fact, most of Texas sees less than an inch of snow per year.

​On the other hand, Texas gets hit with blizzards—but not over the ENTIRE state.

Northwest Texas got hit with 10-20 inches of snow in 1957, which killed off 20% of the local cattle population & defeated snow plows.

A 1985 January storm left San Antonio covered in over a foot of snow—the worst San Antonio had seen in 100 years (must be all that global warming!).

West Texas caught one of the worst blizzards in its history in 2017 (dang that global warming again...) with 8-foot snow drifts & 50 mph winds.

Houston's 2 biggest snowfalls hit in 1899 (20 inches) and 1960 (over 4 inches).

In 2018, the North American Ice Storm hit Northwestern Texas in a 1000-mile rampage.

But none of these caused anywhere near the damage & suffering Texans faced as a whole in February 2021.

Results of the Cold Disaster in Texas

Right now, you can hear Texans gnashing their teeth about their failed infrastructure during the February disaster.

Pipes burst or froze & the power grid failed, leading to millions of people stranded at home in freezing conditions without heat, electricity, or water.

(Even people with generators didn't necessarily have heat because key components froze.)

One house burned to the ground while the firemen watched because their equipment could not operate under the conditions.

Around 70 people died. 

Texas lost over half its grapefruit crop and 100% of its orange crop.

Burst pipes resulted in the loss of 325 million gallons of water.

Overall damage resulted in estimates of 195 billion dollars.

Some Texans are receiving utility bills charging them tens of thousands of dollars—even when they didn't have power.

Texan pipes aren't made for such freezing conditions and many Texans blame their politicians because even though extreme cold rarely hits Texas, it still happens.

(Although when has such extreme cold hit most of Texas for such an extended period of time—10 days?) 

I think the infrastructure could have been better prepared. Texas authorities also gave terrible advice by telling people not to drip their pipes, which would've helped prevent their bursting—maybe.

​But even if Texas had been prepared for its rare short-lived snow storms, does that mean it would've been prepared enough for this one?

Despite cold weather hitting Texas periodically, it was only this severe storm that broke the water pipe in a northeastern building—a pipe that managed to survive since 1924.

While the Texas government must do its best to benefit its citizens, focusing solely on prepping & water pipes misses the big picture.

Winterized Infrastructure Would Have Helped, But Not Completely Prevented the Problems—Why?

Hashem knew the exact limits of the Texan infrastructure and He sent them a weather phenomenon to overwhelm their grid by a long shot.

Even if hot & dry Texas installed the kind of pipes used in North Dakota's frigid blizzards, a fiercer storm could still overwhelm that.

Such a bizarre weather anomaly should make us sit up & pay attention.

It reminds me very much of Dor HaMabul (Generation of the Flood).

Prior to the global Mabul, Hashem sent repeated warnings in the form of natural disasters: earthquakes, local flooding, constant thunder & lightening...He even caused the Sun to rise in the West rather than the East when Metushelach passed away (Me'am Lo'ez, Parshat Noach).

See more here: http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-generation-of-the-flood-has-reincarnated-into-our-generation-heres-the-evidence-also-what-you-can-do-to-protect-yourself-others

I don't know why davka Texas got hit with such extreme cold weather. It could be connected to a certain gashmiut, like how America's oil mainstay exists in Texas.

​Or something else entirely.

But several points stick out:

  • Such an extreme cold weather attack flies in the face of the global warming theory—a theory policy-makers use to extort money (carbon taxes, etc.) from citizens & invent useless programs (for both money & to gain or stay in power). 

Yes, I realize part of the global warming theory contorts itself to make it seem like global warming ironically leads to global cooling. But anyone with common sense can see that such cold extremes deny global warming.

  • Even those prepared found themselves in dire straights when their preps failed them—like their generator.

​Even those with enough food found themselves battling freezing temperatures with no way to even warm a can of beans or water for tea.

People with wood stoves didn't have enough wood prepared for this magnitude or couldn't always access the wood.

As noted by president of the Texas Farm Bureau, a dairy farmer himself for 40 years: "It's hard to prepare for what you've never lived in." (source)

His entire life, he never saw a weather event like this in South Texas.

​And he was prepared! He needed to be because of his livestock.

So despite previous cold weather events, there was never any reason to prepare for a cold weather attack of this magnitude, especially in South Texas.

Yet discussions abound on how Texas can "combat climate change" and how to better winterize Texas infrastructure, plus which politicians to blame.

​All that totally misses the point.

Dor HaMabul attributed their natural disasters to mundane reasons.

​And so does today's generation.

The Information Superhighway Will Remain Open until the End 

The Texas cold disaster also pinpointed a very interesting insight made by Rav Itamar Schwartz around a year ago in this PDF Q&A:
http://www.bilvavi.net/files/Bilvavi.Corona.Q.and.A.pdf.

(Please note that some of Rav Schwartz's students made transcripts of his original Hebrew lectures, then translated them into English, and posted them on a website independently of Rav Schwartz. That's how I access his material.)​

He claimed that the nisayon of the media/Internet would last until Mashiach.

That struck me because it flew in the face of the sensible-sounding predictions made in society, like, "There won't be any CNN around to film the End of the World."

Or, "The End of the World will not be recorded."

Or Einstein's:  “I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." 

​In other words, technology will be busted. Of course! How could it not?

But Rav Shwartz, with his Torah-knowledgable spiritually attuned point of view, said (page 10):
When the media will disappear, Moshiach will come.

But until Moshiach comes, the innermost level of the shaar hanun d’tumah [50th level of spiritual impurity/blockage] dominates in the world and it contains a mixture of kedushah [holiness] and tumah [spiritual impurity/blockage], from the highest level of kedushah all the way down to the lowest level of tumah.

That is why in this generation everything has become mixed and confused together in a disturbing way, which our logic cannot comprehend.

​This will not change until the coming of Moshiach.

And even more clearly on page 66:
Q.
What will be happen with the media (mass communication)?

A.
This is the last thing which they the media will cut off from. It is from this the media that they live from.

From this, they the media will not cut off!

​Hashem will be the One to cut it all off.

It's important to note that when Rav Schwartz says "media," he also means the Internet, social media, etc. (That correlation may not be clear in the above excerpts, but it's very clear throughout the original PDF.)

​Anyway, his idea intrigued me because in trying to imagine an End of the World according to this idea, I found it difficult to imagine, especially in light of what most people (especially American preppers) predict.

Yet we saw exactly Rav Schwartz's insight during the Texas disaster.

During some hours, people lacked power, electricity, heat, water...but they had cell phone service.

They managed to call loved ones & communicate online (send tweets, update Facebook, comment on blogs & forums)...even as they were unable to bathe, cook, heat their home, or any other basic modern function.

Running out of food & water, they still managed to charge the cell phones in their car.

​Isn't that weird?

Yet that's exactly what happened.

These are the times in which we live.

Following the True Wisdom as Best You Can

As you can see, I have Internet & email. 

I have access to media (though even the frum media is increasingly disappointing...).

I place a lot of restrictions on my Internet usage, but I'm not perfect about those restrictions and according to Rav Schwartz, I really shouldn't have it at all.

But I still follow him in whatever I can manage because that's how we grow on our own level: by listening to someone who tells us to reach higher, to wiggle at least a little bit out of our comfort zone.

Same thing with Rav Avigdor Miller.

Do you think I manage to uphold every single thing he advises?

Ha!

But I try to do what I can.

​The point here is to listen to the real Torah scholars. The ones who truly work on their middot, who possess real knowledge, who know how to think, and who understand how to analyze current events to offer us their true meaning & genuine wisdom regarding events.

True understanding is found among our own, starting from millennia ago until now.
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"This is the Third World War...and We are Currently Found in the Intense Part of It": Insights & Advice from Rav Itamar Schwartz on Surviving the War of Gog & Magog

3/3/2021

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UPDATE March/3/21: What follows is a tiny drop in the vast wisdom & deep ideas propounded by Rav Schwartz. If the following leaves you with more questions than inspiration, feel free to explore further on the website set up by some of his students, which contains the English translations of the transcripts of Rav Schwartz's lectures:
https://eng.bilvavi.net/

In the Bilvavi issue for Parshat Ki Tisa, Rav Itamar Schwartz reveals intriguing insights regarding the Geula and the current War of Gog & Magog:
http://www.bilvavi.net/files/Bilvavi_179_Ki.Sisa_Turning.Directly.to.Hashem_5781.pdf

The whole thing provides essential reading in only 4 pages (so it's very worthwhile & fascinating to read the whole issue).

Certain passages really struck me in the Q&A, like this one (page 3):
QUESTION:
What level of teshuvah and emes (truth) is needed in order for one to experience the Geulah?

ANSWER:
One needs a genuine ratzon (will [desire]) to do the will of Hashem, no matter how many various ups and downs he has been through.

Please note that the answer isn't "one needs to be an exalted tzaddik" or "a multi-tasking baalas chessed" or "the best boy in yeshivah" or "the best girl in school" or "a lamdan" or "a masmid" or "tamid b'simcha/eternally happy" or "one who never eats too many brownies" or "one who never gets persnickety" or anything else superlative (although if you are these things, then that can help a lot and...yashar koach on achieving such wonderful accomplishments!).

Rav Schwartz even acknowledges that the Geula-experiencer can endure both ups AND downs.

However, a basic SINCERE desire to fulfill the desire of Hashem needs to exist.

That's it.

Here's another on why we need to do teshuvah now, even though Mashiach ben Yosef and then Mashiach ben David will come & fix everything anyway (page 3):
Because  doing  teshuvah  draws  the  Redemption closer. 

The more that a person fixes with teshuvah, to that extent will a person merit the spiritual benefits that will come from the two Mashiachs, on his own level and to the degree that he does teshuvah.

Because even when Mashiach  ben  Yosef  and  Mashiach  ben  Dovid  will  arrive,  not  everyone  will  merit  to  equally  partake  of  the  spiritual  benefits  that  they  will  bring. 

It's a sobering thought, but very similar to what Rav Avigdor Miller always said: Your future enjoyment depends on your present investment.

Also, please note his emphasis on YOUR OWN LEVEL and what DEGREE you do teshuvah.

For example, someone can be very frum as a product of upbringing and never invest much thought or effort in inner frumkeit.

In other words, it's questionable whether they ever did any serious teshuvah or even a thoughtful chesbon hanefesh (self-accounting).

Another person could have been born into the 50th level of tumah and managed to drag themselves up to the 40th level with every intention to keep on going.

Yet another person may have seemed very frum, suffered a massive fall, and is now on the way back up again.

​Externally, they look a lot less frum than the first example, but they are doing teshuvah on their own level to a very high degree.

So that's something to keep in mind.

In yet another instance, a person may have been born into a very frum family, yet decided to push himself even higher despite there being no external pressure to do so. He looks like a regular frum person, but is actually doing so much more.

​Only Hashem sees what's really going on inside.

Also, any teshuvah you do brings the Geulah/Redemption closer. 

And that's a very good thing. We should all be grateful to each other for that.

​In another answer, Rav Schwartz emphasizes how we are already in the middle of the War of Gog & Magog.

(The first time I heard this, I actually found this somewhat reassuring. Instead of dreading the unknown looming of an upcoming disaster, I felt relieved to hear we're already in the middle of it. Is that a weird reaction?)

Anyway, the questioner wished to know whether the internal/spiritual aspect of this War will materialize as an actual physical war?

​Here is Rav Schwartz's answer (page 3):
Certainly. 

It cannot “spread” to the outer world – it is already going on!

There have always been wars taking place in the final years of our world.

But all of these wars are just the final outcome of something deeper and more internal.

All of these wars have been the result of the internal “wars” that have been taking place inside people’s souls. 

The  war of Gog and Magog will be revealed outwardly [in our world] as it will be, and it should make no difference to us how it will happen.

If a person is busy thinking about it, he is wasting his time. 

So what we see in the outside world emanated from our inner world.

​Also, it helps to know not to focus on this so much. Priorities help us aim our energies in the right directions. Again, it's the inner work, the teshuvah that matters.

​Then there's this gem (page 4):
This is the third world war which the Chofetz Chaim spoke about – and we are currently found in the intense part of it, and there have already been many casualties, mainly in the spiritual sense, Rachmana Litzlan.

It mainly affects people on a soul level, and very little on a physical level.

Here are 2 quotes from war experts that describe what's going on now:

"In wartime,
truth is so precious that
she should always be attended
​by a bodyguard of lies."
– Winston Churchill


This is where we find ourselves now: "Protected" by a "bodyguard of lies."

It's aaaaaaaaaaaaall for your own good, darlin'! Dontchya know?​

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
– Sun Tzu


I wish I could quote this as being from the Yetzer Hara rather than Sun Tzu, but I suppose it's all the same.

​Either way, we see this all over the world now.

People want everything that's bad for them because it's easier, feels better (at least temporarily), tastes better, and makes life easier (at least temporarily).

​So they actively seek out everything that's bad for them.

​They've been subdued without fighting.

Fighting back really does feel pointless at this juncture.

That may not be the right attitude, but it's an understandable one.

This is War...Now THAT Explains Everything!

I find this idea helpful for down times because this means it's not really me (or you!) that's the problem.

There's a war going on.

It's a war against your mind, heart, and your soul—but NOT in the way other religions perceive it.

