The Exchanged Children – Regaining Ourselves

The path to self awareness and inner connection weaves through the darkness of our world. It requires us to recalibrate the balance between our soul and our bodies.

We are always descending within the darkness of the physical world. It is that descent, that confusion we find in our lives that we must abandon in order to rise up to the path of the light. This is the path of the Creator, who is hidden in all of Creation. Yet, until find the true Tzaddik, the loop that was forged at the time of our birth in this world will continue.

We rise only to fall – fall only to rise. We hold onto our false sense of self because we are too afraid to move forward. This is the job of the Tzaddik – to show us our own way. It is the path most carved out for each of us that allows us the comfort to let go of all of the false perceptions we have packed into our mind.

When we let go – we find ourselves and the body is once more ruled by the soul.

Why The Captivity of Three Jewish Filmmakers In Nigeria Maybe Connected To The Redemption

A few years ago I attended a high level meeting of pro Igbo Jewish activists, Rabbinic leaders, and political connectors in Jerusalem to discuss how real the Igbo claim of Israelite heritage and if so what was there to do about it.

No real press was allowed at the meeting and in many ways, although we reached some fascinating conclusions and a desire to help – nothing came of it.

There are approximately 30 million Igbo in southeastern Nigeria. Most identify with some sort of Hebraic connection, however those who follow mainstream halachic Judaism are few yet growing. A larger percentage – perhaps the majority, follow a Seventh Day Adventist approach to Christianity, which leans far more to a Hebrew Roots style of worship that appears on the outside to be very Jewish, despite a clinging to a different “messiah.”

The real connection the Igbo have to Israel is not with modern Judaism, but rather a form of actualized Israelite customs that our own sojourning relegated to memory. The bandwidth of laws that are similar to what we see in the Bible as well as familiar ones like Brit Milah, basic Kashrut, and Shabbat is astounding. Whether these came out from a need to connect to the Judaism they saw in the Bible centuries ago, or are an accurate expression of Israelite connection doesn’t matter – the Igbo not only believe, but have a deep culture of practice of the traditions called Omenana – “What you do in the Land.”

With this backdrop, Rudy Rochman, a pro Israel and indigenous rights activist as well as two others went to Africa to film emerging African Jewish communities, eventually finding themselves in Nigeria with the Igbo. Unfortunately for them, the Nigerian DSS associated their work with the free Biafra movement (a loose confederation of pro Biafran separatists sometimes connected to the Igbo).

Despite differences, Nigeria increasingly sees the Igbo movement for greater Hebraic awareness and the Biafran independence movement as growing more and more interconnected. Nigerian President Buhari, is a known radical Muslim who hates the Igbo. Unknown to them, the three Jewish filmmakers essentially walked into a far more complicated and dangerous situation than they assumed existed. Unfortunately they are still being held weeks later.

Despite the frustration and the danger Rudy, David, and Noam are in, their captivity may be part of something larger, a trigger for a wider redemptive awareness. While it is true, we as Israel don’t have the vessels or ability to sift through the myriad claims of connection from around the world, our awareness of a far larger purpose to our homecoming is necessary.

The Jewish return to the Land of Israel is a mere first step to a global redemption. It is not surprising since we liberated the Biblical Heartland and Jerusalem in 1967 that a tremendous awakening is now underway around the world. This awakening may not mesh with our assumption of what the Lost Tribes or the next stage of Redemption would be like, but that is only because our awakening is one of acceptance to something far greater than our exilic imagination permitted.

From the Pashtun in Afghanistan to the Igbo in Nigeria or the individual Christians who for whatever reason desire to return to the path of the Torah to the Bnei Menashe of East India, there is a sense that something profound is unfolding. Our assumption has been that in order to reach Redemption we in Israel only need to strengthen in following G-D’s will as found in the Torah and conquer the Land of Israel. What happens if the there is a another layer?

We know that the Redemption at the End of Days will be global – like a pebble dropped into a pond, the resulting splash has a center point, but radiates outward. This is what we are seeing now amongst the Igbo, the Abudaya in Uganda, and the Lemba in Zimbabwe. Are they Israelites? Not clear and nor does it matter – their attachment to the One G-D of Israel is what may tip the balance between darkness and light.

