I who have made my living with words find words inadequate to describe the experience of being alive while the world is literally breaking apart.
Do I need to see one more horrifying video about the police state that exists
in Victoria, Australia? Do I need to hear one more testimony from someone whose life was
ruined or hear one more brave physician
speak about the adverse effects they are seeing in their clinical practice? Do
I need to watch one more healthcare worker escorted from the workplace because
they refuse to comply with a vaccine mandate? Do I need to watch one more
parent express delight (I shudder!) that the jab will soon be available for their 5
year-old? Do I need to hear one more otherwise rational person lose his composure
over a family member/friend/neighbor/colleague/stranger who is not masked or who has chosen not to vaccinate? Do I need to see another screenshot of heavy-handed censorship? Do I need to listen one more politician lie?
No, I do not.
And yet, I am, in equal measure, obsessively drawn to, and acutely repelled by,
the mounting daily evidence that our world has lost its collective mind.
Compulsively, I ask myself unanswerable questions.
How is it possible to not see the heavy-handed oppression, the insufferable censorship,
the tyrannical mandates that cannot be justified from a public health
perspective?
How can people remain blind to the chaos that has overtaken our world?
How
are they tolerating blatant discrimination and the stripping of civil liberties
with nary a peep?
How can all this have devolved so quickly?
Why is Hashem allowing this evil to prosper? What long game is He playing?
The only thing that soothes my distraught soul is learning Torah and, occasionally, prayer. When I learn Torah,
I peer into the deeper unity that exists beneath the absolute hollowness that passes for reality. I connect
to the eternal Master of the Universe and I am reminded of the rock bottom reality of אין עוד מלבדו
– there is nothing except God.
Most of the time, our perception is hopelessly distorted. The chaos is not
about the vaccine and everything that emanates from it. That’s just the most
external layer. That's just the physical manifestation of a spiritual reality.
Hashem is dismantling the world. He is showing us the absolute rot that lies underneath
what we have accepted as reality. He is doing us a very great favor, though the
cost is painfully high.
Like a kitchen renovation that begins with demolition, He is preparing us for the glory of redemption.
Before He can rebuild, what exists must be obliterated. That’s the agonizing process
through which I believe we are suffering.
Since it's a spiritual war, our response must be a spiritual one.
This stage, this anarchy, won’t last forever. I’m not a prophet and I
don’t know how bad it will get before it gets better. But I do believe this:
12 comments:
I love this Rivkah. Every word rings true.
We have been building new on top of old forever.
Even archeologists see this as they dig through civilizations, layer beneath layer.
Geula is a reality from the future. It has to be fresh, uncompromised and Divine.
It can't be built over the unstable structures, beliefs, or systems, whether political, financial or even religious, that are continuously adapted based on the past.
As this demolition happens globally, nationally, and in every public way, it needs to happen within each one of us, so that we can be keilim (vessels) for the future-to-come. That means allowing our beliefs to be challenged, our habitual defenses and behaviors to change. It means understanding Hashem's vision and digging in to find the light within our own beings, our deeper "soul desires", and start living from those.
Thank you for sharing this wisdom. I hope many people will take it to heart.
Truth resonates like nothing else. Yes, the Darkness before the dawn, the birthpangs, the Window closing just as the Gate opens.....
Just this weekend I listened to Rabbi David Fohrman talking about the Noah story. He speaks of how GOD didn’t just wipe out a rotten civilization…HE destroyed the earth. He says it better than I ever could, but it somehow filled in some of the cracks in my understanding. I’m lookin’ for that string. Thank you for this article.
My thoughts exactly, words myself I can not express, yet you did it so elegantly. I want to to share this, yet only those who already know will read it and those who will not have silently made their choice. Thank you for sharing your heart ❤️
Thank you for this Rivka!
You are absolutely amazing and a light in this dark times! Please go on writing, it brings us hope and it helps to know we are not alone in feeling this way. It is definitely a test in emuna and sometimes i am just soooo close to given up but then, what other choice do we have? Our eyes are wide open b”h and i try to remind myself daily that this is a merit. Thank you for your words, they mean a lot!
You are absolutely amazing and a light in this dark times! Please go on writing, it brings us hope and it helps to know we are not alone in feeling this way. It is definitely a test in emuna and sometimes i am just soooo close to given up but then, what other choice do we have? Our eyes are wide open b”h and i try to remind myself daily that this is a merit. Thank you for your words, they mean a lot!
Love the analogy. When your kitchen is being demolished before renovation you have to hold onto the vision of what it’s going to look like when it’s all done. And to cope, you have to remind yourself that the mess and upheaval is just temporary. We can put up with almost anything if we think it’s not going to last long. Od Matai??
Love the analogy. To help you cope with the upheaval and mess of a demolished kitchen on its way to being renovated, you have to hold the vision of what it’s going to look like when it’s all done. The other thing that can help you cope is to remember it’s just temporary. We can put up with almost anything if we think it’s not gonna last too long.
Od matai!
Short, Sweet, To the point, and very accurate. Kol HaKavod. In my head the last few days have been hearing that old song of Styx "Welcome to the Grand Illusion, Come on in and see what's happening, pay the price, get the tixket to the show"
DON'T get upset with what is happening as it is pure perfect proof the Geula is upon us. It is was easy, it would mean it's delayed further. Nonetheless we need to daven that things happen the sweetest way possible - which in fact is what is really happening. The Bark is much greater than the bite. The fear much greater than is appropriate, the actual damage minimal.
There was shvirat keilim in the beginning and maybe what we are going through is repairing those spiritual vessels so that we can hold the light ..
From the "Announcements of Redemption" of the Lubavitcher Rebbe King Moshiach:
"The most essential matter is to bring about the true and complete Redemption And in order for G-d to achieve this goal He "needs," as it were, the participation of every Jew. This means living Jews, souls within bodies. The Redemption comes through "our deeds and efforts," and it "depends," as it were, on the Jewish person's consent, desire and proclamation that not only has "the time for your Redemption arrived," but that the Redemption is actually here, literally speaking. As mentioned above, Geulah (Redemption) is cognate to the term Giluy (Revelation), and is a reference to the revelation of the Master of the world within Golah (exile). It is the effort of the Jews in exile that brings this about.
(From the talk of Monday, 28 Sivan 5751)
"…In these times - the days of Moshiach - in which we now find ourselves, we only need "to open the eyes." Then we will see that the true and complete Redemption already exists, in the simple sense. All the Jewish people, "with our youth and our aged, etc., with our sons and our daughters," are prepared, in every single, last detail, "to approach and sit at the table," the table prepared with every delicacy and delight, beginning with those of the Redemption, Livyosan, Shor HaBor and Yayin Meshumar. Also, [the Jewish people are ready for] the most important thing, "to know G-d," "the world will be filled with knowledge of the L-rd as the waters cover the ocean bed."
(From the talk of the end of 19 - beginning of 20 Kislev 5752 -
in a group private audience)
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