(Meaning, there isn't some idolatrous battle between God & a devil. No one can fight God. That's ridiculous.)

And the down times, the times of despair or depression, are battle wounds, shrapnel, and so on.

The people you see walking around spiritually bereft are casualties of war. (This includes people who, conversely, may look fine & frum, but feel & behave spiritually bereft privately.)

And maybe you sometimes feel like you're going in that direction too.

(Hopefully, you don't feel that way. On the other hand, some people struggle in such impossible, never-ending situations, it's understandable if they feel like they're sinking under.)

Tragically, physical causalities result from this spiritual war when people harm themselves into oblivion via drug overdoses, disease-inducing food habits, eating disorders, reckless behavior, intentional suicide, and so on.

The main thing is to connect with Hashem (even for just a few minutes a day) and try your best to do teshuvah on YOUR level.

​Let's end with a couple of quotes from Rav Schwartz from pages 4, 3, 2:
Repeat to yourself the emunah peshutah, the simple belief, that Hashem does everything  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world which has any power, other than Him: Ain Od Milvado...[There is none but Him.]

Each person, at his own level [should work on whatever he can do].

​One should set aside a few minutes to talk to Hashem, simply and earnestly.

This is the revelation we can come to in the Acharis HaYomim [End of Days]:

To uncover our power of directly connecting to Hashem, through having a very real relationship with Him.

We need to simply talk with Him, no less than how we talk to a friend... 

May we please all merit to survive this War completely intact—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually!!!
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How to Make the World a Better-Smelling Place with Rav Avigdor Miller on Parshat Tetzaveh

25/2/2021

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In Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah Parshas Tetzaveh 4 – A Sweet Savor, we learn the importance of making the world smell good.

Scent possesses special qualities to awaken & soothe. 

Scent can bring us back to the time & emotional place most strongly associated with a particular smell (for better or for worse).

If you're a spouse, making sure you smell good (especially wives) stands out as a high priority. 

In fact, scent is so influential that the same halachah that encourages wives to wear perfume (or whatever scent-producer the couple enjoys) for their husbands also forbids women to wear perfume when non-husbands can smell & feel influenced by it.

The Beit HaMikdash, with its precious Ketoret mixture, smelled Divine—literally.

We associate clean, fresh scents with cleanliness & good hygiene, while repugnant scents accompany filth & poor hygiene.

Well-made fresh food often smells good. Scorched or spoiled food often smells bad.

But there is a more spiritual dimension to smell.​

Making the World a Smellier Place

Rav Miller recalls the gladiatorial stadiums of ancient Rome, in which fights to the death took place between gladiators or animals or a mix of the two.

The smell of wild animals & slaughter is not a pleasant one. And though Rome enjoyed the best technological advances of its time, plumbing & general cleanliness weren't what they are now. Most of the people and the stadium itself didn't smell so great.

The sounds of pain (from either the people or the animals), the crunch of breaking bones or skulls, the gory sights...

Yet people attended these repugnant competitions in droves.

Likewise, Rav Miller notes the similarity of today's boxing matches.

A boxing arena reeks of beer, cigarettes, cheap cologne, and sweat. People cheer when one boxer lands a particularly crushing punch on his competitor. Some champion boxers gained a reputation for irrational behavior and poor middot resulting from damage to their brain from years of blows to the head.

Yet people attend these matches in droves.

Those are just 2 examples. Rav Miller notes the glorification of shootings, movie stars, pop stars, and athletes in his time.

It's worse now with people filming truly evil acts, like how they torment a helpless mentally challenged person or meaningless inanity, like how they eat from a bath of milk & fruity cereal.

And along with all the people who find these things repellant, these same cruel or inane videos go viral. Even the then-president of the United States decided to honor the milk-&-fruit-loops chick with an interview.

A Tzaddik's Spiritual Sense of Smell

This topic reminds me of a story I read from Rabbi Berel Wein who drove with a tzaddik who never raised his eyes to look at anything around him.

Yet when they drove through Times Square (during Times Square's most depraved phase), the tzaddik suddenly made a disgusted face and asked what the disgusting smell was.

There wasn't a physical smell that Rabbi Wein could perceive.

​But Rabbi Wein marveled at the tzaddik's heightened senses, that upon entering a place of depravity, the rabbi could smell its repugnance without seeing or knowing anything about the place.

Society Works Up a Stench about Orthodox Jews

In Hebrew, one term that means to slander or tattle on someone is l'hasriach—to make
a bad smell, to stink.

Rav Miller notes that the world generally tries to make Orthodox Jews "smell" bad.

Here are modern examples of this:

  • They portray Israel's "hilltop youth" as maladjusted junkies & provocateurs.
 
  • Jews living in the "politically incorrect" areas of Judea & Shomron are viewed as violent dangerous radicals.
 
  • The Religious Zionists are considered nationalist religious extremists.
 
  • The charedi/yeshivish/ultra-Orthodox are considered the absolute worst: primitive, fanatic, ignorant, repressed, blah, blah, blah...
 
  • The modern Orthodox are considered the best of the crowd, but still problematic with their adherence to out-of-date laws like the 10 Commandments, and so on. The mainstream hopes the modern Orthodox will finally come around one day and join their rapidly disappearing Reform co-religionists.

In fact, after hearing the stereotype of the literally smelly chassidic Jew, I was surprised to experience a lack of bad smells when going through the chassidic crowds on the street or the buses.

And even those times when a crowded bus doesn't smell like a field of freshly mown lawn, it's not a lack of hygiene or cleanliness or deodorant.

It's simply a hot day of clean people wearing a couple of layers of clothes crowded onto a not-well-air-conditioned bus.

Very sorry to disappoint all the haters. (Actually, I'm not sorry at all. That sentence was sarcasm.)​

Replace the Stench with Your Own Unique Brand of Perfume!

To combat the stinkers (including the self-denigrators within our own communities), we need to spread positive aromas.

​Here's Rav Miller on page 8:
The sweetest smelling people are the luftishe Yeshiva men.

They’re young. They have no money. They have no power.

But they are devoted to learning the Toras Hashem. People who sit all day long in the Beis Hashem, those are the ones who smell the best.

The wives too!

​Here you have a young idealistic girl and she marries a kollel man and he tells her beforehand, “I have nothing so we’ll have to live in a basement in Boro Park – at the edge of Boro Park in a Spanish neighborhood. And it won’t be so clean either; it’s infested in those buildings. But the rent there is the cheapest I could get and I want to sit and learn.”

And she says, “I’m all in – that’s what I want!” 

And so they move into this little den; that’s all it is, a den! It’s not easy for them. 

***
Now today, some people would disparage that.

If the father-in-law can buy you a nice car and pay for a nice apartment, OK, why not be a kollel man on your father-in-law’s shoulders?

But to live with such simplicity?! Many people aren’t impressed by that.

​But that’s a mistake. It should be our pride that our young couples forgo the pleasures of this world to live idealistic Torah lives!

Rav Miller offers more practical advice.

​For weddings (page 10):
Let’s say you're going someplace, you’re going to a chasuna or some family gathering, so make a plan beforehand.

“I’m going to use the opportunity to propagandize for the honor of avodas Hashem. I’ll speak about the beautiful yeshiva I passed by yesterday or about a new sefer I saw that’s full of wonderful Torah ideas.”

Every time a different thing.

At home (page 10)
When you're home alone with your wife, say something that will praise the mitzvos.

Tell her you’ve been thinking about how great a certain mitzvah is.

“This mitzvah is really something!” you say.

Praise davening! Did you ever think about that?

You’re going to the synagogue every day to talk to the Creator of the world!

Isn’t that something!

​“Ahh,” you can tell her when you come back from maariv, “the pleasure of talking with Hashem – there’s nothing like it!

More at home (page 11):
A father in his home should be thinking at all times what he can say to his family.

Whenever you have an opportunity, say a good word about the chesed Hashem in this world, about Torah and mitzvos.

Always try to say something that will make your family admire lomdei Torah; choose words that will make them admire mitzvos.

You don't have to be a big lamdan to talk about the mitzvos and make them impressed with the importance of serving Hashem – all you need is to understand your role of being a propagandist for Hashem and then your conversation in the home becomes a part of your program.

Don’t think they’re not listening – it goes in, it absolutely goes in. It will enter their minds forever and ever.

***
“We’re the only nation in the history of the world that Hashem spoke to!”

Tell your family that again and again.

From time to time speak about the glory of avodas Hashem; the glory of tznius and of loving our fellow frum Jews.

Speak about the glory of shemiras halashon and about the importance of being a lamdan and obeying the word of Hashem in every area of our existence.

That’s the table-talk of a loyal Jewish home.

​That’s a home where they’re still burning the ketores every day in front of the kodesh kodoshim.

At the office (page 11-12):
Even when you're talking business in the office, sometimes put in a good word.

Agav urcha [casually, "by the way"] you should mention, “I was in the yeshiva yesterday to pick up my son and it was so nice to see those fine boys. It's a pleasure to see how they behave.”

Or when you see frum girls on the street, praise them to whomever you’re with. Don’t be bashful about it. 

When the Beis Yaakov girls pass by, or the Beis Rochel girls or Beis Rivka girls; make it your business to be maktir ketores: “Ah! Boruch Hashem! Frum, tzniusdige girls!”

We’re proud of those girls; they are our glory and we shouldn’t disdain the opportunity to praise them up to the sky.

On the street (page 12):
Look for excuses to talk.

You’re walking down the avenue with your wife, or your children; even your friends.

Say, “How beautiful it is to see a big truck – it’s half a block long – going down the street and on the side of the truck in big letters Chalav Yisroel!”

Tell the people around you that it’s beautiful.

I remember not long ago you couldn't get chalav Yisroel in America. When I came back from Europe, a farmer came once a month, a Jewish farmer, and brought us milk from his cow. It was never fresh, and it was always whole milk.

And now, Mehadrin – Chalav Yisroel in big letters on the truck. Tell your children that you’re excited about it.

Ooh, and right behind it, here comes Kemach, a big truck, the Kemach truck; all yashan, all kosher provisions.

​The fact that the Jews came to Williamsburg now and began to manufacture kosher food products and advertise them everywhere in the world, that's a tremendous kiddush Hashem.

Don't think it's a small thing. They did it for their business but it’s our business to propagandize and make it great.

This type of "perfuming" reaches the highest levels of Heaven—just like the Ketoret.

Meaning, if you go around pointing out the virtues of fellow religious Jews & authentic Torah Judaism, then you receive phenomenal reward from the highest places.
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Credit for all material & quotes, plus any good aromas you experience while reading Rav Miller's dvar Torah, go to Toras Avigdor.


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Part III: What's So Bad about Kishuf? – What's Wrong with White Magic? LOTS!

9/2/2021

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UPDATE: Clarifications have been added to the conclusion of this post.

"If the Torah is so Adamant, Then That Must Mean Something Huge" Series: Why Does the Torah Relate to Kishuf with Such Severity? 

But what about the proponents of “white” magic or witchcraft?

Many proponents of modern witchcraft insist they only use "white" magic and that "white" magic is just great.

They offer innocent-sounding examples, like chanting a spell (which merely comprises a request phrased in Greek) that helps them find a parking spot.

Furthermore, modern children's fantasy novels & movies incorporate characters who use magic to help others & save the day.

So first of all, murmuring silly spells to help you with things like finding a parking spot is total kefirah (heresy).

And guess what, wacky Wiccans? HASHEM creates parking spots. You can murmur your parking pleas to HIM.

Replacing Hashem with kishuf destroys emunah & ultimately warps the soul.

Even seemingly helpful acts of "white" kishuf, like healing others, denies Hashem’s Power & creates the impression of the machshefah’s machinations as the source of the healing power.

(And because kishuf utilizes kochot hatumah, which utilizes harmful entities, you end up paying a nasty price for any seeming good you do with the kishuf.)

Note: If you’re wondering what the difference is between that and the blessing of a tzaddik or the use of a segulah, the answer—on one foot—is that these claim only to work with the help of Hashem. A lot of them facilitate inner growth in YOU yourself. (White magic does not make the receiver a better person or facilitate inner growth.) Likewise, prayer turns to Hashem for the healing. Greek-language gibberish & goddess incantations & occult-based methods totally deny Hashem’s Mastery & Influence in the world—which is the prime severity of kishuf.

Hashem is so Good & Compassionate—and kishuf spits all over this.

A holy person connects to Hashem’s Holiness, to His All-Encompassing Presence & Oneness—and this increases emunah & holiness within the person. A great many Jews have become much better people after an encounter with a holy Jew.


However, an unexpected discovery demonstrated to me why even dabbling in “white” kishuf not only distorts emunah, but reaps lethal consequences.

A Kosher Writing Blog! Too Good to be True?

​I stumbled across a particular writing blog & immediately fell in love with it.

This blog covered so many different aspects of writing because of the blogger’s vast experience with all types of writing in a variety of genres: non-fiction, fiction, cookbooks...

She knew tons of stuff about writing, publishing, graphic design, marketing, ghost writing, outsourcing, research, and much more. She gleaned resources from all over.

Even if the topic didn't address my specific needs or plans, it was still intriguing to read about it.

I subscribed to the blog feed to never miss a post (I rarely subscribe to anything—and if I do, I usually unsubscribe as soon as possible.)

