Israel Inspired: Trump, the Saudi’s, and Israel vs. Putin, Iran, and Syria – WWIII?

Donald Trump Saudi Arabia and Israel are now coordinating a potential attack on Syria after the Russian backed Assad regime has once again brutally used chemical warfare on his own people to maintain power with deadly gas being used to kill innocents the week israel remembers the holocaust you can't help but feel like something big is about to happen and something deep must be learned this week on Israel inspired and now live from Jerusalem you're listening to Israel inspired radio here your hosts rabbis ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel [Music] show them everybody and welcome to Israel inspired on the Land of Israel network at the Land of Israel calm this is Jeremy Gimpel and this week I have a surprise for you his name is rabbi Ari Abramowitz Shalom Jeremy it is a privilege to be back with you yeah it's been a while it's been a while and you know I've gotten some emails some texts and whatsapp's what's going on weren't you on the show and the truth is you know I can give a lot of a witty platitudes like my favorite which is consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative right like that one that's a good one but the truth is that this place and what I'm going through at this stage in my life the truth is when I don't have like a loud clear message in my heart of what I want to say it doesn't feel authentic to simply do a program when I'm not fully there on like a spiritual I feel like this place is changing me so much out here that sometimes reflecting on something unnecessarily or or prematurely precludes the full experience of it and so we know when you're on the show you have something to say yeah I feel like I have something to say and I feel like to a certain degree I'm really back with the message because you know if we're just like every week we have to have a show then it's like perfunctory it's it's not if what are we artists or are we radio show hosts that's the real question I don't know how to answer that you're definitely an artist yes so you know like when when something it comes from the heart and I feel like there is a lot on my heart right now that I want to share that I'm ready to share and and you know things are just shifting so much we're you know the older you get did you sort of get set in your ways and I feel like the journey that Hashem has put us on has not allowed us to forge too to get too used to anything you know to concretize we're constantly inflex and having to see things in a different way it expands our range and our respective of understanding what we're doing and what the really the calling of the generation is because the men you get to set in anything that becomes you to set in any vehicle then the vehicle becomes becomes an end in and of itself and I think from our radio show to our network to this entire place that we are in on this hilltop in Judea and I call it a place because it's so dynamic that sometimes it's a farm sometimes it's a retreat center sometimes it's a prophecy school sometimes it's a schooling achieve it for the nations sometimes it's a place for Jews around Israel and around the world to come and experience Judea a Judean encounter of sorts there's so many things that it becomes that it's it's causing us to see things differently so so I think that's a little bit what we are here to share today seeing things a little bit differently because the world is changing and it's changing very fast and we don't have the luxury of sticking our heads in the sand or of cognitive dissonance and saying oh we're just gonna focus on our own little tiny world we really need to be open to what's happening well things are happening just a few hours away from us right now we're in the mountains of Judea but if we were to drive three hours north we would witness horrific scenes of what the Syrian regime is doing to its own people I mean I'm just watching some of the clips on YouTube and I'm reading the newspapers and it's horrifying it's so weird because we're just in the wake of Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel and this insane dictator is gassing his own people to maintain his power and now for the first time because you know this happened under the Obama administration and President Obama of the time was like oh he has crossed a red line and that line has been crossed and he crossed it and there was a red line and he was on one side and now he was on the other side and the line is crossed and there was a crossing line that's what he said and not a line is still red and it's still bad there and there was just like nothing happened and now uh President Donald Trump once again is like showing leadership he cancelled his trip to South America into this Trump too often what listen Mainstreet what has he done he is scaring the heck out of Russia and Syria and Iran for the first time there's actually respect lying on a couch and give you a call and tell you how afraid he is we don't know what's going on he called me the other day and he was a little bit concerned I reserve judgment he may show leadership and step up and he may not we haven't seen it yet so what does let me just tell you what I have to compare them to is the last president of the United States and let me tell you it's a thousand times better so far let me tell you already right now it's yo Donald Trump Saudi Arabia Britain and France have all now come together and they are coordinating in their own ways in a united front against Iran Russia in Syria that hasn't happened in decades he is rallying the troops together in order to stop evil that's happening you know I was just talking to him by the way he is doing that in the wake of a huge problem this problem that Obama did caused by causing the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq leaving a huge vacuum in large swaths of empty land for Iran to fill which they have and now there's an uninterrupted direct proxy through to Syria and there so the Russia Syria Iranian alliance is very much a consequence of the Obama administration's terrible for it I mean when you think about all of the enemies of Israel whether it be the Hezbollah or whether it be Hamas and the terror tunnels and all of these demonstrations that are happening on the border of Israel right now if you if you kind of like follow the money it all goes back to Iran and it all goes back to Russia and Iran we had a lot of money to play with from the hundreds of millions a billion I'm sorry bill dollars that President Barack Obama gave unfroze however you want to call it gave to the Iranian regime and now there is just chaos all over the Middle East and Donald Trump instead of flying to South America and continuing on his business canceled his trip and he's now taking it seriously and the word taking it seriously and there is a new sheriff in town and it's just happy to see it's just funny when I realized you say the world is taking it seriously let's take that a step back these United Nations the United Nations Council for nuclear for chemical and biological weapons Syria is on the council the United Nations is a joke okay the world's reaction and you can't say the world is taking it seriously well listen what happened was the United States asked to investigate the chemical realities of Syria and Russia vetoed the investigation and at the same time out of nowhere all of a sudden there are these mass protests in Gaza Maspero we haven't seen protests like this in I don't know a decade and it was it's all being coordinated in order to draw the world's attention away from Syria and bring it to Israel because the world loves focusing on Israel but finally there's a nikki Haley in the United Nations that isn't falling for it and the world is finally shifting that woman is a warrior poet is a hero she should be the next president but um you know here's what what what's going on right now in my mind you know I I'm looking at these pictures of these children that are like you know on the floor gassed by this insane dictator and you know around you know my show I can't help myself you know I start reading about the Holocaust I start watching videos about the Holocaust and you know it gets really dark for me it's hard for me to watch it but I know that I should watch it and there's just a lot in the air now you know so many of the people that I love and that I know are being infected with cancer you know and I want to dedicate this show to you Kyra frying-pan Raquel Devorah who's a two and a half year old boy who I've just been praying for he's now the the screensaver on my phone I look at my phone I don't know a hundred times a day and every time it turns on I see his face and I give a little prayer too ashamed to heal him but there's just so much pain in the world right now yeah I