Perhaps Rudy and his friends are just some naive Jewish filmmakers or perhaps their captivity is a message for all of us that we have a responsibility to not only set them free, but to actually take the Igbo far more seriously than we currently do thus helping to release them from captivity as well. The Redemption just might depend on it.

Learn about Rudy’s Film here.

If We Want To Leave Mitzrayim – We Must Have Faith

There are times when we feel low and other times when we know that the exit from the darkness is just around the corner. The truth is all of our feelings of lacking and despair, are just feelings – true Redemption is always within our reach!

Only when we have faith that the Creator is the ultimate reality and our one real reason for being sent down here is to have a personal relationship with the Almighty, then we will begin to feel ourselves leave the Mitzrayim we have been trapped in.

We Must Descend Into Darkness Before The Light Can Be Revealed

When our souls descend into this world we find ourselves in a state of “klipot, layers.” These layers are the cognitive distortions we are meant to spend a life time breaking through.

Growth always starts within darkness, confusion, and illusion. We move up and we fall, move up and fall. In chassidut and deeper lessons connected to the Torah this process is analogous to leaving “Mitzrayim, Egypt,” the place of constricted G-D consciousness.

Our job is to discover light within the darkness that we find ourselves in. It is literally the descending that holds the greatest chance to reveal the light hidden within.

Right now darkness surrounds us and penetrates us. Endless information, unlimited choices, and a world which appears to be more and more chaotic has pushed us into a state of collective despair.

Where and how can we move forward?

We must not fear. The darkness we are experiencing is the moment before the greatest light is revealed – all we need to do is to hold on tight.

(Likutey Moharan 6 & 36, Orot Techiya, Likutey Halachot Hilchot Pesach)

A NATION IN PROTEST: Breaking The Illusion and The Need For A New Israeli Ethos

More than 15 years ago I was dragged out of the Neve Dekalim Synagogue by four soldiers and then bussed out of Gush Katif. In those moments I wondered why and where the protest movement to stop one of the largest injustices brought upon Israeli citizens by their own government had gone wrong.

The fact is, up until that point and including the Oslo protests headed by Moshe Feiglin, all of the nationalist protests had a sectoral feel to them. They weren’t meant to be sectoral, but Israel with all of its claims of the need for national unity breaks down along tribal lines and that is the failure of all of the protests in the past few years.

True, the disaster of the first Amona protest in 2006, when cops used horses to stampede settler youth, drew condemnation from the left, but the protest itself was not successful – meaning it did not strike a real chord with anyone else except settlers.

A lot has happened since then. Israelis know each other far better than before. Religious Zionists have penetrated the mainstream media and stand poised to take over the army in the next generation. All the while, both Chareidim and Religious Zionists find common ground on many issues.

Still, there appears to be a lack of real unity of purpose other than just survival or standing by while the country’s hi-tech leaders represent their craft as being indicative of the Israeli citizenry as a whole. The more we know each other, the more we realize we are all being pulled along together, without regard to whether or not we want to be heading where we are heading.

Perhaps the uniting factor in this new young generation, growing up in a post Gush Katif reality is the need for a new national ethos. Many settler youth reject their parents’ views that they need to conform to make it in Israel and like many on the left, they see the vacuous drive towards participation in the hi-tech ecosystem as being disconnected from the larger issues plaguing Israeli society.

This is where the intersection has arisen between the protests surrounding Ahuviya Sandak’s death, potentially at the hands of a negligent police and the disconnect many have in Israel from the government and the elite that rules it.

When Hill Top Youth were placed in administrative detention for six months over Duma and then tortured to be made to confess and still be found guilty despite an admittance that the confession came by way of torture – Israelis scratched their head.

True, most questioned it, but then went on with their life. What is going on now is a confirmation that the bias against the idealistic youth of Judea and Samaria is real and the “fringe opinions” over Duma might have had some legs to them after all.

The simple question is now beginning to be asked: Why all this trouble over a handful of teenagers that seem to be only focused on defending Jewish land from Arab squatters?

Why claim these kids are a threat to the entire nation?

The protests are growing, because people see that Ahuvia Sandak’s death is a symptom of a larger problem in Israel. True, we lead the world in innovation, but we are beginning to lose site of what guides us here in the Land in the first place. We have come home, but have buried the vessels of Redemption in the sands of the Negev.

