For the Sake of Giving

נָתוֹן תִּתֵּן לוֹ וְלֹא יֵרַע לְבָבְךָ בְּתִתְּךָ לוֹ 
You shall surely give him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him [Re'eh 15:10]

A poor person appeared before he tzaddik R' Mendel of Rimanov.  He poured his heart out before R' Mendel, sparing no detail of his difficult situation.  The Rebbe gave the man a substantial sum of money. Then, as the man turned to leave, the Rebbe presented him with yet another coin.

''Why did the Rebbe give the man tzedakah twice?'' asked the Rebbe's family.

He answered: ''The first time I gave him it was out of sympathy, as I was very saddened by the severity of his predicament.  The second time, however, was purely for the sake of fulfilling the mitzvah of tzedakah.''

''We find an allusion to this in Scripture'', concluded R' Mendel.  ''For when the Torah tells us to give charity, it uses a repetitive expression ''Natan titein lo''.  This is to teach us that we should ''give and give again''.  

''The first time we give charity, it should be for the sake of ''lo yeira le vavecha'' - that our hearts should not be wicked against our friends.  We must learn to feel compassion in our hearts, then Heaven will have compassion toward us.

''The second time we give, however, we should do so purely for the sake of the mitzvah of giving - ''be titcha lo''.

Source: Rabbi Yisrael Bronstein

The Shattered Vessel

Before you can heal from sin, you must first be broken.

Then, it requires self-restraint/isolation in order to subdue the animal soul.

איסקפיא - Iskafya: suppression, self-restraint, subduing

Broken
First comes the shattering
Then the isolation
You must be hidden
from the world
To escape the ayin hara

To subdue the nefesh habehamis [the animal soul]
To retreat, heal and learn
The light comes down and illuminates
This can take years and years

To re-emerge, with the glory of the nefesh haElokis [the G-dly soul]

A transformation

The emergence from the cocoon

You are repaired

You are re-born

Whole again

The Epitome of Sheker

For Aidel bat Liba

Who to believe?  Every rabbi has a different scenario. 
Listen to one rabbi and have hope, listen to another and have despair.
Everyone is confused and truth is absent.

What is Sheker? שקר  Sheker is lies, deceit.    Even the letters are out of order from their correct listing in the alef bet [ק-ר-ש].

“And that’s how Moshiach is going to be revealed. Moshiach needs to be revealed from the epitome of sheker, Moshiach and his people. They’re not going to be pulled by the sheker. The sheker wants to take everyone. The sheker says: ‘I didn’t say enough sheker. Maybe I’ll say a little bit more, maybe I’ll succeed in saying something else, a different way.’ the more falsehood there is, the more truth will be revealed in a clearer way.

These days you need to search very hard to find your own truth.  There is an abundance of Rabbis Impeding the Redemption.  There is an abundance of sheker.

I heard from my teacher and father-in-law, who was the chief disciple of Rebbe Yechiel Michal of Zlotchov, that once when the Baal Shem Tov was traveling on the road, he stepped into a wooded area to pray the afternoon prayer. His disciples were dumbfounded to see him hitting his head against a tree, crying and screaming. Afterward, they asked him what had happened. He explained that he had seen, with divine inspiration, that in the generations before the coming of the Moshiach there would be a multitude of rabbis, and that they would be the very ones who would impede the redemption. [Otzar Chayim]

Moon on Steroids

Friday night's moon was the most incredible thing I've ever seen.  It was coming up as I was walking down to my daughter's house, and it was very close, and it was HUGE.  According to Google, the full moon peaked on July 30, so by Friday night - July 31 - it had transitioned into a waning gibbous phase with roughly 96% to 97% - but it sure looked full to me.  

I have never seen the moon look so big.  I couldn't drag myself away from it.

This photo is the closest thing I could find to what I saw, but I was nowhere near this tower. in fact on Friday night, the moon was on the opposite side, it rose up over the cliffs in the Eastern Suburbs. I just wanted you to see the colour of it, and the size.  Of course photos don't do it justice, it was shining like the sun !  It was as big as the sun, and we know it appears to be the same size as the sun but we hardly ever get to see it that way.  It was glowing like an LED Chinese lantern.  

The most amazing thing I've ever seen.  

The Vision of the Chazon Ish Regarding Redemption!

Has there ever been so much confusion?  I don't think so.  Just looking at the videos coming up on my You Tube feed is enough to give me a headache.  

Then I listened to this video, and it's auto-dubbed into English for those who can adjust their You Tube settings, otherwise it's in Hebrew.  Here is my rough transcript, please forgive any errors.

"When they hear the footsteps of the Moshiach and his footsteps are over Jerusalem, the Moshiach will wait until they consume one another, and then he will appear.  

It is frightening to hear the words of the Chazon Ish.... how he looked into the future and saw exactly what is happening today.  The Right fights the Left, the Left fights the Right....... the Judicial system fights the government, and the government fights the Judicial system... the Attorney General, who is supposed to be the legal advisor to the government, does everything against the government, and the government fires her and the High Court of Justice decides that it has no power to fire her.... the High Court is entirely against the government, and against the Hareidim as well, and each side claims that what the other is doing is illegal....

When a terrorist kills a Jew, [they say] that shouldn't affect the rights of his wife and children - because what is the connection?  But when a Hareidi person doesn't want to go into the army, his children and wife will not receive day-care, apartments, everything is taken from them - these are things that are clearly illegal.

Each side is consuming one another.

The anniversary of the passing of the Chazon Ish falls on 15 Cheshvan, the elections are expected the next day the 16 Cheshvan, which is the yarzheit of Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach.  Perhaps HKBH will see to it that everything will explode, the election process will hit a snag, it will turn out that each side is cheating each other.... it's not just that China, Iran and Russia are trying to rig the elections, but even from within, all the righteous ones.... people don't really care about democracy - in a democracy everything is permitted: to forge and to lie.... you just mustn't get caught. Already Leiberman is saying that whoever is not useful to the State, should not vote, and he will decide who is useful or not.

We can see the vision of the Chazon Ish regarding the coming of Moshiach

Rabbi Yoav Alon

What Reward Awaits the Righteous Gentile? And Why?

Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

Based on the writings of the Kli Yakar, student of the Maharal of Prague.

Winner!

This is not a photo.

 Alex with his tefillin in the sea, by Michael Zavros - Art Gallery of NSW/MichaelZavros

The Archibald Prize is Australia's most prestigious annual portrait painting award, a AU$100,000 prize, and a major cultural event managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 

This year's winner painted by Michael Zavros: Alex Ryvchin wearing tefillin. The work was dedicated to a fallen friend of Alex Ryvchin, who was killed when IS-linked gunmen opened fire on a Chabad Chanukah event. 

Ryvchin, born in Ukraine, previously served as a spokesman for the Zionist Federation UK. He has published four books, and now serves as co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the country’s equivalent of the Board of Deputies. Zavros remarked that Ryvchin is an “unmistakably and unashamedly Jewish” leader.

For more on this see The Jewish Chronicle

Thank You Boy George

Boy George has released a song entitled "We Will Dance Again" - 

You say genocide, I say war - When you're attacked, that's what the army's for - Does it get ugly? You bet it does - When I know you wanna kill - Every last one of us - Every last one of us 

You never mention October 7 - Murder through Tel Aviv - For the crime of dancing  - You condemn the Jews, with selective memory - Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep - Propaganda fueled by the Internet feels so weak..... we will dance again.....

But if you're ever confused.... I stand with the Jews.... I don't feel brave, I just need to behave like a human....

Link to hear on Instagram: click here

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