mean could we just use ooh min on that for one second the yuckier issue sure okay you you just finished your thought we'll talk about that soon go ahead well you know we both love the family very much and there's just a lot of pain in the world that I'm experiencing from the very up close right now and I mean it's not just them I mean I wake up with this I fall asleep with this it for a long time was actually crippling me crippling me in darkness and you are facing that not only on this front but on other fronts as well yeah you know my mother-in-law and you know she was diagnosed with cancer and but it's so hard when it's a two and a half year old beautiful baby boy not even three years old yet it's just so hard to cope with so much pain of people that you love so much and you know that's all for me happening right around the Holocaust Memorial Day yo my show it's like a national day in Israel where everyone stands silently everywhere every song on the radio every television show every newspaper every magazine it's just you know the State of Israel was created in the wake of the Holocaust you know Ezekiel had a vision of these dry bones and ashes and says you know could these bones possibly live and the end of says yes I'm gonna breathe life into these bones and I will restore you to the Land of Israel and somehow that was a part of the reality that was supposed to happen and so it's not that this pain is new in the world there's always been pain and I've just been thinking about this stereotype of Jewish doctors you know there's so many Jewish doctors jokes and every mother wants their son to be a Jewish doctor and every mother wants their daughter to marry a Jewish doctor and what is it about the Jewish obsession with doctors you know the best doctors in the world are in Israel that the whole world is like flying to Israel now because they want their Jewish doctors I think there's a lot of answers there's one answer that my father would always tell yeah Jews have had to be a mobile people because how long are we in any given country any given nation before they throw us out before we are expelled before there's a terrible tragedy that happens to us we're the wandering Jews so we've had to learn and embrace profession that are mobile and anywhere you go people are people and they need medical help and they need medical care so that's one of the reasons I mean many other deeper yeah I think that's a real pragmatic reason I think there's also some of you know doctors are excellent they're either educated they're knowledgeable and I think Jewish mothers want their children to be excellent and that's a Jewish quality but I think even more than that it's about healing someone who wakes up every morning and they go to the hospital and they are spending every hour healing this sick world intending to the sick people and bringing healing to them they are tapped in to the mission of the Jewish people Lata Ken alumni Malcolm Jedi to fix this world in the kingdom of God you may not be a religious man you may not be an observant man but if you are tending to the sick and healing this broken world fixing this broken world I mean our world is so broken and who broke it you know God created this world and it was perfect when you launched National Geographic and you see how the animal life in Africa is without man's intervention it's in perfect harmony it's beautiful and then all of a sudden man comes on the scene I know there's like black polar bears covered in oil and there's children being gassed in Syria man has broken this world and yes God created men and at the same time he gave us this tricky thing called free will and once we ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and all that that means once we became conscious beings able to choose between right and wrong when good and evil in our own minds became intertwined with each other now what do we do and a doctor that goes and is constantly healing the sick he's just plugged into our ultimate mission and there's so much pain in the world now and I was talking to my dear friend simcha and his sons up Sharon they wanted to cut off his hair before his third birthday because he's going through chemotherapy now at under three years old and soon his hairs to fall out and there's a Jewish tradition called an up Sharon and at that tradition a parent do not cut their son's hair before the age of three and then at the age of three there's a beautiful ceremony where all the friends come together and everybody gets a little snip and cuts the hair and they put some honey on the Hebrew letters and he learns the letters and taste the honey so they should be sweet to him and it's a beautiful ceremony called the up Sharon and he wouldn't get to have that up Sharon because the chemo is starting now would have caused his hair to fall out so they wanted to have an up Sharon and dignity and sin simcha was talking to me he's saying you know just a couple of days ago I was I was kind of living in a place where I yeah I was upset that I had to take the kids to Ghana I did take it then pick them up and I'd never enough time for work and I was so stressed out and now my life is a totally different normal my normal now is in a cancer ward with a bunch of bald children running around and I'm in the middle of hell and that's my new normal but because Hashem created the world in the middle of Hell there are Jews that are constantly bringing us food and Hospital clowns making us happy and in the middle of hell there's acid there's kindness and so in a world that is so broken I guess the question that has to arise in our hearts as we come so close to Holocaust Memorial Day is are we on our mission to fix this world you know I'm a professional communicator that's what I do I'm a teacher I have a podcast a lecture and at this up Sharon and for the last few weeks I'm just speechless in this scenario I don't know what to say I don't know what to do and here we're celebrating this Jewish custom overlooking the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and I don't know what to say and I don't know what to do and all of a sudden dr. Fluxx enstein comes around and dr. Fluxx enstein that's are his Hospital clown named dr. Schmendrick floats in steam floods in Hebrew is a word for passing gas and it's really funny that that's our thing that makes children laugh anyhow he has a whoopee cushion he's got balloons and let me tell you no one knows what to say to here who's such a little boy that doesn't even understand what chemotherapy is he doesn't understand why all of these things are happening to him and Ari was a hero so I did this course to be a hospital clown and it was six hours a week this session of six hours a week for six months that's like becoming a doctor only in Israel yeah and it was so such an intensive course like many hours of learning gibberish that's not a joke and and you know while I was doing and I was like you know it I think that this whole thing with yuck here justified all of it and and before we went out there I knew I mean I've been so tormented about this there were some times I couldn't even breathe thinking about what's going on with the ik here I mean I'm best friends beloved friends with Rachel and szimpla and and their children I couldn't even breathe and they're crying and I just remember dava knee before going to this up Sharon that everyone realized was going to be a very powerful experience and I said please just let me make this little boy laugh and my prayer was answered and it was I mean all I had to do with him was inflate balloons and then let them deflate and act totally shocked and that was just cracking him up and it just brought light to the entire thing and that it needed to have laughter they're so I'm so grateful for that and you know Israel out of all the countries in the world has the highest in the most Hospital clowns per capita you go to any hospital in at any time there's clowns there and that's not a shocking truth they go ahead Jeremy yeah you know so just you know I keep on thinking about you know all of the challenges that we face as people all of the challenges we face as a nation and you know Holocaust Memorial is right around the corner and I think about Hell on Earth and I think that that was the Holocaust you know call it Jacob's troubles to call it hell on earth and you know one of my mother's best friends if not my mother's best friend I was a Holocaust survivor named marina Quint we actually interviewed her a couple of years ago if you as you look on her soundcloud you can find just the most unbelievable Holocaust survival story ever I just I've never heard a story like this because she was such a little girl and her mother was killed then a random Jewish woman took Rena to be her mother and then she was killed and then another random woman risked