Solutions While You Sleep

I had a personal salvation this week, after several months of wondering why I was going through so much suffering - which was actually worse than anything I'd ever experienced before - and on Rosh Chodesh Tamuz I was given the answer via a dream - even though I didn't remember the dream, I woke up with the answer, just as I had prayed for it before I went to sleep.  Once I'd acknowledged it and dealt with it, the judgment on me seemed to disappear, and I felt so much better.

If something of great importance is transmitted to you while you sleep, you will wake up with it on your mind, and it is vital that you realize it for what it is, and act on it.  The part of our soul that ascends while we sleep can answer our deepest questions, so pray hard before you sleep for the answer, and if the time is right, you will receive it.

We have been taught that all suffering has a time limit, and if you are someone who is suffering through some kind of agonizing problem, know that it will end, and you will be given the solution to it eventually - the remedy is in your own hands, and Hashem will supply you with the answer if you genuinely want to rectify it.

This is known as a tikkun - a rectification - and the bigger the problem, the more likely it is that it is part of your life's mission to get through it and come out the other end, a better and stronger person.

Often the people we are drawn to are the ones who can help us fix ourselves, and sometimes we can also be the ones to fix them as well.  That is how tikkunim are achieved - some people have to meet simply for that reason, and therefore they are drawn to each other on some level, as their soul knows they have to work something out.  Soul attractions are real, not accidental.  We are magnetically drawn to those people who can help us find our way.  

This following piece of advice is from Shlomo's blog - A Perfect World Now

As the Vilna Gaon writes [Commentary on Jonah]:

“The main thing [to keep in mind, is that the purpose of reincarnation], is to affect the repair of a [negative] influence, originating in a previous lifetime...

[One way] to discern exactly what that negative influence is, is to reflect upon the type of wrong your soul yearns after the most, in this lifetime. That which you yearn after most, is likely something you became habituated to in a previous life.

And therefore pay attention to your vices. [They tell you exactly what you have to work on in this lifetime.] ...The main thing is, to repair that which one stumbled in in a previous [life] ...

That’s why some people are drawn after one type of sin, more than another. And that’s also why our Sages say, that one must continually judge himself, and weigh his actions..."

Yosef HaTzaddik

[HT: Jacob]

According to many opinions [some Say 27th of Tammuz] Tonight Wednesday Night/ Thursday is the Yartzeit of the Holy Yosef HaTzadik Son of Yaakov Avinu A”H Zecher Tzadik VKadosh Livracha. 

Many will light candles lilui Nishmasoi [In his memory] and will daven [Pray] that in his merit we should be worthy of Kedusha [Holiness and Purity] in regards to the Bris. 

Just as Yosef who withstood the most difficult tests so too we his descendants should merit the same. 

It is also known to be a great time for one to ask forgiveness for any Aveiros [sins] of the past in regards to this area.

Healing Powers of The Month of Tamuz

based on the teachings of HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

What can we do to free ourselves from the cult of life as a tragedy? The first step is to see it for what it is—a form of shallow idolatry that cultivates a shallow approach to life’s true sorrows and pain. As the sages teach us, when a person experiences pain or sorrow it is a call from God above for soul-searching and a change in direction. 

The life-as-a-tragedy stance can be taken only when trust and faith in God’s goodness and loving-kindness has been cast away. Once these are gone, worship of the tragic becomes possible. In fact, one of the names used in the Bible for idols is simply “sadness.”

Recognizing that depression and loss of faith in life are forms of idolatry help bring home the Biblical statement that to follow God means to “Choose life!” But to choose life, one needs to be able to see the goodness in life. This second step involves our outlook on ourselves and on others.

The sense of the month of Tamuz is: sight. This means that the month of Tamuz is the best month of the year to learn to exercise our sight in the most positive way possible. Rectified sight involves both shying away from that which is negative (an ability associated in Kabbalah with our left eye) and training ourselves to see things in a positive light (associated with our right eye). In essence, both aspects are included in the right eye, which means that we should seek to see only the good points in others.

What stops us from being able to see the good in others is, almost always, envy. The sages teach us that envy breeds lust and pride. If you look upon others with envy, not only are you unable to see the good in them, but you are actually increasing your own lusts and cravings for those things that are the opposite of life. In turn, greater lust leads to greater envy and the cycle constantly becomes more vicious. To heal yourself you need an expert eye doctor. According to Chassidut, the first expert eye doctor was Moses, who healed the spiritual sight of the entire Jewish people with his own qualities of selflessness and unconditional love for all Jews.