As time went on, I discovered that, being considered an expert in a couple of areas, she also spoke at national conferences and even appeared on TV (everything under an alias name). Though it didn't apply to me, I still enjoyed reading about her tips for appearing in (or partly narrating) documentaries & the behind-the-scenes glimpse into that industry.

(Just in case you're wondering how she stayed anonymous...she utilized photo software to morph photos of her & people who looked like her. So then her photos kind of look like her, but not exactly. She gave advice on this too. And documentaries either featured only her voice or her in shadows.)

Also, her website was so shockingly CLEAN:

No foul language, no naughty references, and no problematic images.

In fact, the website initially displayed no images at all.

Even more astoundingly in these times, if she linked to foul-mouthed content, she included warning before offering the link.

Finding her very approachable, I once emailed her with a brief polite question—to which she responded quickly with generous amounts of information.

As you probably already know, popular bloggers usually offer as brief an answer as possible (while hopefully still being pleasant—though not always even that).

It’s easy to understand how busy they are and, seeing as I’m a total stranger, I very much appreciated how much time (and typing!) she invested in offering all the information she thought I needed—and doing it so pleasantly too.

Sugar 'n' Spice...But Ultimately Not So Nice...

​However, the first inkling that not all was sugar & spice came when she spoke of weird interactions with “fans.”

A few tracked her down to her home, leaving stuff in her mailbox.

One even tried to run her over with his car—or seemed to. She was never sure whether it was overenthusiasm or a sadistic prank or a real attempt to hurt her.

She also alluded to receiving lots of particularly hostile reviews or reactions from critics.

I've been reading interviews & the personal blogs of successful writers for decades, and I never heard such extremes—especially the attempt to run her over.

Yeah, critics can be harsh. But she alluded to lots of angry readers with particularly hostile reactions.

​What material was this very nice, approachable person writing that incited people so severely?

At that point, I realized she wrote different types of paranormal fiction (in addition to several other genres), so I figured she probably attracted weirdoes from that.

But still. The above indicates extreme reader response, even for paranormal writers.
​
Side point: Another popular author cautioned writers against writing to trend because if, for example, the current trend was vampire stuff, then the trend-writing author could find herself at a writers convention in an elevator full of people wearing fangs, yellow contact lenses, and other vampire-goth paraphernalia—all following her around wanting to talk to her & get her autograph. Yes, the creepy world of writing today…so writing in weird genres can definitely attract weirdos.

Fairies Aren't What You Think They Are

​Then, going after an allusion to one of her aliases, I went to another website of hers under that alias and found lots of arts & crafts projects.

A lot of it looked charming, folksy, and whimsical.


Yet some of the dolls seemed…odd.

I can no longer remember exactly, but some of the dolls struck me as voodoo-y or witchy. Not necessarily meant to harm others, but meant for uses beyond standard doll use.

Then I came across instructions for making a fairy house. She offered parts for those too.

And by fairy house, I don’t mean a fantasy-themed doll house.

A fairy house is meant to attract fairies.

​Yes. That's right. Actual mythological fairies.

According to the website, you can bring fairies to your yard or your home with some fairy-bait (trinkets or food they like) in these houses meant to appeal to fairies.


She clearly believed in fairies and thought it fine—even fun—to attract them.

That rang a serious warning bell in my mind.

While the Anglo cultures provide a variety of names for a wide range of entities (fairies, goblins, gnomes, pixies, leprechauns, imps, elves, etc.), traditional Jewish sources lump them under the general category of mazikin or nezikin — damagers, destroyers.

They’re also known as shedim…demons.

Or chitzonim — externals or outsiders.

Or ruchin bishin — evil spirits.


In other words, these are not entities you want to attract.

The Hebrew & Aramaic terms make that clear.


She light-heartedly spoke of living with unseen fairies in her home who sometimes took small objects. She said she always responded by making an amused statement of need, after which she later found her missing object.

Despite their annoying behavior, she enjoyed the idea of hosting them in her home.


She made it sound innocent & simple, but in reality, humans cannot control these things.

These entities respond to their own rules—which means they only give you the desired response either if it suits them or if they're compelled to.

(Whether out of desire or compulsion, they only grant your desire if they benefit in some way.)

Judaism offers certain types of protection (prayers, mezuzot, etc.), but Jewish remedies focus on protection—not attraction—and Judaism focuses even less on appeasement (though appeasement plays a huge part in non-Jewish fairy lore & the customs of those who believe).

​The Jewish way primarily focuses on keeping these things OUT.


The non-Jewish methods of self-protection often utilize useless gestures at best or kochot hatumah (including kishuf) at worst. 

(The only techniques they find commonality with Jewish sources are avoidance, such as not being out after dark in certain areas or avoiding certain areas altogether.)

Also, non-Jewish traditions portray these entities as liable to steal babies & young children. People used to fear these things and in some areas, they still fear them.

Yet she claimed to host these things even though she has grandchildren visiting at times.


She seemed very content to live with these mazikin (damagers), which made me wonder what she did to protect herself that she wasn’t saying.

She also recommended watching out for fairy rings in the yard, not to step in them (that harms you) or damage them (that harms the fairies), but also to be careful when grandchildren come to visit because if the children step into the rings, they could disappear.

What?!

Now. Whether you believe this stuff or not, SHE believes it.

​Yet she creates objects to attract these entities into her yard and home, even though she believes it holds danger for young children (including her own grandchildren).


It all struck me as both weird & irresponsible, and not in line with the caring, down-to-earth, appealing persona that came through her writing.

Things Get Weird. (Yes! Even Weirder!)

Then, without even meaning to, I stumbled across her most famous alias—the one she tried so hard to keep secret—and realized it was her.

This was the alias she alluded to several times that earned her appearances at niche conventions & on TV shows (in which she either appears in voice only or in a way that shadows her real appearance).

This alias revealed she made a whole career out as a “paranormal consultant.”

In the self-photo for this site, she looked spooky & sinister, wearing the facial expression of someone about to put a hex the viewer.

How different than the friendly & approachable persona she displayed in writing on all her sites and morphed photographs or vertex portraits!

She also spoke openly about having descended from fairies centuries ago, making her a mostly-human-with-some-fairy hybrid. (Remember: When goyim say fairies, Jews say mezikin or demons. If she’s really a hybrid, that’s not something to be proud of.)

​Now you see why she attracted weirdos.

Yet even here, she discussed wacky stuff in a sensible manner.

For example, she cautioned against assuming that every seemingly haunted house was actually haunted; she recommended practical rationalist steps, like checking the plumbing & electricity before jumping to conclusions.

She enjoyed engaging with ghosts, helping them “pass” to other side (though she noted that just like with live people, they didn’t always want to let go of their issues).

Nonetheless, she enjoyed taking others to haunted areas (ghost tours, etc.). She stressed responsible behavior, safety precautions, and the importance of listening to "your gut feeling" in such areas.

She repeatedly stressed that if you even think you might be dealing with demons, to leave the area immediately and seek expert demon help (like a priest or demonologist or shaman, etc.).

This really disturbed me because the non-Jewish world gets mixed up about a lot of this supernatural stuff.

For example, what churches call “demonic possession” is often actually dybbuk possession—meaning a dead soul being punished in kaf hakela (Slingshot Hell) that chooses to enter a living body for respite from its angelic punishers. (Kaf hakela a way of cleansing the soul—very painful, but cleansing.)

And these souls often refuse to behave nicely because that’s why they’re being punished so badly in the first place: They were very bad people.

Furthermore, if you read how Jewish tradition describes different kinds of entities, then you discover that what the churches consider ghosts are usually demons.

(And that’s only if it’s real, and not a hoax or psychotic episode or something.)

Also, as I read the Me’am Lo’ez on Parshat Beresheit, he mentioned that while demons can take on any appearance they desire, their actual bodies consist of fire & air because Hashem refused to complete their bodies Erev Shabbat.

So when people take pictures of balls of light, which they label as ghosts, they are probably actually photographing demons.

​Indeed, some people even call these mysterious orbs “fairy lights,” which is a lot more accurate than calling them ghosts. (This all refers to lights with no apparent source, and not lights created by a reflection or chemical response in a bog gasses or something.)

Further reading revealed that even what she called ghosts weren't necessarily what she believed were ghosts (i.e. dead people who once lived & hadn't "passed over" for some reason).

"Spirits" she called these non-dead ghosts.

​In other words, yet another class of what Judaism calls mezikin or demons.
​
Anyway, knowing these entities are most likely demons (no matter what her “gut” says), I felt increasing discomfort as I read on.

(Especially since demons or mezikin cover such a vast variety of entities, you can't just use your gut feeling. After all, one demon pretending to be Eliyahu Hanavi proved a hard nut to crack for Rav Yehudah Petiyah, and even succeeded in fooling major Torah Sages like Rav Aharon Agassi & Rav Yaakov the son of the Ben Ish Chai...until Rav Petiyah saved the day [Minchat Yehudah, Parshat Miketz]. In other words, you cannot just rely on your "gut.")

How's "Goin' with Your Gut" Workin' Out For Ya? Oy, Not So Good...

Then I came across a major post of hers, which admitted to feeling compelled to discuss a specific cemetery reputed to host particularly active paranormal activity, something she’d avoided until that post because such reports attract certain types of people—and she desperately wanted people to avoid this cemetery because she deemed it too dangerous to explore.

How did she arrive at that conclusion?

One night, she decided to take a friend to this same cemetery in order to experience ghostly activity. While ghosts don’t usually perform on demand, the regular activity in this cemetery seemed a good opportunity for those who wished to see action.

However, while there, she and her friend ran into short, furry entities she’d never seen before—entities who clearly weren’t ghosts and who also gave her really bad vibes.

Only that...by the time her bad vibes vibed her, she and her friends were already well into the cemetery.

The bad vibes of strangeness & uneasiness increased until she ran into what she termed “a wall of evil.” (Nothing physical, just a sensation.)

She perceived it as sheer evil, and she felt sure that both it and the entities were entities of their own, and not entities that had once lived then died (like her darling ghosts).

At this point, she realized she was in way over her head and sought to flee with her friend from the distressing area and back to their car.

Yet disturbingly, her friend continued to suffer “issues” for weeks after the event.

​Entities visited her friend in the night, she struggled to sleep peacefully, and she felt generally stalked & harassed by these entities—even in the day time.

Apparently, this was not an unusual consequence of visiting this cemetery.

The paranormal consultant received phone calls from others who, in search of paranormal experiences, visited this cemetery, and later called her in desperation to plead, “Does it ever end? Does it ever go away?”

The paranormal consultant felt awful about the whole thing and advised the woman to contact a demon-expert or an experienced priest.

(Yet Jewish sources show that neither experts nor priests truly help. Yes, occultists developed occult methods to deal with demons, but they don't work at the foundation of the problem. Demons are notoriously deceptive and can simply lull you into thinking you’ve banished them so that you’ll leave them alone. Or you need to be a truly holy person, like our tzaddikim, and utilize things of kedushah, like a mezuzah—to effectively banish or protect against these mazikin.)

Not surprisingly (to us), consultation with a priest didn’t help the friend.

Advice from this paranormal consultant didn’t help either.

(And yeah, it's thought-provoking to realize how the paranormal consultant encountered these things without suffering ill consequences from the encounter, even though she experienced a more intense encounter at the cemetery than her friend. Why?) 

Mere weeks after the frightening encounter in the cemetery, this same woman (the friend haunted by entities after the cemetery fiasco) was found dead in her car in a parking lot outside a supermarket in the middle of the day.

The woman was only in her late thirties with no medical issues.

Puzzled medical experts declared her death a heart attack, but her family & friends felt she was killed by these entities who continued to stalk her. Or something. No one knew exactly what, but felt certain her death resulted directly from whatever she encountered at the cemetery.

Throughout, the paranormal consultant confessed how awful she felt about the whole thing.

​She struggled with feelings of guilt because, after all, she was the one who took her friend there in the first place—and kept her there throughout the initial bad vibes & weird entities, all the way until running smack into the wall of evil.

To my mind, there is no doubt that the friend died as a direct result from her encounter in the mezikin-ridden cemetery.

In fact, the Kav HaYashar (Chapter 69) similarly recalls a cellar infested with demons, which killed a young man who managed to enter. Only 15 minutes after he entered, the residents of the home found the young man lying on the threshold with no sign of any injury (other than the fact he was dead).

​That happened in the Polish city of Posen during the years 1681-1682.

Anyway, the paranormal consultant detailed all this as a warning to even the most foolhardy thrill-seekers to NOT go anywhere near that cemetery. 

When asked about the police patrolling the area, she said the police only patrol in pairs and do their best to stay in their police car. If they see people partying with alcohol or drugs in the cemetery, they try to break things up without leaving the car (i.e., calling out to the errant youth via the police bullhorn).
​
If forced to enter the cemetery, the police make sure to go in together and not to go in any further than absolutely necessary.

Apparently, she made the police feel comfortable speaking with her about their true feelings, but they refuse to embarrass themselves by speaking about their experiences publicly.

The Show Must Go On?

​Now, you might think the fact that, after visiting this cemetery, and after people call her up in tears of desperation asking when or if “it” ever goes away—and also that her friend actually dropped dead in broad daylight—you might wonder whether that might make her reconsider her career path.

Right?

But…no.

Mind-boggling as it sounds, she still kept going ahead with it (albeit currently hampered by corona restrictions) and working out a way to get a TV deal.