her life to take care of this is called a daughter to many mothers exactly and it's just such a story to see that in the pits of Hell of concentration camps there was so much acid there was so much love and in these hard times that people go through it somehow like pulls out this beauty inside of us that allows us to be the best people that we can be and I look at Rachel and simcha and I'm just really in awe of them I've always loved them and they've always been best dearest friends to me but seeing the strength the fortitude that they're made of it's just a whole an entirely different than when you think about their story we need to tell the backstory cuz just hearing this story in and of itself isolated from the greater story you don't have the really the depth to it because I was talking to Rachel today and she said I've just had this feeling that my whole life was leading up to this moment there's there's a reason this is happening because you know for 10 years Rachel and simple are married and we had three couples when I say we I mean me but me and you we have three couples that were friends of ours that were struggling with fertility and having children and Rachel and Simcoe were one of them one couple had that child we were praying for great another couple had the child we were praying for Rachel and simple were like the last ones out of our very immediate close friends that had not yet had children and we were praying for them and they did every everything I've read possibly everything that they possibly every blessing from every rabbi every book that could be they had a main ceremonies I'm not gonna get into it and a main ceremony is but it's where women get together and they make different blessings and they all say I'm a into their blessings and it's just gula it's a it's a sign it brings divine goodness into the world anyway decade of the ringing of prayers of returning and crying and and then because rachel has like a certain condition she didn't want to move forward with the IVF in vitro fertilization because that would endanger her so finally after 10 years she decided we're gonna do it I'm gonna move forward and she went to the doctor and the doctor did a blood doesn't he said to her I'm sorry we can't do IVF she said why's it because you're pregnant they're at the that when she finally went to do this she was pregnant then and Hashem went ahead and gave them three beautiful boys and they cherished every single one of them and raised them in Torah and raised them in fear of God and and then this on Passover the day before Passover is the beginning simcha saw a protuberance and yet here's stomach and was skipping a bunch of steps they discovered what it was and you know they've requested not to say the names and and bring power to it because there is power in words so we are so I'd rather not say all the names and get into that but their their positivity has strengthened me to be positive myself because there was so much darkness that overcame me that I said how can I be crippled and overcome by this darkness when they are remaining so strong I'm not saying that they weren't weeping and crying and struggling but their fortitude in their Emunah was was so moving and you know someone just wrote Rachel something can I can I read this to you Jeremy sure it's a letter that someone wrote to her that she said she's been getting so many of these from different people which for me is a confirmation because this very much reflects the way I've been feeling about it because the Holocaust is something to mourn over and to six million the number is so big it's unfathomable but the truth is when Holocaust Yom Hashoah Holocaust Day comes around it's almost an abstraction for me in some ways this is like a little mini Holocaust for them for their friends for their friends around them the dire one-in-a-million conditions that this is and one of her friend wrote this to her she said I've been thinking a lot about this lately as the akhir situation has opened a lot of questions in my heart at first great sadness than anger I really sat with that and let it consume the admit and made me bitter but last week I dive into know show me something different you see if we look at this thing backwards in time we have to see we have to believe that I caught a spark with a Shem brought us to this moment in time for a specific reason yeah cure situation was perfectly orchestrated towards such a grand and unseen objective every job you ever had every project simply ever took every client you engaged with every house you sold every phone call made every game night hosted speaking tour held Facebook post shared Parque de Chavez meal shows to everything every interaction you guys have had resulted in new friends expanded networks acquaintances and colleagues gained communities built families enlarged all of it was orchestrated so you can call on us to da vanish M with the widest possible reach the largest possible scaffolding of Fela and meets vote being built right now with the pieces you have been charged with putting in place for a lifetime I truly believe every single person you've engaged with until this point in your life was for the sole purpose of having such a huge network of prayer and meditation and energy and collective emunah put out there in God's name and for the sake of Hyuk here there's just an unbelievably overwhelming number of hearts and minds turned towards his recovery recovery and well-being and the only explanation for this ever-expanding daily widening of - fela across the neighborhood country in the world is because of yuck here every step of the way has been building towards this moment so hashem could be known and called upon and while we can never understand the means with which hashem chooses to have this culmination of holiness brought down into the world while we can't understand it we must see we must believe fully that in place of bricks your son is inspiring B'nai Israel to rebuild the temple with Fela with prayer and ma seem to having good deeds we're literally rebuilding the temple and yak here Holyoke here is the epicenter of that effort and that has brought me solace and peace and hope that you guys can keep this in your hearts during the most difficult moments and that it really reflects what because when this happened to me I I turned to chemin I said okay you have my attention you have my attention what do you want from me because my first thought was Hashem I would switch places with him if you let me let me switch places with him let him not be sick give it to me but I know that's not the way Hashem works Hashem doesn't desire death the Torah says vagabond we're supposed to live by the Torah the tour isn't AIT's time he'll amaavas it's a tree of life we're not like are our cousins that sometimes value and and raise up death as an ideal we value life and so wanting to take his place that wasn't what it was really about it was about it's about changing the system that on some level if I'm willing to die for him well then I should be willing to live for him now what are the impediments I started doing real internal thought and investigation and introspection what are the impediments standing between me and Hashem the what do I really need to do to before that I haven't really done true before either because it's too hard or I say you know it's just about me I can blow off myself it's not a big deal but what are the things that if I change this in myself it's changing the fabric and the nature of the world and then the entire system is different it's like when God gave the the decree that the Jewish people would be wiped out and he said to Moshe Rabbeinu stand up and leave me and Moshe our banner did the opposite he said if I stand up and leave me and they'll be destroyed mushara Boehner said he prostrated himself and he stayed so now it's a different set of circumstances and the circumstances which I'm laid out with the Jewish people would be destroyed well it's different circumstances now so if I really do chuhwa and change myself for the Rif ooh-ahh for the healing and the the betterment of yuckier it's changing the entire thing and there's so many people that are doing this introspection that are really seeking so I realized you know we've talked about this on the show before for me one of the main impediments has been my health I I don't always eat like I should I eat more than I should foods that I shouldn't I'm sure a lot of people out there can identify with this and and why do I do that because the impulse and the enjoyment of the food is clearly more important to me at that moment than my health and and preserving and making my body healthy and a real vessel through which a Shem comes into the world because rough cook says that physical health physical getting in better physical condition is one of the