The youth are showing us something else – that rights are not given to us by the police, the judges, or even the Knesset, but rather they are given to us by G-D himself.

In a sense, the hate for these youth by the apparatchiks in the leftwing controlled security forces and judicial system stems from a sense of embarrassment and jealousy. After all, it is supposed their kids doing this – being Zionists, not these rag tag youth of the hills.

Yet, this goes beyond Zionism that guided Jews back to Israel – this is about Redemption itself. For that, one has to leave behind the trappings and false understandings fomented by those who built the early state, which were then foisted on everyone else.

In a sense we have to leave the construct of our assumptions about what we are doing here to see past the illusions that the governing institutions wants us to believe.

No one trusts the police here, yet before this past year there was too much at stake for all of the various groups to unite. Lockdown after ridiculous lockdown has taken its toll on the public and with it, the last remaining barrier that had prevented it from truly making grassroots change.

The youth of the hills are more than just guardians of the Land – they are messengers of a new way, which is really an old way. They are the David to the government’s Saul. We are not meant to come home to our Land and live like other Nations. Our soul’s are whispering that to us – trying to wake us up and these youth are the reminder that we can behave differently.

There is a price for conformity and that is the anonymity the machine wants us to fall into. However, these youth can and will save us from ourselves at the end. Most of us want something else, but we are just too afraid to admit it to anyone else. All of the technology and entertainment has done nothing to quiet the yearning for a shift to a Redemptive paradigm.

These protests are about regaining the process of reawakening what the Jewish return to its Land was supposed to be about. While this might be scary to many here, it is necessary if we are going to complete the transition from a nation like all other nations to one that is truly a Kingdom of Priests.

Israel Goes To Elections, But An Uprising Is Beginning Against Its Anti-Settler Policies

Ahuvya Sandak, a 16 year old boy from Bat Ayin was killed last week when the vehicle he was riding in flipped over as a result of a police chase. When news first broke, the police closed off the area for six hours, letting his body lay in the open. His friends who survived were sent to the hospital for treatment and then released to house arrest. The initial report was that the boys were throwing rocks and a chased ensued, but something seemed fishy.

Knesset member Betzalel Smotrich arrived at the scene and the police prevented him from entering, which is against the law. Witnesses have come forward saying the police were driving out of control and put everyone’s lives in danger.

The family has requested an independent investigation, but the police have started their own – insisting the other boys should be tried for manslaughter.

All of this seems like a passing story anywhere else, far less important than elections and corona, but since the accident and the government’s stalling of an independent investigation, protests have erupted around the country, police stations have been vandalized, and extra security given to the police who were involved.

In normal times we would move on, but something has changed now in Israel. People are beginning to question the system that they are living in. The system, who for all of its triumphs in technology and defense has long ago used the police as an arm of complete control.

During Gush Katif, the media and the left convinced the country that it could lay waste to patriotic pioneers in Gaza – destroying 8,000 homes.

In Amona, shortly after, it tried to stampede the young resistance under the hooves of police horses.

Year after year, it has put down protests against Chareidim, settler youth, Ethiopians, and more.

During the Duma manhunt, which falsely placed blame on pioneering youth in Judea and Samria and in doing so saw torture being employed against kids as young as 14, normal people began to question and many people still question the legitimacy of case’s outcome as being politically driven.

Ahuvya’s death, unnecessary and seemingly a product of an over zealous and paranoid police department, appears to have broken whatever lock there has been on a focused protest movement, with the aim to take down Israel’s police state infrastructure.

People are tired. They are tired of being played against one another. They are tired of being fed media lies and being told they need to “fall in line” with an Israel focused more on handshakes with other countries and PR initiatives to keep the investment money in tech coming, rather than justice and fulfillment of a Divine purpose.

The economy is in shambles, Arab squatters are taking land, another election cycle is upon us, but Ahuvya’s death appears to have become the catalyst for something else.

The irony is, that if this was the old days people would believe the police’s story about the youth throwing the rocks, but their lies are known now. Initial reports say that the was car rammed by the police and pushed off the road and now the policemen say they thought it was a “Palestinian” vehicle.

It is unravelling, but not just their story – their control.

Israel can be a beacon of light it was meant to be, but it must first rip apart the Deep State that has held sway here since the original socialists stole the Zionist movement from within.