She simply emphasizes in no uncertain terms to avoid this particular area of paranormal activity, and is equally emphatic about listening to your gut feeling when seeking out the paranormal.

In her opinion, ghosts are fine, but other entities are problematic.

The problem is that by the time her own gut told her that the paranormal activity at the cemetery was not Casper the Friendly Ghost, but Dudley the Deadly Demon, it was too late for her friend.

Furthermore, she continues to sell “fairy houses” and kits to ATTRACT fairies to one's home!

Remember: Fairies are mezikin.

You DON’T want them in your home.

In fact, you don’t want them anywhere near you.

Regarding the fairy homes, she laughingly quotes another paranormal consultant who laughingly advises people not to bait their fairies with meat because “then you’ll attract things that eat meat. And you’re, well, meat. So you don't want to do that.”

Ho-ho-ho! Hardy-har-har!

It’s all potentially evil & very dangerous—chuckle-chuckle!

She—and other people into fairy stuff—laugh about hosting fairies in their homes. Fairies tend to do things like misplace their belongings (i.e., earrings and other miniatures) and generally act like little narcissists who engage in passive-aggressive behavior.

(Again: mezikin=damagers.)

And fairy enthusiasts find this cute.

As mentioned above, the other problem is that both in goyish fairy tradition & Jewish traditions regarding demons, some of these entities are known to harm, abduct, or even kill babies & small children.

Why have them in your house, especially if you have small children (or grandchildren) around?

This paranormal enthusiast also expressed pride in the “fairy ring” she hosts in her yard.

​And oh-so responsibly, she warns against allowing small children near fairy rings because they might “fall in” and never be seen again.

(Yes, this woman has grandchildren who visit her. Just watch out for that charming ring of mushrooms, kids!)

So this seemingly very nice, personable, helpful person engages in & continues to engage in activities that are most definitely not nice and even harmful.

The Conclusion against Dabbling in the Not-So-Innocent "White" Kishuf

​So again, I realize that many people reading this hold by a purely rationalist point of view. In that case, you attributed the friend’s sudden death to a freak heart attack—as sometimes happens, unfortunately.

You attribute the demonic stalking mentioned above to hysterical or paranoid reactions—produced by the brain and nothing more.

You see the paranormal consultant as a quack who accepts the money & clientele of gullible people, and that’s that.

That’s fine & I’m not going to argue with the rationalist point of view.

​After all, it is certainly the Rambam’s point of view.

In that case, the prohibition against kishuf remains a prohibition against deceiving people into thinking such powers exist, and weakening their emunah—a very serious harm indeed.

A rationalist might also feel angry about the death of the above woman because they view her as influenced by her mere belief in something evil stalking her, resulting in a kind of psychosomatic-imposed death—in other words, frightening her literally to death.

And a rationalist might feel angry over that, seeing the women as being brainwashed into believing something both untrue & harmful to her well-being.

However, other strong Torah traditions follow the numerous Sages who do believe in different dimensions beyond the standard 3, which includes an assortment of entities (mentioned also by the Me’am Lo’ez in Parshat Beresheit & Rashi in Parshat Noach, for example).

And it bothers me that not only have these people been harmed by looking for paranormal experiences (encouraged or even actively guided by paranormal consultants), but at least one person died in this case.

And despite the responsible-sounding warnings to avoid that particular cemetery and to listen to one’s gut, this same paranormal consultant also encourages fairy houses to attract fairies (i.e., demons) and continues to both encourage & guide others toward paranormal activity, under the impression that fairies are cute, ghosts are mostly harmless, and demons should be avoided (using your “gut” to determine the difference—at which point there is clearly an encounter occurring and is already too late to avoid…but no worries!

​Just go to a priest or demon expert, and all will be well, right? Don’t think so….

Just to go back to the original topic: This paranormal consultant considers herself completely legit, responsible, and helpful.

I don't know if she labels her methods with the specific term "white magic," but she definitely fits into the same category (regardless of specific label) that deals with kochot hatumah in a way considered harmless or even beneficial. 

Likewise, a lot of New Age material & methods utilize kochot hatumah. 

It doesn't matter what they call it, whether they use the term "kishuf" (or it's non-Hebrew equivalent). 

Ultimately, it all focuses on getting in touch with unhealthy spirituality that distances a person from Hashem & thus from true morality.
​
So this is the danger of “white” magic & helpful intentions of people involved in kishuf.

​In addition to weakening emunah & drawing people away from Hashem & from Torah-true morality, I see them (based on sources in Chazal) as causing very real harm—regardless of their intentions.

Furthermore, you see that they just won't stop, regardless of the harm they cause.

And regardless of whether you go according to the rationalist POV or the more comprehensive POV, you can see why the Torah viewed a practitioner of kishuf with such condemnation & severity.

To Sum Up Why the Torah Views a Machshefah/Mechashef with Such Severity...

​So getting back to the main problem discussed in Chazal: Machshefim decrease emunah in the world and detract from the appearance Hashem's Mastery. 

With the very "successful" ones, they make it look like they have special powers—like they're undefeatable.

But their power is an illusion, whether they're using sleight-of-hand or the power of suggestion, or whether they're tapping into literal kochot hatumah.

Hashem is controlling EVERYTHING.

Machshefim cannot operate against Hashem's Will. No one can.

But they make it LOOK like they can. And that proves the main problem with a machshefah or mechashef:

Whether privately or publicly, their machinations pull people away from doing teshuvah or praying or connecting to Hashem.

​They decrease emunah in the world.


Again, even for a minor private incident, like trying to find a parking spot, the machshefah encourages you to chant a spell rather than turning to Hashem.

So whether the machshefah is operating on a high public level or a low private level, they decrease emunah in the world by influencing people to turn to spells rather than tefillah or teshuvah.

(That's just one example.)

And in addition to the practical harm 
machshefim can cause, their puzzling lack of repentance and the very real impossibility of the surveillance necessary to ensure they aren't dabbling in kishuf again...

All this adds up to why the Torah views them with such severity.

To go back to:
  • Part 1: What's So Bad about Kishuf? A Look at Halacha, the Rational vs the Supernatural, the 80 Witches of Ashkelon, and the Machshefah Midwife of the Me'am Lo'ez
​
  • Part II: What's the Problem with Kishuf?–A Torah Discussion of Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Occult from Both the Rationalist & Supra-Rationalist POV


4 Comments

Part II: What's the Problem with Kishuf?–A Torah Discussion of Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Occult from Both the Rationalist & Supra-Rationalist POV

8/2/2021

2 Comments

 

"If the Torah is so Adamant, Then That Must Mean Something Huge" Series: Why Does the Torah Relate to Kishuf with Such Severity? 

My husband used to attend a late-night class on the Ohr Hachaim commentary on the parsha. The class took place in one of the more insular charedi neighborhoods.

One night, two secular-looking young men showed up wearing kippahs.

Although this class was not specific geared toward novices, it still welcomed anyone who wished to learn the Ohr Hachaim.

Everyone in attendence received the young men warmly, while at the same time, everyone felt curious about what brought these two davka to this class in this area.

At one point, the young men felt compelled to share what happened to them prior to their decision to attend this class.

Get Thee to an Ohr Hachaim Shiur—Go!

Like many young Jews today, these two young men developed an interest in Torah observance & kabbalah.

Like a lot of Israelis, they weren't so secular at heart and via their grandparents, they received certain pure ideas about Judaism.

Other secular friends told them about an impressive "kabbalist" who lived in a secular moshav in central Israel.

(That in itself is a bit odd because most very frum people do not wish to immerse themselves in a wholly secular environment.)

The young men arrived by car to the home of the "kabbalist."

The first thing they saw was a fence which contained a large black dog guarding the entrance to the home.

That immediately struck one of the young men as shady.

Since when do holy Torah sages own big scary black dogs?

At that moment, the "kabbalist" opened the door and guided the two inside, away from the black dog.

Once inside, the "kabbalist" led them to his study, offered them chairs in front of his desk, then sat himself behind his desk.

Behind the "kabbalist" stood shelves of books.

The same young man who felt suspicious of the big black dog now scanned the titles of the books, which set off another warning light in his head: Most of the books seemed to be about the occult.

The "kabbalist" then asked them what they wanted to drink. He reassured them that he could serve them any drink they wanted.

Literally, ANY drink in the world...

That sounded weird.

But not wanting to trouble him, they agreed to a simple cola.

The "kabbalist" whisked a bottle of cola out of thin air right before their eyes.

After a split-second of stunned realization, they bolted from the room.

They shot down the hallway, out the door, past the dog, and to their car, speeding out of the moshav, never to return.

Desperately wanting some tohar (spiritual purity) after that unnerving encounter with tumah (spiritual impurity), they searched for a Torah class and somehow heard about the secluded Ohr Hachaim class.

Knowing that the Ohr Hachaim is for sure the real thing, they showed up to the class, still shaken over their encounter.

​They now realized how important it was to pursue real authentic tried-'n'-true Judaism, and not go for kabbalah stuff (or a "kabbalist") that sounds interesting, but is actually based on tumah, rather than the authentically pure & holy kabbalah of the Zohar.

As a side point, the above also shows that even a little bit of knowledge helps with proper discernment.

Meaning, these 2 young men realized that a large black dog indicated something "off," as did the rows of occult books on the man's bookshelf.

The cola-out-of-thin-air simply confirmed their suspicions.

In contrast, less knowledgeable people may not suspect anything upon seeing the large black dog & either not notice the occult books or not realize those books deal with forbidden kochot hatumah.

Finally, despite their predominantly secular background, they possessed enough tradition to realize the urgency of an Ohr Hachaim class to counteract their spooky tumah experience.

​(Many secular Jews never even heard of the Ohr Hachaim. But they had.)

​Yet the story doesn't end there.

Once You're In, It's Not So Easy to Leave

Someone from the class decided to investigate further & discovered a woman who'd become a follower of this "kabbalist."

At first, it worked for her. These occult tricks often work for certain things for a short period of time.

The problem is that there's a price to pay.

If you want the "gift" to keep on giving, you need to keep paying.

(Which means it's not really a gift—after all, you're paying for it. Right? So it's a transaction...a transaction of only one side knows all the rules & stipulations—and it ain't your side.)

Eventually, the young woman came to the truth on her own.

​She couldn't keep paying and anyway, she started to sense something off about the "kabbalist" and, if I remember correctly, she also felt that he was davka blocking her in shidduchim, rather than helping her as he claimed.

​So she gradually ceased contact with him.

But he didn't let her go so easily.

As she cut off contact, all sorts of things suddenly started happening around her home—accidents, annoyances, and so on.

But the most frightening consequence was how her skirt suddenly caught on fire for no reason—meaning, there was no open source of fire. She wasn't standing near a gas stove or smoking or anything like that, no gas fumes in the air, etc.

Like, she'd just be standing in her living room and all the sudden, her skirt would be on fire.

​This happened several times.

Understandably freaked out, she went to a real Torah mekubal and he changed her name for her, plus he encouraged her in tsniyut (dignified modesty & behavior), plus certain Tehillim & davening, and so on. I think he also either had her mezuzot checked or he gave her some really high-quality mezuzot.

(As we know from Rav Chaim Palagi's Chaim Bayad mentioned in The Vital Importance of being Tamim with Hashem, kosher mezuzot do a great job of keeping out unwanted entities.)

Once her name changed, the skirt-fires stopped. The real mekubal explained that because the "kabbalist" had her name for davening (i.e., her full name, plus her parents' names), he could send demons her way.

So the mekubal also cautioned her not to reveal her new name in order to prevent the "kabbalist" from accessing her new "address" for the demons.

And that was that.

Note: Publicizing full names for davening is a praiseworthy & common custom, and people needn't fear the misuse of their names. Furthermore, if we know them & and their parents, we know many people's full names anyway. So, if I remember correctly, the fact that she facilitated a connection with this swindler, plus she herself gave him her name for this occult purpose—which she initially didn't perceive as occult--that's what caused the problem. She unwittingly opened a door to this dynamic & providing her name was simply part of that process, and not the only key to facilitating the frightening events that followed.

​The final say on that story was that she was in the process of doing full teshuvah.

Like the two young men, she started out as a mostly secular girl who stumbled upon this same "kabbalist."

While the magic trick frightened the two young men, it impressed others who considered it proof of having found a real mekubal.

And therein lies the problem with kishuf (witchcraft, sorcery): It removes people from emunah in Hashem and leads them down the path the mechashef (witch, sorcerer) wishes them to go.

Postscript: After hearing the above stories, a frum couple driving on their way home stopped to pick up a young newly married frum couple hitchhiking home. When the newlyweds stated their destination, the driving couple was surprised to hear it was this same moshav that housed this occultist posing as a kabbalist. Speaking with the newlyweds, they discovered that the groom had grown up on this secular moshav, becoming frum later, and married a fellow baalat teshuvah. Now they were going to stay with his parents for Shabbat. When the driving couple inquired as to whether the young man knew of the "kabbalist," the young man replied, "Yes, of course, everyone on the moshav knows about him. He is an ish tameh (a spiritually impure person), so we simply stay away from him."

The Liberating Torah View of Any Supernatural Performances

I remember how impressed I was when, upon first becoming frum, I learned that Judaism says: So what if Chrixianity's founder walked on water or performed any other impressive feat?

It means NOTHING!

Wonders & marvels don't prove a darn thing.