foundations of chuva of repentance so I decided just for myself that to take on a fast indefinite I don't know how long it's going to be I've been fasting since Sunday I'm just drinking green stuff meaning I want to sustain my body I want it to be strong and be healthy but not with all of the sugar and the the Tyva said he say typhus the us yea the lusts of the food and the self-destructiveness of it and and if I do that and that's one of the main things that I haven't been willing to do for myself perhaps that is sitting - I'm okay I'm listening what do you want me to do I'm gonna do - I'm gonna do that for him and you have to see the beauty of this little boy I mean just such a beautiful neshama and you know so and it's a little bit extreme not eating at all I haven't eaten in four days but extreme circumstances call for extreme measures and we're going into the month of ER and ER serves for a knee Hashem Rafa this is a month of healing and so one of the reasons that I'm going so much into this and I'm sure this is I know this means so much to mean it's such a part of me that this is going to be a recurring theme that I talk about and I share how all of this is progressing maybe I can even get Rachael and Simcoe to come and share a little bit of their journey and what's happening with them because it's such a sanctification of God's name that to bring out the huset and one of the things that they've really been pushing that Rachel and Simcoe have been asking their friends to do is to read the Psalms and the truth is I sometimes have negative associations reading Psalms and times of of dire circumstance I sort of associated with abstraction and not really looking at what needs to be done but Rachel and simcha that I hold them at such a level that they said read Psalms then I'm reading Psalms and there's this app that's it's like a link to a website which I'll share below for those Hebrew leader readers out there that you can join this and read Psalms for Yaak ears Rifu offer for his healing but I said okay I'm gonna read Psalms and I'll tell you instead of those moments where I take a break and watch the Houston Rockets playing the Golden State Warriors instead of taking that little break I take a break to read Psalms and it's having a real effect on me it's bringing me to a my static my normative level of being is a higher level as closer to Shem that I'm saying these words of King David and and being inspired by them and pouring my heart out to Hashem and reading these Psalms and even just that is changing me and so there's so many people coming together and reading Psalms and their their goal they want to do three books every day of people reading Psalms for you here because that's it strengthens them it strengthens us and I really believe it strengthens the IKE here this has been a tremendous growth for me I grow through pain but but it's been a growth in and one of the things that I wanted to throw out there on this show also is that they Rachel and simple have always been into healing and into health and they've made these this bomb the solve of the the grow the grains and the spices of Israel you can read more about it but they're going to have financial challenges ahead of them and I bought this this solve it's incredible you could read about all the uses for it it's a very healing salves of Jerusalem calm you could go to their site and buy that that would help them in what they're doing and and help finance them because they both had to stop doing stop their work stop their lives altogether and now they're just full-time parents of this little yuck here who is please God on his way to a complete recovery so more about that we'll get to that soon but you know that there's a connection to that and what you were to started the show with Jeremy about Syria Russia Iran their axis chemical weapons Israel is now gone in bombed Syria and there's Britain America this it looks like the sides for a World War three are falling into place and it's like what is good what could we possibly do to stop any of this it's what with that what it all has in common what I see happening all around us on personal levels on national levels the theme would be total lack of control we don't have any control Rachel and simplist said they've never felt so such a lack of control of anything so helpless that they have no choice but to throw their hands up touch them and just plead and say this is all in your hands is that really truly different than any of us any moment any moment anything could happen to any of us we could cut our finger on a on a fence and die of a staph infection it's the truth for every moment but now it's so real for not only for them but for everybody around them in the whole world and that's why I think that the calling right now needs to be a battle for emunah for faith for actually what rabbi akiva test calls it faithfulness to a knowledge a deep internalization of the truth that God is running the entire world it's out out of our hands and that everything he does is for the good whether we like it or not and that really precludes anxiety and fear because anxieties people that are fearful they'll always find something anxious they'll find something to a fix that anxiety to then there's always going to be something in the cards that you can fix it to and be of worried about that but what you're doing is you're suffering the consequences of what you're afraid of before it even happens as opposed to just living a life of gratitude and knowing that if something happens to you it's a shams will and he'll give you the knowledge and the ability and the tools to to pass the test that he's putting before you when that time comes so Emunah Emunah that's you know and just it's almost strange to segue but I realized there's certain subjects that I think in our show moving forward we should try to touch upon every time because these are big chapters in this book like consistency is the refuge of the unimaginative at the farm let's talk for a second about the farm what we'll call it the farm and what's going on any notes go ahead were you gonna say well I wanted to just you know you said so many beautiful things and so many thoughts were coming to mind and there's this one pursue kaneo that I just learned the other day from my by Mordecai Zeller who brought it in the name of Hillel silent and just such a beautiful understanding and there's a paucity of that says kid Lonnie calf that I was raised like a father he says no you're not reading the the pisaq right it says a kid Lonnie keV that it was pain that allowed me to grow I was raised and I was grown and I grew as a person through the pain and I just know this as a truth in my own life that for some reason in the most painful times that I've been through are the most transformative are the times that I grew the most it's like you know the 1980s they no pain no gain that's just somehow in the infrastructure of the universe that somehow through these challenging times it calls us to pray more it calls us to believe more calls us to do more you know what I what I see is this deep deep desire that we all have to live we want our children to live because life is a gift and how to live how to live this gift how to grow in this gift how to recognize this grief how to experience life to the fullest I think that is the Jewish way that is the Torah way the whole path of the Torah is to teach us how to grow through the struggles and how to really live this life to its fullest and sometimes like the hard hard downs that just sideswipe you on a Monday afternoon that just knocked the wind out of you and you're just on the floor in a fetal position it's those times somehow that we emerge stronger Yiddish bigger we're grown through this pain our sages said about the times of mushiya which you know leaders of every religion and pretty much every rabbi that I speak to everybody looks around and sees all the signs and says we are on the precipice of redemption whatever that word means of Messiah whatever Mushaf even means it's difficult to even know what these things mean but the sages of old said that let me not live to see those times because they saw they foresaw that those times would be so terrifying and so difficult and so painful that they didn't want to live to have to even endure that because we know that the Messiah is going to come as birth pangs like when a child is born there are these screams of agony before this child comes into the world and the I felt when I heard this news about Kyra frying been recalled Vora and I say his name because I heard that when you say that the child's name Ben the mother the son of the mother every time you say his name as this the son of because when we pray for someone to get healing we always say their name and the son of their mother not their father but their mother