The youth of the hills have had enough. They want an Israel based on G-D given rights, not one where the State believes it is the arbiter of our rights. There is an uprising now. It is small and growing and everyday the government waits to gut the police department, the uprising will grow.

Yes, these elections may claim to deal with the coronavirus, but at the end they may be forced to deal with something far more important and that is determining our true national ethos. However, it may be that if the politicians continue to squabble for power, the youth of the hills just might determine that ethos for them.

COVID-19, The Great Reset, and the Final War

The world as we know it, is churning. The simple assumptions on how things are supposed to work are gone now. The governments of the world are either inept or incompetent or perhaps nearly malicious in their attempt to use COVID-19 to take control of their countries in a way we have only read in dystopian science-fiction novels.

Despite our normalization bias, which creeps up on us when we want to forget what is happening, the things we are seeing are happening. Lock downs, mask mandates, and wealth transfers are happening. This is what they call the “Great Reset.”

All of this is happening under the guise of stopping a virus that has an extremely low mortality rate – no different than the flu if the affected is below 55 and has no pre-existing disorders.

The global elite has used mass media, a low information populace, and spineless politicians to exert control and take away our freedoms.

We assumed the End of Days – the Final War would be nuclear – something cataclysmic. We were wrong. The Final War is between two sides. The side of darkness wants to to turn us into slaves – to render our humanity obsolete by flooding our minds with fear and insecurity. The side of light knows the truth and knows that at the end the darkness will be pushed aside. The side of light knows that this is all about the elite’s attempt for total control and the creation a global dystopian authoritarianism where none of us will truly be free. In their world we are but a cog in the wheel of their wealth engine.

We can be free. We can cut loose from their grasp, but we must decide to say no to their edicts and we must understand that it is time cling to the truth that all of us despite what their side says are made in the image of the Almighty. It is this image they want to destroy and it is this image which is the engine of our salvation, because within each us is the gateway to the Divine blueprint of Creation. It is our pipeline to infinite faith.

The hour is near. The Great Reset is upon upon us. Only our faith in the Creator will see us through.

MIKETZ: SolarWinds, China, and Crossing The Rubicon

I want to start by repeating the opening paragraph of my post on IsraelUnwired from earlier today:

“From chaos to chaos, the US is experiencing perhaps the most trying moment in its history. All of the fears about the 2020 election have come to pass and now with the revelation that the SolarWinds platform has been hacked with an active infiltration for more than six months has essentially, all assumptions about security and the efficacy of the elections themselves should be thrown out.”

What is happening is something far deeper than a mere cyber attack on the US. The SolarWinds hack and the subsequent confusion over just how bad it still, especially when it comes to trusting the election results cannot be overstated.

With trust in the US government and its various institutions at an all time low and with factionalism and tribalism growing by the day, the US is on verge of a true systemic collapse.

The Chinese Communist Party, along with other state actors like Russia, North Korea, and their allies have been waiting for the final execution of their plan to take down the US. After all, communist leaders have always believed the US could be taken “without firing a shot.”

There are serious military leaders in the US, both retired and active urging President Trump to take action. Those retired leaders are openly asking him to “cross the Rubicon” the way Caesar did and “restore the Republic.”

This is not about the Rubicon. This is about an inflection point in world history; what we call a Ketz or end in Hebrew. An end is obviously not a final moment in time, but an end of one period and a beginning of another. A Ketz is the transitional moment when that happens.

That is what this Torah portion is about. Joseph spent two years in the dungeon in Egypt and in the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, the end of that period, the Ketz occured and he was taken out into the light.

Enemies of freedom surround us all. Chassidut teaches us that these physical enemies are just manifestations of the spiritual enemies we are fighting within. We are at a Ketz, much the same as Joseph and the Maccabees – both of who went from darkness to light.

Over the next few weeks and months our enemies will attempt to sow fear and division across the world. They will attempt to keep us in darkness and yet if we understand that the Rubicon people are urging President Trump to cross is not just his, but in truth it exists within each of us, then we have nothing to fear at all.

Most of humanity lives in a universe of distraction, which is the darkness we are fighting against. They want to forget about the pressures of the world and inject the noise and darkness further in. They want to remain in the “dungeon of Egypt.”

This is the Ketz we are in. The darkness may feel unnavigable, but at the end we will be lifted out into the light.