If you go by the Rambam (who did not believe in demons or occult powers), then you consider such thing illusions & sleight-of-hand—definitely magic tricks, which only display the performer's deception.

However, if you go by the vast majority of the Torah Sages, then you acknowledge that while occult powers exist, they don't impress you or prove anything whatsoever.

All it shows is the performer's mastery over kochot hatumah...UGH.

With all our beautiful, protective, and uplifting connection to spiritual purity, like:
  • the morning brachot
  • Pitom HaKetoret
  • the Aleinu prayer
  • mezuzot
  • chanukat habayit (when moving into a new home you purchased)
  • tsniyut
  • tefillin
  • tzitzit
  • Tehillim/Psalms
  • and much more...

...we thumb our noses at the icky & constricting kochot hatumah. 

​It's very liberating to be released from finding anything impressive or intriguing about wonders & marvels & any other mysterious or supernatural phenomena.

The Main Problem with Kishuf: A Rationalist POV & the Non-Rationalist POV

So again, either way you slice it, we see the big problem with kishuf:

  • From a rationalist point of view, the kabbalist-poser retarded the young woman's spiritual progress & her ability to get married.

Rather than dedicating her time & efforts to increasing her mitzvah-observance, she made no progress in actual mitzvah-observance & instead invested her money in supporting this harmful faker (rather than buy beautifully modest clothing or giving tzedakah, etc.).

So she felt like she was doing something, but wasn't actually doing anything—only she didn't initially realize it due to the kishuf deception.

A rationalist would feel infuriated with the swindler because of the block to the young woman's spiritual growth & also that he's stealing money from a vulnerable young woman.

Also, a rationalist would attribute all the household mishaps to the power of suggestion, like her perception of routine mishaps as connected to the mechashef (which the rationalist would reject as routine & not connected to the mechashef, except only in her mind).

As for the skirt-fires, a rationalist would attribute them to her standing too close to a heat source (like certain space heaters, from which cloth can easily touch the heat source & catch fire) or maybe the fake "kabbalist" even sprinkled a substance on her clothes that becomes flammable when it comes into contact with water.

Or that she's lying or exaggerating.

The skirt-fires prove harder to explain away using rationalist explanations, and you can see that the only ones I managed to come up with are far-fetched, but strict rationalists refuse to even contemplate any other explanation.

So to them, even the far-fetched (or viewing her in a negative light as a liar or unreliable) are acceptable.

She hadn't had contact with the "kabbalist" for a while (and she'd laundered her clothes since the last contact), she insisted she wasn't near any heat source—but a committed rationalist would dismiss these arguments as her forgetfulness or lack of attention. 

(Or again, demean her character by presuming her a liar or hysteric or attention-seeker or something like that.)

On the other hand, the cola trick can easily be explained via sleight-of-hand. After all, Israelis aren't generally going to request a strawberry daquiri or inconvenience the rabbi with a request for coffee—an Israeli would only ask for a common cold drink.

Knowing this, the swindler could easily hide a few bottles of popular drinks (orange-flavored, bottled water, cola, etc.) under his desk, then appear to whisk them out of thin air at the visitor's request.

  • From a non-rationalist point of view, the block in actual mitzvah-observance is also of great concern, with the frightening occult attacks considered equally dangerous.

A non-rationalist would feel infuriated by the same aspects as the rationalists—with additional outrage & concern about the entities visiting her at home & causing her active harm in a way that's difficult to remedy.

As common with all kinds of swindlers & abusers, mechashefim initially present themselves as a source of assistance.

They offer their help in finding your zivug, protection from your fears, revenge, material improvement, success, health, new knowledge, adventure, entertainment, and much more.

​Only there is a price to pay...

Either way you look at it, the mechashef hits people where it harms them the most: their emunah.

In other words, mechashef causes very real harm & moves people away from Hashem & His Torah.

Supplemental Links

For a halachic discussion of kishuf, please see:

  • Magic: As Innocent As It Seems?
  • Balak – A Halachic Glance at Magic

Other posts in this series:
  • Part 1: What's So Bad about Kishuf? A Look at Halacha, the Rational vs the Supernatural, the 80 Witches of Ashkelon, and the Machshefah Midwife of the Me'am Lo'ez
 
  • ​​Part 3: What's So Bad about Kishuf? – What's Wrong with White Magic? LOTS!
Related post:
  • The Lesson of the Witch Who Avoided Eye Contact with the Orthodox Jew

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Part 1: What's So Bad about Kishuf? A Look at Halacha, the Rational vs the Supernatural, the 80 Witches of Ashkelon, and the Machshefah Midwife of the Me'am Lo'ez

7/2/2021

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"If the Torah is so Adamant, Then That Must Mean Something Huge" Series: Why Does the Torah Relate to Kishuf with Such Severity?

There is an enormous amount to say about Shemot/Exodus 22:17:
​“A machshefah shall not live.”

Machshefah (often translated as sorceress or witch) comes from the word kishuf (kee-shoof—often translated as magic, sorcery, witchcraft, divination, or occultism).

(And despite the feminine noun used, all the commentaries state that the prohibition definitely includes men: warlocks, wizards, sorcerers, etc.)

The translation causes confusion when people want to know whether this verse also prohibits magic shows and the like.

Modern Hebrew labels sleight-of-hand magic shows as kosmut (kohss-moot) and their magician as a kosem (koh-sem)—an “enchanter.”

It’s not real magic.

The magician relies on fancy handwork, gimmicks, assistants, and mirrors to achieve his “magical” results, which his delightful audience finds enchanting.

Nonetheless, halachic sources throughout the ages find even the gimmick-based magic shows problematic, albeit less so today because in our times, even young children respond to a magic trick by asking, “How did you do that?”—meaning, they know it’s not supernatural, but accomplished using very natural strategies.

Basically, the magician in a magic show must include a disclaimer that he is not performing real magic, but merely entertaining tricks with very rational strategies behind them.

However, acts in which the performer wishes to convince the audience that he uses supernatural or psychic powers (like bending a spoon with his mind) are problematic.

Rav Yehoshua Pfeffer (the author of the below articles) advises consulting with a halachic authority before entering the profession or arranging for a magic show.

For a comprehensive discussion of Jewish Law on the topic, please see:
  • Magic: As Innocent As It Seems?
  • Balak – A Halachic Glance at Magic

2 Types of Forbidden Kishuf

However, the machshefah referred to in the Torah isn’t a just a mistress (or master) of fancy handiwork. 

There are 2 types of forbidden kishuf (sorcery, witchcraft, magic):

  • The fake, sleight-of-hand, gimmick-based magic mentioned above, but one that is used to deceive people into believing in the power of the occult & causes them to question, doubt, or deny Hashem’s power.
(Its intellectual twin is today’s atheist scientist, who exploits literary eloquence & layman ignorance, and utilizes weasel words to convince his audience of his personal mastery & to destroy people’s emunah.)

  • Real kishuf. Meaning, the medium uses occult tactics or entities to achieve the desired effects. Such a person accesses the powers of harmful tumah (impure spirituality) to carry out his or her objectives.
​
This post focuses on the second type of kishuf: those involved in the occult—also known as those who utilize kochot hatumah (the powers of impure forces).

My Journey from the Rational Approach to the Supra-Rational

For a long time, I found it difficult to understand why kishuf merits the death penalty in the Torah.

That’s because I grew up with Halloween & its appealing presentation. In addition, the mainstream outlets presented kishuf as imaginary & fun.

Furthermore, old-time spiritualists & modern Wiccans emphasized the concept of “white magic” & “white witchcraft”—in other words, kishuf used for neutral (like finding a parking spot) or even for good (like healing others).

(You’ll see in a later post why even “white” kishuf is a problem.)
 
The only people I knew who took kishuf seriously were my church-going classmates & neighbors.

But I found it hard to take THEM seriously.

After all, these are the same people who insist on cultivating in children the belief that a dangerously obese man in a red wool suit rides around on a reindeer-driven sleigh & slides down chimneys to fill stockings & arrange presents under indoor fir trees—this belief cultivated by the same people who believe that 1 equals 3.

(Or that 3 equals 1? Whatever.)

They also related stories of people they knew struck by demonic possessions and cured by exorcisms.

My high school classmates even returned from a church youth group weekend retreat with stories of another classmate who displayed signs of demonic possession (uncontrollable shaking, etc.), and for whom only the intervention of their heroic minister ended the crisis.

Convinced only rational explanations existed, I refrained from arguing with them, but mentally chalked up such things to group hypnosis, the power of suggestion, bias confirmation, hysteria, etc.

Wholly secular at the time, I couldn’t even entertain the possibility of something supernatural occurring in those situations.

So I remained unmoved in my conviction of rational explanations only.

And those rational explanations really could have explained their experiences.

However, with their unintentional harnessing of themselves to the powers of tumah (there is no “son of God”—so to whom exactly are their prayers & religious energies going?) and the compulsion of some church leaders to create possession events, they really could be accessing the occult—even though that’s the very dynamic they claim to oppose & fear.

When I first started keeping Torah & mitzvot, my Orthodox community consisted of Jews who maintain strict allegiance to the rationalist stream of Judaism—mostly based on the Rambam.

I felt very comfortable there & continued to grow in my newfound Torah Judaism.

Much later, I began to realize that Judaism cannot be fully embraced within a 3-dimensional world of the strictly rational.

Too many questions remained unanswered.

For example, I found the concept of suffering impossible to accept without the concept of gilgul—reincarnation.

Gradually, I realized that the world must comprise far more than just 3 dimensions.

Quantum physics—still undiscovered in the Rambam’s time—opened up new venues of understanding.

Furthermore, I couldn’t help noticing that the most brilliant & holy minds of Jewish history overwhelming believed in the existence of worlds within our world, of unseen entities, a variety different dimensions, and much more outside the strictly 3-dimensional rational.

Not only that, they understood how this all worked, knew how to deal with them when encountering them (and they DID encounter them, even if they didn't want or mean to), and they also knew how to protect themselves from it all.

In fact, a significant chunk of the standardized Jewish daily prayer provides protection from harmful entities, like prosecuting angels (mekatrigim) or demons and that whole subset associated with harmful entities mazikin or nezikin (damagers), chitzonim (outsiders, externals), klippot (impure "shells" which imprison holy sparks), and so on.

These prayers are a gift from those same brilliant & holy minds for our protection.

In her book, To Play with Fire: One Woman’s Remarkable Odyssey, Tova Mordechai recalls the faith healings & spiritual highs she either observed or experienced during her years trapped in a church cult.

A rav explained to her that these events utilized kochot hatumah—the powers of spiritual impurity.

She noted how the rav's explanation finally explained why the aftermath of the spiritual high of these tumah-based “faith healings” always left her feeling depleted, with a dark emptiness inside.

Former practitioners of Eastern occult systems (who later became frum) also recall a dark empty feeling that replaced their initial spiritual high, leaving them feeling irritable.

Furthermore, aside from experiences with spiritual tumah, strange events occur to people that defy any rational explanation. (And I mean documented events by reliable people, not just claims by eccentrics.)

Books like Chessed L'Avraham & Kav Hayashar & Minchat Yehudah (or the Zohar itself) testify to all sorts of entities & events far beyond the realm of the rational.

Gradually, I made the shift to accept a world full of other worlds and beings.

Paradoxically, Judaism now made more sense than ever.

The Truth of Torah shined brighter too.
​
And with this, the capital severity of kishuf also became more understandable.

The Infamous 80 Witches of Ashkelon

The deception produced by gimmick-based sleight-of-hand can cause severe injury to one’s emunah. Throughout the ages, clever tricksters gained followers in this manner.

Throughout history, thousands of people also lost their souls to these charlatans.

Ultimately, poverty, homelessness, rancor, illness, and death resulted from following such “magical” deception.

That’s reason enough for the death penalty.

But the implementation of supernatural kishuf deceives just as dangerously, with equally harmful results.

Its very hiddenness make it impossible to stop without executing the practitioner.

The classic story of this involves Rebbi Shimon ben Shetach’s handling of a mountain coven of 80 witches who were “destroying the world.”

One rainy day, Rebbi Shimon gathered 80 disciples wearing clean garments, and also 80 vessels. He instructed the disciples of their mission to deal with these 80 witches, then explained his strategy: They would all make their way to the cave of the coven, their clean garments kept bone-dry in the firmly sealed vessels.

Upon arriving at the coven, Rebbi Shimon planned to engage the witches, then he would whistle once—that was the signal for the men to don the dry clothes.

​A second whistle was meant to summon the men to come rushing into the cave.

And that’s what happened.

Rebbi Shimon reached the cave, his disciples hidden nearby. He called out to the witches, posing as an occult master like them.

They let him in.

Then, in what seemed to be a demonstration of skill & a challenge to this newfound "master wizard," one witch conjured up a loaf of bread out of thin air. Another conjured up a cooked meal while another conjured up wine.

“What can you do?” they challenged.

"I will whistle twice,” replied Rebbi Shimon, “and 80 men wearing clean clothes will come here to make you happy."

“We want them!” said the lascivious witches.

Rebbi Shimon whistled once, and the hidden disciples donned their clean, dry clothing.

He whistled a second time and they rushed into the cave.

​He hinted to them that each one must take a witch and raise her up off the ground because the loss of contact with the ground nullifies the occult power.

He told the one who conjured up bread, “Bring bread!”

She could not.