because that mother and the it rouses the attribute of compassion on supernal levels whatever that means so the more you say his name you hear a frying-pan drakul Devorah it's just another dose of that compassionate energy to come into the world and when I heard about that my initial feeling was that this is connected in some way to redemption ticket moola and as strange as that is because redemption is something we pray for and this is the most horrific nightmare ever but I see what it's doing within me and what do we need to do before Redemption we need to do chuhwa to wake up we need to wake up we need to wake up and this has been a real wake-up for me a huge wake-up for me and I think for so many out there and so many around the world and so that's what I think we're experiencing these birth pangs and it doesn't goes from this all the way to Iran and Syria and Russia and global conflagration and the wars that it looks like are to come they will be terrifying we will have no choice other than to have faith that this is for the good and that faith will allow us to maintain a certain level of composure that allows us to move forward as a nation as a people in individuals as we need so can I tell you the greatest alarm clock that I've ever encountered as far as if people are asleep and we need to wake up the thing that I have seen that consistently wakes people up whether they be Jewish whether they be Christian or their religious their secular they come out to this farm and it just wakes them up it's something happens it happens to me every time I come here somehow it's like a dose of oh wait a minute what's going on here and it's so refreshing because it's not about us you know with whether we're there or not coming out to this little piece of property this little Garden of Eden oasis in the Judean Desert I just know that it throughout history something of consequence happened here and even more importantly some of them consequence will happen here and is happening here you weren't even here over Pesach all the time you spent a lot of time with your family not at the farm you were here's a few times but just being here over Passover it was you know dozens of families just somehow come here they see the place from a distance they come here they knock on the door like who are you what is this place what are you doing here it's such a prototype it's such it's something that's so different it's hard to even put the finger on exactly why but it's just like it's almost like a thousand differences but like Camelot on a hilltop that in the middle of the very tip of the Judean Desert the furthest into Judea where the whole world is trying to throw our caravans destroy our are in our adult our entire enterprise of returning to our land and they're trying to prevent and we're building like a fortification of beauty here and so many people come out and it's just but also for me just on a personal level the tree every day is a an exercise of faith and of surrender and of knowing that I'm not in control of anything in this place that I love it so much that I try to control it often I want to make this this way and make this that way and it turns out differently and then I just have to say it's not in my hands - Emma's having this place turn out as he wants it to turn out but it's hard to strike that balance between really asserting yourself and what you think is the right thing to do and then the very moment that it happens differently than wow you've worked so hard immediate surrender and saying okay this is the way it actually happened and so this is that's it's been an exercise in that and an overpass over something happened I just really want wanted to share my my brother-in-law and my sister and my brother-in-law's siblings came out here with their families and we went around and it was inspiring and it was great and then we went into the Sheep now as you mentioned on a prior program Jeremy we had 59 sheep we had to barter 50 of them to our contractor to continue building which is often people are quite amused that that still happens in in in our times but so we had nine sheep left one of those sheep gave birth to three for babies and one of them passed away didn't make it but we have three babies there so that's a real source of celebration we just went from nine to twelve that's a real growth of our flock and so they went in to see then something happened I don't exactly know what there's no different different narratives but the mother of those three baby sheep somehow jumped the fence and ran and if she was running towards my lamb most someone said they started running towards Toccoa Yossi gets in his Jeep Michelle gets and his his car they're driving around looking for this sheep because it's a critical sheep it's the mother of the three babies she's nursing them it's also a significant amount of our net worth at this point you know it was just - and we spent hours looking and we just went to sleep quite sad picturing the sheep being roasted over a skewer and Rashidah at some Bedouin village somewhere and because sheep don't have that internal GPS they don't like go back they like dogs sort of know where they're going and able to return to their place sheep don't have that so we went to sleep and sort of gave up and then the next morning I woke up in my bed and I looked out the window and what do I see right next to the highest place on the mountain where we're building our house of Prayer our baytullah the Sheep was standing right there standing there just looking at me first thing in the morning it was unbelievable and and it to me was just one of those examples that right when you just give up hope in you nothing more you can do then the most unexpected things happen and we're seeing that more and more now the sort of cycle between seeming hopelessness and then unexpected Redemption and I feel like this cycle that we're seeing in our lives is preparing us for that on a much macro grander level you know I write around you know this time of year and with all that's going on you can't help but really think just about evil in the world and Tila was telling me that a few hundred years ago there almost wasn't a family that didn't have one of their children that died either in childbirth infant mortality was just so high and everyone suffered so much pain it was just a part of life and since the State of Israel has been born in the last seventy years this is the most peaceful time perhaps in human history less Wars and yes there's still horrible things happening in Syria but it's almost as though evil is slowly evaporating we're coming to it to that which still exists is very magnified everything is very magnified but if you just take a bird's eye macro yeah you can see that slowly but surely the world is becoming more meat to come the world is slowly but surely becoming fixed the world is eventually ultimately to be restored to the Garden of Eden you know I saw one movie over Passover with my kids I don't ever go to the movie theaters and so each movie is such an experience because the screen is so big technology that all the graphics are just unbelievable you know and I went to see Steven Spielberg's newest movie what is it called gap player game player one enter player one player1 something like that and I mean I don't encourage anyone to watch any movies but if you are gonna waste your time and watch a movie that was an amazing movie for me and it could be that I don't have good taste in movies because I don't see any movies in every movie is going to be really exciting but I walked away from that movie thinking about it for at least two days thinking about the virtual reality and what that is because that movie was brought into this world at this time and read the Steven Spielberg is a little bit of a nebat because we are living in our own oasis we're living in our own virtual reality here these bodies here they are just vessels for our souls that are experiencing this world as we know it now and you know the lavash already said gosh of Tovey in tough think good because it'll be good that's the truth and that if we just see that slowly but surely Israel is getting stronger the Jewish people are returning to our land evil is slowly evaporating cash on tickley soon just just gonna go up like smoke and we see it slowly but surely happening and we just need to think good because everything will be good that is the message of Emunah that is the ultimate message of the Jewish people who have been through more trials and more hardships and more challenges than any other people on the face of this planet and our message to the world is to say I want you to know that a cola cola cola Tova everything is for the good and then as we experiencing this world and we're living kind of through this fleeting life that we're just in and out in just a few decades