A person who has healed his sense of sight in this sense gains the power to heal others with his gaze. The story is told of the greatest lover of the Jewish people in recent generations, Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, who would pray with eyes wide open facing the street and the comer and goers. His critics charged him with immodesty, but he would not change his ways. The inner meaning of his puzzling conduct was that his kind and encouraging gaze whilst clinging to God in prayer (not concentrating at all on those outside) was enough to change people for the better. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, one of Rebbe Levi Yitzchak’s great contemporaries found this idea in the verse: “A bit more and the wicked will be no more; for you will gaze at his place, and he will be gone.” Rebbe Nachman explained that by these words, King David meant that by ignoring the wickedness in a person and by searching for the good in him or her, one’s gaze has the power to annul evil. This is the Jewish response to life-as-a-tragedy stance.

Read complete article here: Tamuz: The End of Tragedy

The video below has been previously blogged by others, but contains references to the month of Tammuz specifically, so here it is again.

Hat tips: Joe and Miguel

Ulpana: Praying for Salvation

A fast was called for today in support of the Ulpana neighborhood of Beit El. Many supporters are fasting in a “mini Yom Kippur” in hopes of changing the decree. ‘Mini Yom Kippur’ as Yidden Fast, Pray for Ulpana

Police held a large-scale exercise at an IDF base in the Arava region of southern Israel today to simulate the evacuation of five apartment buildings in the West Bank outpost of Uplana. The homes are slated for demolition by the end of the month in line with a High Court ruling, which said that the structures were built on private Palestinian land. Israeli Police Hold Large Scale Drill Ahead Of Ulpana Evacuation

Melbourne Quake

THE biggest earthquake for more than a century has hit Victoria tonight with millions feeling it when it struck just before 9pm (AEST), lasting up to 20 seconds in some areas.
Story: News.com

For the Sake of Heaven

Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi took [himself to one side] along with Dathan and Abiram..... [Korach 16:1]

Chazal state in Pirkei Avos [5:20] : ''Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven will have a constructive outcome, but one that is not for the sake of Heaven will not have a constructive outcome.''

What sort of dispute was for the sake of Heaven? - the dispute between Hillel and Shammai. And which was not for the sake of Heaven? - the dispute between Korach and his entire company.

Why, asked R'Yonason Eybeschutz, does the Mishnah state: ''The dispute between Korach and his entire company''?  Wasn't the dispute between Korach and Moshe?

From here we learn, said R'Eybeschutz, that the dispute was not between Korach and Moshe at all; rather, it was really between Korach and his assembly, as each one of them was vying for leadership and power!  Moshe Rabbeinu, however, did not take up their quarrel; on the contrary, he tried his utmost to appease them so as not to carry on a dispute that would eventually lead to disastrous results.

Source: Rabbi Yisrael Bronstein

Moshiach on a Donkey

Art: Elhanan Ben-Avraham

Moshe complains about the accusations hurled against him and says, "Lo Chamor Echad Meihem Nasasi", I didn't even take a single donkey from them [Korach 16:15]. Rashi says this refers to when he came down to Mitzrayim to redeem them on a donkey, and he paid for it from his own money. Rav Shimon Schwab asks, why would Moshe think that he should have taken the money from Bnei Yisroel.

Rav Schwab answers that the gemara in Sanhedrin [98a] says that when the geula comes, if we are zocheh [deserving] Moshiach will arrive on clouds, if not then Moshiach will come come as a pauper on a donkey. Why? The whole world needs to know that Hashem is bringing the geula and Moshiach has no power by himself. If Bnei Yisroel are Maaminim and Ovdei Hashem then Moshiach can come in grand fashion and we will all place thanks in Hashem and not Moshiach. But if we do not recognize Hashem's hand, then Hashem will need to send a Moshiach who is powerless and destitute to show that it is not his charisma, brains, or money that will release us from the galus.

Moshe was the Goel in Mitzrayim. Bnei Yisroel was not zocheh and Moshe came riding into town on a donkey lacking any pomp or grandeur. He came with the stick in his hand and the shirt on his back. To show his poverty he should have asked Bnei Yisroel to pay for his donkey. Even then he did not, since he did not want to take anything from any member of Klal Yisroel.

Source: Revach.net

European Bank Run

SAVERS take billions of Euros out of European banks to protect their cash. Pity that's just going to make the storm worse.

• Savers make a run on European banks 
• Putting cash into property, hoarding at home 
• Removing cash will just make banks less stable 
• How shock waves will hit if Greece drops the Euro 

Savers across Europe are fleeing the continent's debt crisis.

In Europe's most economically stricken countries, people are taking their money out of their banks as a way to protect their savings from the continent's growing financial storm.

Worried that their savings could be devalued, or that banks are on the verge of collapse and that governments cannot make good on deposit insurance, people in Greece, Spain and beyond are withdrawing euros by the billions - behavior that is magnifying their countries' financial stresses. The money is being hoarded at home or deposited in banks in more stable economies.

Read more: News.com