So Rebbi Shimon said, “Hang her!”

And so on throughout the remaining 80 witches.

Back at the ranch (so to speak), this caused quite a stir because Jews don’t judge 2 capital cases in one day, Rebbi Shimon handled the whole situation wildly differently than capital cases are handled, he did not follow halachic protocol, etc.

(Like any other capital case, a person accused of being a machshefah must be tried in a court of justice by a group of Sages possessing high-level wisdom & discernment.)

Why did the great Rebbi Shimon ben Shetach make such a radical detour in his handling of the 80 witches?

First of all, the occult acts were performed directly in front of the judge (Rebbi Shimon ben Shetach himself); there was no doubt involved.

Secondly, it was an emergency situation.

The witches were ruthless, conniving, and in possession of powerful supernatural powers.

They were said to be destroying the world with their hidden machinations.

It was either now or never.

So Rebbi Shimon acted upon the opening he’d created in that moment.

The Machshefah Midwife

Another even more disturbing example appears in the Me’am Lo’ez.

​It relates the story of a 
machshefah who portrayed herself as a master midwife.

The women in her town suffered extremely difficult labors in which the baby seemed to get stuck and only her appearance on the scene seemed to finally enable the birth.

You can imagine how much the people revered her. You can imagine how willing even the poorest were to pay her whatever she demanded for her special “service.”

What they discovered, however, was that she both caused & enabled the births via kishuf.

She kept special sealed jars full of I-can’t-remember-what; the sealed jar associated with each birthing woman obstructed the delivery of the baby.

Whenever she was summoned to a stuck birth, she secretly brought the sealed jar with her. Upon arriving, she found a place where she could break open the jar undetected, then return to the birthing woman and “miraculously” deliver the baby.

At one point, she was killed.

(I can’t remember whether the court sentenced her to death or whether, upon the chilling discovery of her jars, something happened that killed her. But I think she was actually executed.)

This story stands out as an outlier because ever since the starring role of Shifra & Puah, Judaism shows a lot of appreciation for midwives.

The old-time Jewish midwives in Morocco or Yemen brought their emunah & Jewish compassion, along with their practical skills, into their midwifery.

In fact, one Yemenite midwife became a well-known healer of infertility after coming to live in Tiveria in Eretz Yisrael. I believe her name was Simcha Demari and she used reflexology & herbs & homeopathy to help women get pregnant.

(In fact, one of her successful patients told me that Simcha gave her capsules of myrrh & frankincense—both used in Ketoret—to assist with fertility. Now Simcha's daughters-in-law carry on the practice.) 

In contrast, if you ponder the machshefah midwife for a moment, her heartless cruelty stands out.

For example, despite what many natural-birth proponents claim, unmedicated births can be excruciatingly unbearable (ask me how I know...).

​(Just by way of brief explanation: The unmedicated birthers either don’t experience excruciating births or they love the idea of both facing & overcoming pain, feeling like triumphant winners when the ordeal ends. But many of us definitely do NOT feel that way.)


To intentionally cause a laboring women so much pain & emotional anguish is unforgiveable.

Furthermore, we all know that babies can suffer serious damage (or even death, Gd forbid) if they get stuck in the birth canal.

It can also harm the woman, with internal tearing or even a fractured tailbone.

The extreme distress caused to the woman and those attending her, the fear for her life and that of her baby—all so this machshefah could acquire power, honor, and wealth?

And even if she promised to never indulge in such kishuf again, how could anyone trust her?

​She already proved herself to be a merciless, greedy, conniving psychopath.

Can you trust her proclaimed repentance?

Furthermore, due to the easy concealment of kishuf, how could you ever supervise her future conduct?

Once again, if the Torah so strongly condemned a certain practice, then that means something.

This Verse is Not a Call to Harm Others Nowadays

I think all this together offers a clear idea why kishuf is much viler than portrayed in the movies and on college campuses and women's studies.

We can better understand why something so dangerous—and so incredibly easy to hide—demands such a severe consequence.

​Having said all that, we no longer judge capital cases in rabbinical courts.

We haven't done so for centuries.

We also don't commit vigilante justice.

For example, no one kills a Sabbath-transgressor (even though the Torah demands the death penalty for transgressing Shabbat).

Instead, we try to encourage the Sabbath-transgressor to learn more about Shabbat & Judaism so that he or she develops on their own a desire to keep Shabbat.

The reason why the response changed is discussed copiously in scintillating detail throughout millennia of rabbinical scholarship and too much to explain here.

But the end result is that no one executes Sabbath-transgressors, nor does anyone want to.

To read more in this series:
  • Part II: What's the Problem with Kishuf?–A Torah Discussion of Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Occult from Both the Rationalist & Supra-Rationalist POV
 
  • Part III: What's So Bad about Kishuf? – What's Wrong with White Magic? LOTS!


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How to Learn the Real Lessons in Life: Rav Avigdor Miller on Parshat Beshalach

28/1/2021

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In his dvar Torah for Parshas Beshalach 4 – Learning from Others, Rav Avigdor Miller notes that the Plagues, the Makkot, were really a lesson for us even more than for the Egyptians.

​In fact, Rav Miller explains that even as Bnei Yisrael felt profound gratification at seeing their persecutors receiving their just desserts, Bnei Yisrael also felt tremendous apprehension at the same time.

If we picture ourselves witnessing what Bnei Yisrael witnessed at that time, we can imagine how unnerving the Plague of Blood must have seemed. 

The Plagues of Frogs & Lice must have been incredibly disturbing & distressing to behold.

And the Plague of Wild Animals? Terrifying.

And so on.

They knew that Hashem, Who can do anything, could easily turn these punishments on Bnei Yisrael if Hashem decided it necessary.

As Rav Miller sums it up (page 5):
Hakodosh Boruch Hu reminds us by showing what comes on other people and we are expected to look and become afraid; it’s one of the fundamental ways of learning yiras Hashem.

Pompous Pompeii

On page 6, Rav Miller recalls the volcanic eruption that destroyed Roman Pompeii.

Today, archeologists & tourists marvel over the well-preserved city, which displays advanced living relative to its time.

However, the real lesson of Pompeii is its decadence & debauchery.

Signs in the pubs and many other facets of Pompeii point to Pompeii as having been a center of immorality.

​Yet due to the low moral standards of our own times, researchers & journalists present this role of Pompeii with humor & admiration.

History shows us that this same volcano erupted several times with disastrous effects.

The area attracted human settlement due to its natural assets. But those same assets facilitated an ease of life that ultimately proved detrimental to the moral character of those who exploited its goodness.

Learning Spiritual Lessons from Events

Throughout the dvar Torah, Rav Miller recalls catastrophes occurring around the time he gave that shiur: earthquakes in San Francisco, a loaded passenger plane that crashed into the ocean, the war in the Balkans, etc.

He also recalls the era leading up to the Holocaust, when Hitler yemach shemo invaded Czechoslovakia and slaughtered many non-Jews there.

​In the yeshivah of Slabodka, Rav Miller remembers how they took that lesson to heart and recited copious heartfelt Tehillim.

But the rest of Slabodka either ignored it or felt only a fear of the Nazis and not Hashem.

​As Rav Miller laments (page 9):
In Slabodka, there were not even one hundred young men under the age of twenty that put on tefillin.

When they saw what’s happening, did they say, “Maybe we have to stop our headlong dive into Marxism, into atheism. Maybe the rabbonim are right and it’s time to come back to Hashem, to begin putting on tefillin again.”

Did they think such thoughts?

Rav Miller always expressed his feelings of loyalty & gratitude for the unique security & opportunity America always provided the Jewish people.

It's impossible to ignore his heartfelt desire for the Jewish people to live up to our potential, an accomplishment that only brings tremendous benefit to the entire world. 

And his words back then (the early 1980s?) ring chillingly true to what's happening right now, decades later (page 10; boldface mine):
Don’t think it can’t happen again.

Who said America is forever?! You have to be afraid!

We’re here, enjoying all luxuries, with plenty to eat.

We have liberty, we have safety, we have equality, everything we have.

​But someday I’m afraid we’ll look back on America and say the same thing because we’re not afraid of Hashem; we’re not learning the lesson from Mitzrayim, from Kush and Seva.

​Oh no! Instead of learning the lesson, the Jews are trying their best to break down America.

Jewish congressmen like Solarz are helping Communist regimes all over; Cuba, Nicaragua. And Jews are voting for Solarz and Koch. Jews are keeping them in power. Of course Koch gives them in return some benefits.

And for that benefit, the askanim, the shtadlanim, sell away our votes – whole kehillos of frum Jews, whole congregations vote for these people who are breaking down everything we have!

Look what’s happening to America! The whole youth is being demoralized!

The public schools are hammering away in the minds of the children, telling them how bad America is, how wicked the establishment is!

Finally the gentiles in the Midwest will get so disgusted and they’ll make a revolution!

They’ll try to fight to save America but I’m worried it’ll be a little late. 


America will already be shorn of its greatness – it’ll be surrounded by Communist
enemies.

Chas v’shalom it’ll turn into a fascist country and who knows what kind of gas chambers can be here?

​They can make better ones in America than the Germans did.

You Don't Need to be an Exalted Tzaddik (though that never hurts if you can manage it!)

Now, if you've been reading or listening to Rav Miller's shiurim for a while, you'll know that he encourages self-transformation one very small step at a time.

​Page 12:
...the best teshuva is the teshuva you do over a piece of watermelon; when you recognize that all happiness and enjoyment is from Hakodosh Boruch Hu.

Fear of God is an eminently positive quality.

Even in the extreme example of Slabodka, what did Rav Miller say to do, all in all?

Consider NOT being an atheist. 

Consider NOT being a Marxist.

Consider the opinions of the real rabbis.

Put on tefillin!


None of these require a person to achieve the holiness of the Baba Sali.

Other examples Rav Miller gives:

  • When seeing a blind person, think of how you use your own eyes & how it would be if Hashem would take away one's sight.
 
  • When seeing a person who lost his arm in a machine accident after a life of thieving, think of how you use your own arms & hands.
 
  • When you see men who get the police called on them, then served with a restraining order so they can't enter their own home, think of how you speak to your own wife; whether you use your tongue kindly in your own home.

Here's Rav Miller again on page 14:
A man says something to his poor wife and hurts her heart by saying a mean word, it’s a terrible sin.

The poor woman is working all day long with children, she’s worn out to the bone, and he comes home and says something mean; it’s like a knife in the heart! 

​That’s what you have to think about when you hear about this man who was taken out of his house by the police.

​I once heard about a verbally abusive husband who ended up suffering cancer of the jaw. 

Gradually, he lost the power of his lips and tongue.

The decaying flesh also made him smell pretty bad.

You'd think he'd take the Heavenly hint, but you know how Gemara Eruvin 19a states that a wicked person standing at the gate of Gehinnom still won't do teshuvah?

Yeah...that.

So instead of his former tongue-lashings, he started growling & snarling his displeasure. (His throat still worked.) In this way, he continued to abuse & berate his family.

What's sad is that the connection was so obvious (I mean, come on, how often do you hear of cancer of the jaw?), it's entirely possible that had he done teshuvah and started speaking nicely (plus expressing gratitude to Hashem), that he would've experienced a complete cure.

But as the Gemara says about wicked people...

Learning Practical Lessons from Unpleasant Events

Rav Miller advises us to also learn from the practicalities of a disastrous event.

For example, he relates the story of a friendly man conversing in the kitchen who stood with his back against the gas stove and his clothing caught on fire, causing him terrible burns. Since then, Rav Miller said he himself never leaned against a gas stove, even when it wasn't in use.​

I've heard directly from young men who started out with petty law-breaking, then saw the consequences of friends who committed more serious crimes: jail time, difficulty in finding a job, police raids on the home, ill health, no true friends, societal rejection, bad reputation, etc.

They turned themselves around, broke off with criminal friends, or even the law-abiding siblings & friends of criminal friends—all because they wanted to avoid such an unsavory outcome.

I noticed that many youngest children in families tend to show a lot of common sense, savvy, and decisiveness about what they want in life & how to achieve that (whether it's a comfortable slow-moving life or a high-intensity ambitious life). It seems to me they learn from the mistakes of their older siblings!

Fulfilling Your Fabulous Fear of God in a Few Minutes

Fear of God should lead us to a happy place.

The Practical Tip on page 15 helps us start that journey.

And also the advice from truly great people as summarized in the following posts:
  • A 60-Second Exercise to Fulfill Your Main Purpose in Life
  • Why Does Hashem Want Us to Talk to Him So Much? Rav Avigdor Miller Provides the Answer in Parshat Lech-Lecha
  • More Guidance to Connect with Hashem (including baby-steps that start with 30 seconds a day!)
  • ​How to Save the World One Step at a Time
  • How the Baby Steps in This World Create Your Future World of Beautiful Pulsating Light
  • Judaism's Secret: Achieve the Glorious Maximum by Doing the Bare Minimum
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All credit for all material & quotes goes to Toras Avigdor.
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How a Glock 9 Brought Me to an Unexpected Moment of Truth

27/1/2021

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I experienced a moment of truth last night.

My 23-year-old son came strolling in to where I was lying down and dangled a handgun over my face.

"What kind is it?" I asked.

"A Glock 9," he said.

I immediately sat up.

Although I shot an M-16 rifle during a summer trip with a Birthright-type program to Israel in my teens, I never handled a handgun of any kind.