that we should know that all of this is here to allow us to experience the range of what it is to be alive to allow us to grow into who we're meant to be and that pain in that sorrow it's just a part of the experience of being an independent free being that is the greatest gift that he gave us is to be alive in this world and that we just need to think good because it will be good and on an individual level that's what you're talking about him now let's take it to the national level the national level looking back at the Shoah right we're we're entering Yom Hashoah Holocaust Remembrance Day but to look back at that from where we are now as a nation in our land an independent people sitting on a hilltop in Judea overlooking Jerusalem on the precipice of redemption living revealing like already I feel like Diana how could as a nation how could we have even been so ambitious to think such a thing could happen that we're already at now and we haven't even begun to see the greatness that is in store for us so looking back at the Holocaust at the darkest of places it's it puts all of that into a perspective and you know when I'm seeing shana very very seriously now shana shana is a girl that I'm seeing very very serious Wow tell us more tell us more it's been a long journey for me do you love her long journey for me you love her do you love her Wow I do yes think that's very sweet of you to ask me that but you know I a big part of my trip to America the primary reason I decided to go was to go to her nieces Bat Mitzvah in New Jersey but really it was to meet her whole family and particularly her Bubbe Bubbe zhush that's what they call her and she is a very extraordinary spectacular woman a great storyteller someone that's gone through the depths of darkness and is constant smiles and positivity and sweetness and love I was able to actually sit down with her and have a great conversation with her and I'd love to share that conversation with you with all of you as we enter Yom Hashoah us so you can hear just one of the stories because there's a reason God has chosen simcha and Rachel to sanctify his name in the world because he saw the strength and that they're uniquely positioned and uniquely built from the time they were born to serve this great function of facing into darkness and bringing from it light and that's what they've been doing and as a nation that's what we've been doing when I meet someone like bubbies I feel the same sort of awe and reverence and gratitude that that I can be in someone like that presence that is able to live through such darkness and bring such life so thank you everybody for joining us it's great to be back with you and you could reach out to us re at the Land of Israel comm Jeremy at the Land of Israel calm we'll be back with you next weekend now Bobby's Uche Shalom everybody so it is a tremendous privilege to be interviewing today a very special woman who have come to know over the past two weeks her name is Sophie ljubka otherwise known by her grandchildren as bubbies Uche she is 94 years old and tremendous strength very sharp mentally sweet and loving emotionally and physically very strong and very remarkable human being and I'm very grateful bubbies hush that you agreed to sit down and let me interview you this means really a lot to me and I think the over time the people that listen to will be very grateful that you shared your story so maybe if we could start with with your story where would you say your story best begins I was born in Poland and I lived with my family in Fabian Itza Poland which is 15 kilometers from lot and after having a very nice you upbringing my parents were loving and very close to us children and working people and as kids in those days had to help but it was like part of nature anyway everything was nice and good till the war broke out with in 94 39 when the Germans came we live not far away from the border so we were the first to feel their presence in Paden itza rather way they made us go to a ghetto we live in the new part of the city and they built a place for the Jews in the old part of city and living space was very limited three families for families lived in one apartment Bubbe I want to ask you you said that in 1939 yeah all of this happened did it feel like it happened very quickly yes between the Germans coming and you being in the ghetto how much time was that maybe maybe they came in September 1st of September 1939 and indicator maybe with the beginning of 1940 in the poppy on each ghetto then in 1942 they made a beam it's a you denying they send us all to Lodz ghetto for those of you out there don't know the word you didn't Rhine means no Jews Jews and in going to Lodz ghetto they separated by the way men from a woman and my father was one in the two brothers of mine were sent from lots to hell no and my mother myself and my two sisters we stayed in the Lord's ghetto we didn't know anything about them till we found I found out after the war what happened for them in the Lodz ghetto we all had to work very hard but because we had to buy food our food was rationed and even though we needed money to buy to buy the food airing the coupons and I worked in a straw resort one of my sisters Miriam worked in a place across the street some water I worked she was she was I forgot the name can you hold sure of course can you connected she was braiding the straw and out of the braiding straw I used to make shoes big boots for the German soldiers that when went to Russia for under Russian front for them not to be called for them to wear over their boots and I was the oldest daughter my two younger sisters I felt obligated that I have to provide for the house and I myself and a couple friends of mine and that group that we were we did awkward work we made from 10 to 15 boots a day that was a lot of work and working wintertime in a cold place no he no fires around strong anyway thank God at that point we did not have to sell our rations to be able to buy relations and which in a lot of people people that were not able to work that happened they were selling their relations in order to buy relations my mother worked in a resort and a factory that made slippers so that my other sister and I remember actually I think one of your grandchildren is telling me a story about you working so hard that you you had a cut in your hand no this happened and then when I worked in the kitchen okay so we're not at that store at that part yet now okay so you so we're in the ghetto right now we're talking you're in the ghetto and okay in Lodz yes and somehow we made it the hard way from day to day starving hungry swollen man effect to the point that whenever some puppy on its people friend of mine try to come and visit me I used to tell my mother to tell him that I'm not home because in the last minute our resident of the ghetto from Bobby on each told us not to take a lot of clothes the Germans will take it away anyway so we came almost with no clothes no shoes to the ghetto and it was embarrassing for me that I had to wear wooden shoes that my friends would see me like that swallow being small noble it's known I know I wasn't the same person together the way I was back in home anyway that last until 1944 1944 in August 8th they made you denying they empty to ghetto they send more every day other every day more transports to Auschwitz we didn't know of course that we're going to ours we were told that we're going to work that they taking us to work so we all signed up and in the meantime my sister after me Luba she was sent out of the ghetto before us unfortunate so to the to our streets it was just my mother me in Isis to Miriam that we went together to Auschwitz and they where was Luba sent to we don't know we we had no contact they sent her out of a ghetto and that was it and you never saw her again either till now never heard of her anyway instils after after the horrible trip to Auschwitz and at cattle cars once in the lines for dr. Mengele to examine to to send us to the right to right the left my mother was said torn away from us and unfortunate we could not help getting her back I lost my mother in Auschwitz the same day so it was just me in my sister Miriam that's try to survive did you even get to say goodbye to her nothing she saw us being beaten because we didn't want to let go of her stones if we were beaten and she says in either go my children out see you later never saw again so in Auschwitz we went through the procedure of having our head shaved our they've saved us and they let us go to showers and took our clothes whatever our possessions and gave us short people get were given long dresses tall people were getting short dresses we looked like circus people anyway we didn't look like people at all at that point anyway we were sent to barracks and life was terrible what were the