During the ten days of teshuva [repentence] between Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur, we are supposed to apologize and make amends to anyone we have upset during the past year.
One of the dangers of blogging is that you upset many people who you don't even know you've upset. None of it is intentional. I don't know most of the people who read this blog, I don't even know where they come from, although mostly it is the U.S. and Israel, with a scattering of Europe, Canada and Australia.
Most of the hits come from bots. I can get 40,000 hits from bots in one day. I know they are bots because they come from places like Vietnam and Singapore, where I have no real readers at all. [If you are a reader who comes from Singapore, please let me know, and I'm sorry I called you a bot].
I have no idea how many people read this blog. The numbers I'm given make no sense at all.
Now, back to the apology. As I was saying, it is very easy to offend some people, such as the person who came to my blog not so long ago and asked a question, which I answered, and then they responded by telling me how rude I was and that they would never come back again. I still don't know what I did wrong! I decided there was no point apologizing because they weren't coming back anyway.
Sometimes it's my Aussie accent that can sound rude to people from other countries. In Australia, we call a spade a spade, and don't bother flattering the spade by calling it by some flowery name. If you want an honest opinion, ask an Australian, but be prepared for the honesty, because that's what you'll get. So perhaps it's my Aussie accent that offends some people, but whatever the case, that's my language, straight and to the point, I don't bend the truth and I don't know who anyone is, so it's never personal.
I wish everyone a peaceful and delightful 5787, with the coming of Moshiach, who should have come last year but if He turns up this year then that's fine with me. I forgive everyone who's aggravated me in any way, and I will try my best not to offend anyone in the future.
Just wanted to get all that off my chest and I feel much better now.
Devorah,
ReplyDeleteI have been a follower of your blog for almost 3 years now and I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am for this community of genuine Mashiach-watchers. There have been so many times in my life when shallow people have mocked me for living with a constant awareness that today could be the day, and if not today then tomorrow. It was so painful and lonely to be constantly put down over the strength of my belief in one of the 13 ikarim. There even came a time, after Covid, when I found myself wondering if the naysayers might be right... And then Oct 7th happened, and I found this blog in a search for clarity. Honestly it's saved me.
Please, please continue your holy work and may you be blessed to stand on the front lines at the Geulah Shleimah.
Thank you, I am also grateful for this community of Mashiach-watchers. I never expected to have so many readers, but that is the power of the Rebbe's bracha.
DeleteWe Israelis give it straight too. About the bots, one of my clients is a B2B company and their website is hit every month with huge spikes in traffic from bots seemingly from Singapore. After hours and hours of effort, I discovered that these are scrubbing bots that basically come to spy on your content. They don't even register for more than a second. They mess up your analytics but don't do any harm. And they could be from any country, not necessarily Singapore. That's just the server location.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I figured they were AI bots copying information, so I just hope they enjoy learning Torah. They're welcome to spread it around. :)
Deleteim a big fan, start my day with your blog and the others...i enjoy a lot the banter/comments the most, all inspired by your hard work and yes, ruach h'kodesh to feel the moment's news. lets greet the Geula in pride when we are commended for our focus on what's really important daily news.
ReplyDelete-leah
Hi, Devorah, גמר חתימה טובה! Trying to be as diplomatic as i can, whilst still "sorta" responding to what you wrote. Setting aside the topic of bots, my own experience within the OJ world is very different than yours and your commenters (as i can tell from many of the blog comments over the years). Peoples' perspectives tend to change depending upon the environment they've been thrust into, decade upon decade. Suffice that not everyone has a life of (more or less) rhyme-and-reason. With me it's been quite the opposite - dissonance, chaos, suppression & stress the likes of which i doubt most of you can imagine. Because of that, i absolutely lack the gushing spiritual mindset that's characteristic of your visitors and many others too.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to everything you have written, and if you're here then you must have some kind of spiritual mindset, gushing or otherwise. You may be surprised to know that there are a lot of people here just like you.
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