And probably like a lot of people, I always secretly wondered whether, in a terror attack (lo aleinu) if I could just pick up a gun and shoot it?

Did it involved some kind of technical know-how? What about the safety mechanism that needs to be unlocked?

Here was my chance to gain a skill I'd always wanted: handling a common handgun.

My first mini-moment of truth hit when my son showed me how to ready the gun for shooting—basically, to release its safety feature.

Since I do not know the proper terms (and couldn't immediately access the websites that might tell me), I need to rely on descriptions here.

First of all, the top part of the gun slides back.

So you grip the handle with one hand and grab the sliding-back thingy with the other, and slide back the thingy, then instantly release it so it "cha-chings!" back into place.

(Imagine not a tinkly "cha-ching!", but a growly baritone "cha-ching!"—like how a sasquatch might say "cha-ching!") 

​Now it's ready to shoot.

That action ("cha-ching!") is called lidroch in Hebrew, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the proper term in English. I suppose you rarely hear the term in English, but it sure comes up a lot in modern Hebrew.

(Google Translate only showed me translations for trampling & stomping, which is the correct word, but wrong usage for this context.)

On my first try, I could not even budge the thing though I wrestled with all my might to move the sliding thingy with my dominant hand (the right hand).

My son restrained himself from laughing too hard, and very nicely kept encouraging me: "Harder! Harder—yeah, like that! More! More!"

His face bright with amusement, he alternated between repeatedly showing me how to do it and calling out instructions in an encouraging tone of voice as I wrangled with the sliding thingy.

You could tell he was thinking something like, I know that with enough determination, my Ima can surely cha-ching that gun!

With his unfaltering belief in my abilities, I managed to cha-ching it on the fourth or fifth try.

(To succeed in life, you just need one person who really believes in you.)

Anyway, I practiced cha-chinging it several times until he was satisfied, but continued to find the procedure cumbersome & strenuous.

Even worse, to accomplish the process most swiftly, a right-handed shooter needs to cha-ching the sliding thingy with the weaker & clumsier left hand.

My heart plummeted as the moment-of-truth dawned in its full glory:

Any situation that ever depends on me cha-chinging a gun means all is lost.

My son reassured me that in an actual crisis situation, I could just pick up a gun that had already been cha-chinged and start shooting straight away—which isn't such good news for the owner of the gun, if you think about it.

But my newly discovered lack of skill for a basic action I hadn't realized took real skill & strength now dissipated any hero fantasies like a puff of dandelion fuzzies. 

This disappointing moment-of-truth drilled in even deeper when my son took me through the second part of handling a gun: the actual shooting.

(I forgot to say the gun remained empty of bullets throughout this entire episode.)

While immediately catching on to the proper aiming of the Glock, I realized just how difficult that is to achieve with a moving target—or especially when someone is bearing down on you.

Then my son insisted that I hold my arms straight out when I shoot.

He said holding the gun too close with cozily bent arms messes up the aim and also allows too much kickback.

But the gun was so HEAVY.

How do people manage those things with one hand?

While it chirked me up to both learn a new skill & enjoy quality time with my firstborn, the reality of yet another aspect of life being MUCH harder than it looks in the movies evaporated any hero fantasies.

I guess that also living in modern-day Israel, and hearing about these situations in which a passer-by needed to use the gun of a frightened cop or a temporarily incapacitated security guard to neutralize a terrorist...it makes you wonder if you could rise to the occasion too.

Even though the actual chance of finding oneself in such a situation is so low, one really doesn't need to worry about it, but I think hearing about these situations makes people secretly wonder if they could rise to the occasion.

And now I know I can't.

Yet Again, We See that Hollywood Does Not Reflect Real Life

Okay, so this was mildly disappointing after a lifetime of seeing movies, TV shows, and hearing about real-life heroes who just pick up a gun and save the day.

But it also reinforces the happy principle reiterated in Tehillim (Psalm) 20:8:

Eleh varechev v'eleh vasusim—v'anachnu b'Shem HASHEM ELOKEINU nazkir!

These trust in chariots and these trust in horses, but we—we mention the Name of the Lord our God!


And that's the best.
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How to Laugh & Not Get Lost: Rav Avigdor Miller on Parshat Bo

21/1/2021

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Before we go to Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshat Bo 4 – Take for Yourselves Sheep, we need some background.

Ancient Egyptians felt toward sheep similarly to how the culture in India feels about cows: reverence.

Furthermore, the astrological sign of Nissan is Taleh/Aries—a lamb.

Nissan is considered the first of the months, so that makes Taleh/Aries the most powerful sign, and highly esteemed by ancient Egyptian idol-worshippers (Kli Yakar).

Ancient Egypt looked down on shepherds—yet another reason to despise Am Yisrael, a nation of shepherds whose greatest holy men worked as shepherds at some point.

Rabbi Dovid Kass at Neve Yerushalayim once described the dynamic of taking the pascal lamb and slaughtering it at that time as similar to a Jew burning the Nazi flag in front of the Nazis during the Holocaust.

So when we read about Am Yisrael taking the pascal lamb & slaughtering it, we need to understand the powerful context in which it occurred.

The Egyptian Demand for Safe Spaces!

With the above in mind, Rav Miller explains on page 5 about the Egyptians:
And a terrible idea began to enter their minds: “Who knows what these depraved people are going to do to these sheep! They certainly don't worship them. Oh no! Could it be that it’s true what we’ve heard that the Hebrews do horrible things; they didn't do it in public, but secretly we hear that they eat sheep! The Hebrews are preparing for a sheep massacre!” 

During these four days, the land of Egypt was in an uproar.

There were meetings about what to do, how to deal with the Hebrews. The fact that they didn’t make a massacre was a mofes in itself.

The Egyptians didn't make massacres by the way; they were civilized people but this was going too far already!

​“To slaughter our god in front of our eyes?! And to do it with such brazenness?!”

It kind of recalls today, with all the morality written in the Torah that so many people find so offensive today.

You can picture the more activist & diplomatic members of Am Yisrael back then bending over backward to explain their controversial attitude toward sheep to Egyptian society in strenuous attempts to make shepherding & lamb chops more palatable to Egyptians.

Or the renegades of Am Yisrael who stand up & say, "I ALSO revere sheep! Even though our ancestors roasted lamb & shepherded sheep & made delicious cheese with their milk, many people find that offensive today. Just the phrase "braised lamb chops" triggers some people—how can we not be sensitive to that? Let's make safe spaces for sheep & those who worship sheep. We need to progress with the times!"

I don't know if anyone did, but they sure would today.

Anyway, this whole mitzvah caused tremendous anxiety for Am Yisrael.

Looking back, we know nothing happened during those tense days.

​But Rav Miller notes that in real time, Am Yisrael lived in dread of mass pogroms & genocide carried out by triggered Egyptians.

The Value of Mishchu: It Protects Us from Getting Lost

Rav Miller emphasizes that Hashem not only wanted Am Yisrael to take the sheep for holy slaughter, but to make a demonstration of it.

He explains this on page 6 by using a modern-day example (Toras Avigdor gave it a very witty title: "Concealed Carry"):
It’s like the person who buys a lulav, and he’s traveling on the bus.

He went to Crown Heights to purchase a lulav and now he’s riding the bus back to Flatbush, a bus full of gentiles.

What does he do? He wraps it in paper so that people should think it’s a curtain rod.

He doesn’t have a backbone so he’s hiding it. He wants to fit in better with the Italians. 

I once got on a bus with a lulav and esrog – I used to ride the bus to go to shul. 

​As soon as I got on the bus, all the Jews on the bus looked for a crack in the floor where they could hide from embarrassment.

I didn’t hide my arba minim like a curtain rod, you understand. It was killing them! And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed every minute of it.

That was one of the most important lessons of mishchu ["pull"—as in the verse: "Pull and acquire for yourselves sheep."]

It means you should grow some backbone.

“Everybody get busy and do some pulling on your own; your job is to do it not secretly.”

And that’s why when this command came from Hakodosh Boruch Hu it was a very unwelcome kind of mitzvah.

It was a mitzvah that required readiness for martyrdom; it was actual mesiras nefesh.

If you think about, this display of holy spiritual backbone must have been great preparation for freedom.

Such a display breaks the slave mentality.

Interestingly, Rav Miller states that all those who refused to pull the sheep through the streets (rather than taken them quietly, disguising them, or taking them somewhere else for slaughter)—they ended up lost to the Jewish people.

​Rav Miller brings more modern-day examples of this (page 7):
It’s like the Orthodox Jew who wears a big beard.

A beard is a flag.

You know, if you walk down the street waving an American flag, then you’re going to be the target of all the bums, of all the beatniks, of all the liberals.

Whereas if you carry the American flag inside, beneath your lapel, you might be a big patriot, but you’re not suffering for it.

A Jewish patriot is willing to suffer for it – it happened to me more than once.

Three times people spat in my face.

I was walking once up the subway stairs and a woman looks at me and spits directly into my face.

In those days people didn’t wear beards.

Today, meshugaim also wear beards, but in those days it was different....Stones have been thrown at me.

Once I was bruised! All because of the beard.

Now, you think I would sell that? I wouldn’t sell any one of these incidents!

It could be that if you offered me a very big sum I might weaken, but for a mere five hundred dollars I wouldn’t sell it because that’s what it means to be a proud eved Hashem.
​

​Rav Miller ends that particular chunk of mussar with some very sobering food for thought (page 7):
That’s the lesson of mishchu; it means that if you're interested in being redeemed from Egypt, if you don't want to be destroyed when the destroyer passes over the land, you'll have to be willing to stick your neck out for Hakodosh Boruch Hu.

​And all the people who keep their necks inside their collars and try to hide, those who are only interested in their own protection, the end will be that they will go lost.

The Struggle to Maintain a Torah-Based Identity

While we accept today that Am Yisrael kept their core identity in Egypt, we also know that we were redeemed for 3 aspects:
​
  1. We kept our Hebrew names.
  2. We kept our modest, dignified Hebrew dress.
  3. We spoke our holy Hebrew language (not modern Hebrew polluted by secular Leftists, but authentic, uplifting, refined Hebrew).​

Yet Rav Miller notes that Egyptian culture influenced Am Yisrael in other ways.

He compares the length of time Am Yisrael remained in Egypt to a Jewish family in America from 1770 to 1980.

(Or in the current time, from 1811 to 2021.)

The fact is that Jew arrived in America in 1811 and before. 

Yet where are those families now?

​So Rav Miller notes that whatever Am Yisrael preserved of their core identity, wisps of Egyptian culture still seeped in.

The whole episode with the pascal lamb helped uproot these wisps from the hearts of Am Yisrael.

​Rav Miller again uses a modern example (page 9):
It’s like the shomer Shabbos Jew who walks out of his house on a Sunday morning and he's happy; it's so peaceful and quiet.

The factories are closed, the streets are quiet and he enjoys the peace.

Sunday is a part of his life; it could be he gets up a little later for davening; other things too.

That's a good thing about going to Eretz Yisroel; the first thing you notice in Eretz Yisroel is that there's no Sunday.

But if you walk on the street in Flatbush or even in Williamsburg on a Sunday so you appreciate it; it’s a nice quiet holiday.
 
***

It’s like the man who says, “I don't have, let’s say, a Christmas tree in my house. Never!”

But as he passes by the stores and he hears the holiday music coming out of the stores; they play it in order entice the customers in order to buy gifts for the season; so the carols are coming out of the stores and it's hard not to have some sentiment about it; you become sentimental about the season.

​So even though you certainly are a religious Jew; you don’t subscribe to that at all, but a certain sentiment you have.

***
But that's also idolatry; if you have some respect for the gilulim of the ovdei avodah zarah, the abominations that they worship, the ideals and attitudes that they live with, that’s already a mistake.

“I don't subscribe to it,” you’ll say, “but there's a certain beauty, a certain poetry in it.”

​Ooh, once you say that, you're hooked – you’re in trouble.

Authentically Kosher Jewish Humor

The idea Jewish humor is well-known.

(After I became frum, life became so much funnier; there was more opportunity to find things amusing; I thought maybe it was just me, but others said it too: Life becomes more amusing when you become frum!)

Yet despite our ready humor, Judaism frowns sternly on leitzanut: mockery, ridicule, joking around, making fun, and the like. 

In modern society—in which leitzanut earns you popularity, likes, retweets, and even money—this utter contempt of leitzanut sounds strange.

Yet even leitzanut can be used for holy purposes: to fight avodah zarah—idolatry, the occult. Rav Miller includes in this definition: wrong ideas, wicked ideas, and lies.

​And that's exactly what Rav Miller does on page 4:
That’s the way of the Torah when it speaks about idols; it degrades them.

It calls them elilim from the word al – the nothing gods.

Or gilulim, like gelalim, manure.

Manure gods!

Because that's exactly what it is; bowing down to an idol is like bowing down to a full chamber pot of feces. 

How to Live Forever

I didn't write much on my own in this post. Most of it end up copied 'n' pasted from the PDF.

I couldn't help myself. It just flowed like that.
​
So let's end with this final idea (in Rav Miller's own words yet again), which applies so strongly to us today, wherever we live, especially in this oppressive darkness of cancel culture:
​You know, when you have to fight back against the public so you gain a certain hardiness.

And you need that to survive because there’s a lot of propaganda; the poor Jew is kicked around and scorned.