barracks like we slept on cots and cats and in the middle of the barrack was like a walk through that we had Hungarian people watching us they were they spoke German and they felt a little more privileged than the Polish Jews and in the morning they pray to God but after their prayers they got the whips and beat-beat else the more to meet us the more popular Berber getting and you're saying the Nazis got more popular the more they beat Hungarian in Berlin during our own girls oh my goodness yeah anyway it was horrible dirt lice latrines outside I don't have to describe our streets I'm sure at that point in that light years of our time now people I know the background of it our being the now streets anyway after a few weeks we were chosen to go to send they send us to another camp up north and Paul in three miles from the both in both ocean both in sea they send us to straight off which was another outfit but after a while by sheer luck the SS woman came to the barracks and chose me to help to work for her and at the same time she agreed that my sister should come with me so at that point we had enough we ate her soups in our soaps I was bringing out with the people in the barracks behind that I left my friends and I got a lot of Lessing at that point anyway to make so you're eating a little bit better a little bit better yes and then stop it so happened that there gentlemen leader of Lodz ghetto Joseph P both kept a group of Lourdes engineers and he was building himself a north-south Factory in Dresden and he kept those engineers till the factory was ready once it was ready one of the Labor Department people came to the SS woman and in our barracks asking for three woman's name three woman because three woman died in the engineer group and he needed substitute but so my sister says Sophie let's put our names on the list but I said Miriam here we have bread what we know maybe we want that these oh privilege she says but maybe we found some news about our family maybe we come across people that know something about them so I listened and we went to from straw talk to Dresden three days later we heard that the Russians were coming closer to stood off and the Germans told the people that they taking them and the trip to Sweden that they really settled that they're settling them for Sweden in the meantime they drowned them in the Baltic Sea well explained that the Germans said they were going to take them to Sweden so they put them onto ships yes and then they took their ships out to the middle of the sea down the people in the Baltic Sea oh my goodness and we were nothing juniors so we did not professional work but luckily we were assigned to work in the kitchen that's where I got that Tom my tongue infected and at night one of the launch doctors in a few people risk their life to save me because I had already in green green marks on my arm oh no so your your thumb was infected yeah and what would happen if your thumb was infected I imagine they don't send you to a doctor doctor they probably would put me in the oven anyway they to stay alive I still haven't marked we can see I see yeah and they saved my life and eventually when the Allies came bombed Germany the first bombing was Dresden one of the biggest bombing and Germany was Dresden our effect that he was burning and they kept us in the factory to the last minute in the last minute they decided to save us and brought us out to a sports field and then and so they took you to a sports field and that's how you survived yes but then they had nothing to do for me and there in that place they only kept their professional engineers and people like me and others like me they sent to a camp near their Stern and from there and after a few days they send us on a march to the hub and it was horrible we slept in their grass and wherever the Marten emerge from Dresden to tada yes we slept in the feeds we slept whatever we were no no no nothing in one morning where you be were you able to eat and drink we did we had no food we had nothing we were starving we was horrible they didn't give us food in the March and March in the marching anyway one morning my sister woke up and she picked a little grass to wet her lips with the dew of the grass and she got beaten by assessment so that she couldn't get up and I said to see my picture sister like that I said we're gonna live together or we gonna die together and I made that my mind that we gonna escape from the marching this was already April 4490 44 and we had in our group and an elderly girl that was more experienced than us she was a expert in enmity from Vietnam and we looked up to her to guide us in she agreed with us to run so in in the marching we watched for a place for the right place and the right time to go but it was very risky very we risk our life but it didn't matter to see my sister like that not be able to get out what's that made up our minds life was not worth living so finally my friend said that it's time that we came we walked by woods and she said let's run and hide in the woods how we had strength ran from the road across to the woods I'll never know but we ran we ran so deep in the woods that we saw skeletons of animals anyway we luckily we didn't have striped clothes we had regular clothes with painted concentration camp on it KL and stripes on the side so we turned it inside out and we went the opposite way the group the Martin group went one way and we went the other way and we finally came to a village and knocked in their lady's door and she must have been so scared of us must we must have looked like scrape scarecrows swung hungry not human anyway she said she doesn't have we said we're looking for work we Polish girls she said she doesn't have work for us but in the next village is a Polish girl maybe she'll help us good enough we marched and we found this woman did she give you at least something to drink think she was afraid to open the door she talked to us through a closed door through a window in the door window she was afraid to even open up doors we didn't look human if that would be means if I would see somebody like that I would be scared too anyway we found the this girl and she said that her boss does not need helpers but his brother is nearby and they took his son for the army and he has a daughter that is not the big worker she was a little Noddy anyway she brought us to that farmer and he accept the keepers and at that night there was a big touring of soap at the table in the home baked bread loaf of bread and he said said now indeed we looked at each other not the living that we lived the day that we can eat bread it was like the best cake in the world at that point after we ate he told us to go through the barn we slept in the barn and in the morning we rested in we're not hungry at that point we had to go to the fields we worked in the fields that's why he was keeping in there so you would work do you think that there was something in his in his heart that he wanted to save you or protect you I don't think so it's just the need of hell hence because he had a big farm they thought they did not work in the fields he needed people to work in the fields and he was desperate it was springtime so being trying to harvest know to plan things it was early spring okay so he okay this was the planting okay so we did whatever we cleaned the fields and see that the fields whatever whatever he asked us to do but we used to come home early in the day because we used to go to work for five o'clock in the morning so by twelve one we were back in his place and then our job was to feed the animals so we shared shared the food with the animals we had the boiled potatoes we discovered where he kept the meat whatever the dry meets and we helped ourselves we had a ball anyway as if we worked at the farm for two weeks the same Polish girl came running excited she said we don't have you don't have to work anymore the American soldiers on the road and we ran like crazy to see the American soldiers so this was you had two weeks working for this farmer you you were working in the field and in exchange he gave you some food you also found his secret stash of drives amazing yeah and things were good for you and then two weeks later we looked a little bit more normal right anyway two weeks later you hear that the American soldiers are there yes and I noticed a soldier with Jewish stars under his epaulets and I waist waved him down and he came out to say that he cannot talk to us now that he'll come back later because he cannot leave the column so he did come back later it turned out to be he was American chaplain and he from that time on he took care of like a father well um well he spoke what language did you speak to him in whatever language we called German either didn't know the worth of English at that point but he understood that he understood leaders uh-huh okay we were able to communicate with him so he was like a father to you absolutely he said he'll come back for us and he did the same night the same thing they he took us to his place into his hotel found us accommodation so brought us clothes brought us food he really extended himself to the outmost for us wherever he went we went and it came a time after awhile that he asked us where we want to go what want to do with our selves in the future and I told him we want to go home maybe somebody survived from the family but of course he checked for us wrote letters to the Polish government to the place where we lived and unfortunate nobody survived nobody nobody so the next question where where should we go we chose us to go our first place to go of course was Israel and she said that's up with the Haganah 3 ha whatever organizations that took care survivors providing trips to Israel for us and from the place from where I was he sent us to Pilsen because there was a camp that people from all over that part of Germany was meeting and from there and we little by little we made steps to go south to Italy in from it a little easier and that there in the meantime that being that this was the camp that people came from all over more people came from crowd from and in the group people from Prague was a few people from Lodge and they heard that there's lots the people some girls from Lodge they came to talk to us so they found us in our barrack and the first question was on everybody's mouth that you've come across this name that named that person did I did receive people that were related to them unfortunately being that they came from the same place as we did they were in the same place but Joseph was this big places house fits and we did not know them unfortunate but anyway being that they were from launched that group they we hooked up with them they were in between these people I met my future husband my sister met her future husband how did that happen and that's same guy that came in the morning to ask me for his family he asked me to go through it then they had dancers at night and that first has named in the sound service to me but his friend assured me that used to so I agreed to go to the dance but it was another guy I waited at the station my sister was went back to bring some more of our stuff that their chaplain got for us and she's supposed to come over on a train back to Filson and I waited for her and somebody said and next to me and the same bench a guy that I met previously from watch too and he asked what am I doing here I said I'm waiting for my sister and he asked me for a date - I said I already have a date then he says is is your sister as pretty as you I said she's prettier so and he didn't he waited he went he didn't let me go to the station pick her up he went and he said to my sister when she stepped down from the train I know my new Cheryl says right she says yeah who you she never saw him in her life anyway he never let go and they became a couple and it came time to go to Israel and I was sitting in my sister already on the bus and my future husband came over and he said that God does not ask people like us to go to Israel Israel was at war and we just came out of a war he said God does not lets people to go from one more to another and again IIT was idealist I didn't want to give up my idea of going to Israel but my sister said maybe he's right and again I listen to my sister but and your husband yes but in order to come to America we had to move that Germany and live in the German zone to be able to go through America wait you could have gone to Israel or to America but in order to go to America you needed to go live in Germany yes back to Germany was that a scary idea for you no the war was over but the people are still there yes but they were already American people they are told we had protection we were free we lived in camps but we were free anyway we wind up in fear involved and six months later we all four couples of us got married together and Ralf hurts our paws visiting the area Munich area at that time and he heard of the four couples getting married four couples of survivors he was excited and wanted to be a guest and he came from his whatever meetings whatever he got everything he came to be with us he came of course late she just managed to marry the youngest couple which was my sister Miriam and my brother-in-law Morris why bound so Miriam and Morris were married bhairav Herzog and I have throw shocking wedding presents supposed to be the first certificates to Israel we never got him to give me a table out whatever you are so he promised to presents and he wasn't able maybe they got lost in the mail maybe anyway in order to get to America we had to wait for our quotas we waited for years for years to get to America of course we had enough camps so after while we moved to Stuttgart and my daughter was born in Stuttgart and in 1949 our time came to America and thank God we came we I had already we had in Hartford Connecticut my husband's older brother came before us we followed them my sister followed me and we is that how it usually worked out you ended up moving to wherever you had me haha yes wherever you had a family in the States we were like all other citizens of course we had to face make our citizenship and in 1954 we all became citizens but like I say we had to work hard we American people were not too helpful helpful not at all even American Jews American Jews cried to us that they had it rough too that they had to eat chicken and they couldn't buy silk stockings and I told them my heart cries for you did they do you think they were really aware do they know what you had been through I hope so I hope so because there's a lot of controversy about whether American Jews knew it was happening if we're not sympathetic they were nuts they opened their arms to Russian Jews Russian Jews came the apartment were waiting for them places of where they would be living they had to furnish them for them for us we we had no place where to live when I came I had my sister-in-law was able to arrange for me a place one room with kitchen privileges in the elderly Jewish lady one room for three people and we I cook too much I clean too much I wash too much everything was too much so eventually my husband had a hard time getting a job no language he signed up once to go to a factory and the people in the factory asked him to sign a slip that he didn't know even what he signing and it was to join a union in the boss did not like Union so the following day it was out of a job again very hard and he didn't even know that he was signing a union with the time my husband went to school at night but I had to stay with the children uh-huh I picked up the language from the children from from papers books whatever but I never went to school in America I never had the chance because I always talk to him and hear him Wow so so he started a business eventually eventually with the help of a fellow Gentile helped him to learn to learn out of dryclean silk and at that time silk was popular and he made a go of it he we borrowed money but shortly the restitution money came to him and that was a big help he bought a business and established himself and thank God I was able to buy a house because I lived with a lady that let us have an apartment but under porch my kids could not play because their boy daughters boyfriend's occupied the ports in the back she had the garden and the kids couldn't play in the back Eden so we desperate needed a place where to live and the restitution that money from Germany was a big help for us to be able to give it a down payment on the house and I raised the family of three children thank God with education with a nice background and just unfortunate my husband died young and I kept going because I had no choice and Here I am 36 years of Widow but on the other hand you did get to see your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren and you have great grandchildren both well you have children and grandchildren both in Israel and in America and and look at looking back I'm not going to keep you for too much longer don't worry but looking back do you feel like there was any have you held on to anything that's along your journey that has given you strength yeah there's been certain responsibilities once you had the family it's the responsibility of keeping going to give them backgrounds to see that they grow up for decent human beings with education Jewish education American education we had a lot of obligations to that with children well you should know that you had obligations but you still do we need you around thank you still need you around so stay strong I mean thank you so much for sharing your journey with us and and please God we should have many more years