And if an Orthodox Jew maintains his principles in the face of all of that, that's one of the greatest achievements of life; that’s why we’re going to have a kiyum [existence] – that’s why the Am Yisroel will survive. 

Everyone else, every nation, every country will go lost one day, but the Am Yisroel, the ones who have backbone, will remain forever and walk on their ruins.
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Thank you very much to Toras Avigdor for helping us be proud Jews. All credit for quotes & material go to them.
Don't forget to check out their practical tip on page 15!


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Recognizing the Spastic Rope of Emunah

17/1/2021

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I wanted to revisit the previous post The Most Grueling Test of Emunah: When Literally NOTHING Helps because it started off with a rope analogy, then veered into a tunnel analogy, but the main message of the shaking rope needs emphasis for our times.

With the analogy of Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk for the End of Days describing such trials that it feels like hanging on to a rope being shaken, jerked, and yanked around as hard as possible—to the point that only the most determined grippers will manage to hold on—we learn that our very emunah will be shaken to the core.

And the only way that can happen is to challenge our foundations of emunah.

Basically, there are 2 categories of challenge to emunah:
  • intellectual
  • emotional/spiritual.

​How do these emunah-shaking challenges play out? 

Getting the Intellectual Challenges Out of the Way

First of all, the intellectual challenges to emunah have been cannonballing through the world for a couple of centuries now.

With your own study, inner work, and talking to the right people, you can overcome that particular challenge.

Want a short-cut route to overcoming that challenge?

Here it is:

​Simply note how many times a scientist uses blatantly unscientific weasel words such as:
  • "presume"
  • "imagine"
  • "think"
  • "guess"
  • "maybe"
  • "perhaps"
  • "believe"
  • "theorize"
  • "possibly"
  • "could be"
  • "computer models suggest that..."
  • bases his (or her!) oh-so objective conclusions on emotions ("We felt it would be silly/presumptuous/arrogant to believe that...")

All the above indicate lack of proof, yet scientists use the above terms to present their theories as backed by solid evidence—a dishonest, unobjective, & unscientific approach to science.

And please note: All the above occurs in the most prestigious magazines in peer-reviewed articles, plus books written by the popular hotshots of science.

In other words: Simply whittle down any scientific paper to what they actually know or have proven.

You'll see their actual knowledge or proof is much less than they describe

For example, I've undergone C-sections and the surgeon did not "imagine" or "guess" the location of my womb—the surgeon knew. That's actual science.

The surgeon did not "believe" that using a scalpel rather than a power drill "could possibly be" the best way to go—the surgeon knew.

​Again, that's genuine science at work.

Likewise, we don't "believe" in viruses or bacteria; we see them under a microscope.

Ultimately, the real challenge for emunah is the spiritual & religious stuff. That's what hits even the best people right in the jugular.

Let's be Blunt for a Moment

Many religious acts come with a kind of promise. Not all of them do. But here are some of the more popular ones:

For example, carrying out the following are supposed to either grant you what you request from Hashem or grant you relief from your troubles:
  • Saying the entire Sefer Tehillim (Book of Psalms) at one sitting.
  • Saying Perek Shirah for 40 days.
  • Going to the Kotel for 40 days.
  • Remaining silent in the face of an insult.
  • Thanking Hashem for your troubles.
  • Doing teshuvah.
  • Asking Hashem for spiritual things (like emunah, daat, the koach to continue)
  • Getting rid of your unkosher cell phone.
  • Getting rid of your Internet.
  • Copious heartfelt prayer with tears.
  • Making requests at Shabbat candle-lighting.

Others come with "promises" of specific results:
  • Keeping taharat hamishpacha will produce good children & a good marriage.
  • Dressing tsniyusly (with modesty & dignity) will bring protection & blessing.
  • Taking your son to the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in Uman before the boy turns 7 will ensure that he'll arrive at his chuppah with "a clean shirt" (pure & innocent).
  • Remaining silent in the face of an insult grants you the power to bless & have your blessing fulfilled.
  • Following a Gadol's advice will work out as the Gadol says.
  • Giving 20% (or making sure to tithe the halachic minimum of 10%) of your earnings to tzedakah will bring you wealth.

Now, I'm sure you noticed that doing the above often DOES bring about desired results—or at least improvement in the desired direction.

For example, haven't we had our prayers answered many, many times?

Doesn't Hashem usually grant us daat or koach when we ask for them?

Doesn't following the advice of a Gadol usually work out nicely?

Haven't we seen bracha in our livelihood from giving tzedakah?

​Yes!

The problem is that upon drowning an intolerable situation, the pain of finding no relief often overwhelms us.

It feels like Hashem doesn't care or isn't really there.

That's why it's important to focus on what He DOES give us and how often He DID answer our prayers in the way we wanted.

For example, I've said Perek Shirah for 40 days for a specific issue & experienced relief.

Conversely, I've also said Perek Shirah for 40 days for a specific issue & either saw no change or...things got even worse.

Furthermore, I've said Sefer Tehillim at one go (takes me well over 4 hours—not easy) and seen nothing from it (though I felt very good—and still do—about having done it).

In fact, one time I did it for a specific situation and the situation got worse. And then worse (although, paradoxically, with some relief at the same time). Nonetheless, the situation is still a problem.

On the other hand, I've experienced wonderful results from thanking Hashem copiously—yet am still waiting for improvement in other areas for which I also thanked Hashem.

And no, I wasn't asking for material or frivolous things, like an indoor swimming pool or the disappearance of wrinkles.

I was asking for things that, according to Chazal, Hashem wants too.

Now, with reciting prayers, it's easier to give Hashem the benefit of the doubt (so to speak) because, after all, do you really think I was able to keep up any kind of decent kavanah for over 4 hours while saying the entire Book of Tehillim?

No, of course not.

So I reassure myself that Tehillim or Perek Shirah didn't "work" because I didn't say them with proper kavanah.

With regard to ensuring your son a "clean shirt" by age 7, it seems that Rebbe Nachman originally said this while he was still alive, and others took this to include his kever too.

I could definitely believe that taking your young son to Rebbe Nachman himself, when Rebbe Nachman could personally bless the child, would ensure a "clean shirt."

But now it clearly does not always guarantee this.

It's not useless—of course not! But we all know boys taken to the kever before age 7 who've ended up with a pretty schmutzy "shirt."

​In other words, the implied promise of any good deed is fulfilled for some, but not for others.

Another example:

Upon finding myself facing a particularly hurtful insult, it took enormous self-restraint to remain silent in response. In my head, I said I am only holding my tongue for the merit of a certain person to recover from illness. Later, I verbally expressed to Hashem that I dedicate my silence in the face of this pain to this person.

The person died a few days later.

Likewise, we all know people who keep taharat hamishpacha, don't use non-kosher phones, live in a frum neighborhood, send their children to frum schools, and who not only reject Internet but don't even have a computer at home—yet they have at least one child flying off the derech.

The list goes on.

What's going on?

​It's all about the emunah-rope.

Always Start with Some Compassionate Self-Scrutiny

Let's diverge from the idea of the emunah-rope for a moment (although it's still connected to emunah) and examine the above.

Maybe a person thinks he or she did a holy act correctly, but actually did not.

Or maybe the person simply isn't seeing the whole picture.

For example, maybe saying the entire Sefer Tehillim didn't "work" because of lack of kavanah.

Fair enough.

Or maybe, despite my perception that it either didn't "work" or that things got worse, maybe things were supposed to become unbearably horrible—and saying the Sefer Tehillim prevented that. Only I'll never know because, baruch Hashem, the unbearably horrible stuff never materialized.

Regardless, the Sefer Tehillim still went into the global collective merits & into my own personal account in Shamayim. I don't perceive the benefit, but it's definitely there.

As another example: Let's say someone keeps Shabbos, but does so in the most profane way possible.

Maybe he leaves his TV timed to go on so he can watch his favorite shows throughout Shabbat. Maybe all his non-Jewish & secular friends come over to drink beer & listen to heavy metal with him until 2 AM on Shabbat. Maybe he reads secular books & studies for his philosophy exam.

If he then complains that Shabbat isn't doing much for him, a simple self-introspection will show that in trying to make his Shabbat as non-Shabbat as possible, he is repressing a lot of the bracha Shabbat naturally brings.

In other cases, a person asks a Gadol in an obtuse or misleading way (whether intentionally or not), or misinterprets what the Gadol answered.

In the Shabbat magazine Mishkan Shilo, Rav Yitzchak Batzri wrote that the segulah of achieving wealth by donating the required 10% (or more) of your earnings only works for a person whose deeds are decent & proper; he states that this segulah does not work for a person who is "a sinner & transgressor."

(You should give tzedakah no matter what; it's always beneficial. But he means that you shouldn't expect to get rich from it if you don't behave with halachically defined decency.)

Likewise, I knew someone who davened for good health & gave tzedakah & performed chessed, but spoke every form of lashon hara (true, not true, told others what someone else supposedly said about them, etc.), complained incessantly, and incited people against each other. For example, this person's daughter refused to speak to her husband for 2 weeks because of some perceived insensitivity toward this person; siblings refused to speak to other siblings, a son raged at his wife due to this person's interference, and so on. 

So it's beneficial & logical to take a step back to compassionately examine whether maybe I'm my own obstacle in some way.

But what if you really did "follow the rules"?

How Spiritual Physics Work regarding the Shaking Rope of Emunah

So again, all these spiritual disappointments & betrayals are the emunah-rope being shaken like it's a washing machine powered by a jumbo-jet engine.

For example, if a rabbi's or rebbetzin's advice always works perfectly, then where is the challenge to emunah?

If heartfelt davening, saying Perek Shirah for 40 days, doing teshuvah, asking Hashem for daat, koach, & simcha ALWAYS achieve the desired result, then where is the challenge to emunah?

There isn't!

On the contrary, achieving the desired result only CONFIRMS your emunah.

In that case, not only is the rope not shaking, it's wrapped around you in a comforting little nest.

The challenge of emunah comes from being attacked where your emunah is most vulnerable: your religious & spiritual beliefs.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Here's an an example of a person who experienced both:

I personally know someone who suddenly felt inspired to write down 1000 things for which she was grateful to Hashem, both pleasant & unpleasant things.

It took her over an hour.

She said she didn't have any particular reason for doing it; she just did it.

A few days later, her parents notified her they received particularly generous tax returns and they were gifting her $1000.

Totally unexpected, but the connection is clear: 1000 thank-Yous=$1000.

(It's like those matched-donation drives: Hashem matched a dollar for each gratitude she expressed.)

​Furthermore, her gratitude not only benefitted her, but also her parents, who received generous returns on their taxes.

Yet other times she has said gam zu l'tovah in painful situations, thanked Hashem a lot, wrote down gratitudes & positives—and found no relief.

So we need to realize that sometimes Hashem says no; He has His reasons for your benefit (though you may not perceive any benefit).

But He also says "Yes!" much more than we realize.

And we must acknowledge that happy fact in order to resist turning into bitter secular cynics.

Furthermore, as stated above, you never know what your positive acts prevented because the truly awful thing never happened.

And oftentimes, our efforts improve other aspects in life—but just not the specific aspect we desire most.

Regardless, your positive efforts reap global benefits & also await you as reward in the World to Come.

Find Comfort as Best You Can in Tehillim

Tehillim mentions the feeling of Hashem forgetting about you or turning His Back on you.

It also discusses seemingly insurmountable enemies (whether from within or without).

You see it in Psalm 13 and at the end of Psalm 42 and more.

That emotional experience is very real!

(Also, the commentators explain that David Hamelech wrote Psalm 13 more for the 4 Exiles than for himself. So it definitely applies to us now! It's written FOR us in our present situation.)

Paradoxically, however, Hashem NEVER FORGETS ANYTHING.

He is Perfect. Completely & unlimitedly Omniscient & Omnipresent.

Even more, Hashem davka hones in on the person who seeks Him.

(Rav Miller explains this based on Tehillim.)

So that feeling is normal. That experience is real.

But the actual reality is the opposite.

Both Psalms 13 & 42 follow those expressions of despair with affirmations of Hashem's Loving Attention, His Loving-Kindness & His Salvation.

If You Cannot Do Anything Else, Just HOLD ON TO THE ROPE

So that's what's going on.

It's not Divine rejection. God doesn't hate you. You're not a hopeless failure. It's not a sign of atheism or Torah not being True, chas v'shalom.

It's not any of that.

It's the rope being shaken as hard as possible in preparation for the Geula.

So yes, definitely continue to encourage yourself, to thank Hashem, to speak with Him, to daven to Him, and work on your middot, do teshuvah, do chessed, give tzedakah, and all that other really wonderful stuff.

But know also that even when your spiritual efforts don't seem to "work," they actually ARE working.

That's you holding on to the violently spastic rope of emunah.

And even when you get really down about everything, at least intellectually know what's actually going on.

In the much larger picture, things are very different than how they seem.

So just hold on as best you can.

And that really is very, very good. In fact, it's amazing. 

Related posts:
  • ​The Most Grueling Test of Emunah: When Literally NOTHING Helps
  • ​Were You Ever Despised or Treated as Inferior? Then You Need to Read Rav Avigdor Miller's Dvar Torah for Parshat Vayetzei
  • ​3 Ways How You Too Can Climb Yaakov's Ladder (Rav Avigdor Miller)
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