Toward a Meaningful Marriage

I'm so excited that I find myself starting to teach a course on a meaningful marriage in this new place! I'm almost crying tears of excitement, remembering how I had to rebuild my life after experiencing divorce about six years ago. I've come a long way. This was the so-called descent for the sake of ascent.

When I descended and experienced the so-called "dark night of the soul". In retrospect, I understand that this life challenge prepared me for encountering and absorbing Chabad Chassidus and its profound teachings in that it broke my heart and made me humble.

One of these profound teachings I studied both formally and by myself concerns marriage, and a meaningful one at that. When I first encountered it after my divorce, I said to myself, "I wish I had encountered it before marriage."

So I have good reason to get excited now that I've started teaching a course on a meaningful marriage for local doctors through the intermediary of one local marriage agency whose three founding members are very satisfied ex-clients of my Jewish coaching.

In spite of my initial fear that my potential students may show some resistance to the fact that this teaching in general and this specific course of mine in particular are Jewish and scare them away, the first students reacted very positively, some even enthusiastically. This has made me realize that truth is universal regardless of its origin.

Teaching this course is also an excellent opportunity for me to deepen my knowledge and understanding of a meaningful marriage as a preparation for my possible marriage sometime somewhere.

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Justice and Integrity

When I was still deeply trapped in my mind-made prison, I used to get angry very easily, until it destroyed something that was very precious to me back then. Paradoxically, it's this very anger that has made me stop getting angry since then. The destruction brought about by my anger was so devastating that it has even destroyed the very source that produced the anger itself.

These days I seldom get angry. But there is one thing toward which I still feel fierce anger, and mounting one at that. This one thing is social injustice, especially in international relationships. Even the word "anger" may be an understatament.

I can't stop feeling disgusted with the grave injustice committed by the "Empire of Lies" and its vassals in the rest of the world. I'm discovering, mainly thanks to X, where I follow consciencious and courageous individuals, that this injustice isn't new but has been going on for decades and even centuries. But thanks to X and other alternative media outlets, this injustice is being exposed, probably for the first time to the detriment of this "Emipire of Lies" and their vassals.

I'm no less appalled by their lack of integrity, or their hypocrisy and double standards. The "rules" they have been imposing upon others don't apply to them, and they have been continuing to commit the very crimes that often fabricate and falsely accuse their "enemies" for.

This has made me realize that justice and integrity are among the most important values for me. Fortunately, I have enough reason to be optimistic. For the first time in centuries, we are witnessing the decline of this unjust unipolar world order and the emergence of a more just multipolar world order driven by a couple of (re)emerging powers that are demonized by this "Emipire of Lies" and their vassals through their worldwide network of propaganda, which may be the last remaining "legacy" of theirs. Enough is enough.

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Total Inner Surrender to What Is

One of the inner states I've been aspiring these days to arrive at and remain in is total inner surrender to what is, which in turn is supposed to bring peace. I feel I've really come a long way since I found myself starting this spiritual journal as a result of one totally unexpected turmoil I experienced in life several years ago.

In the process of this transformation I first became aware that I had been asleep in that I had been totally trapped in my mind-made prison and had been unaware of this. Little by little I've started to liberate myself from this prison, spending more and more time in the present moment.

Since I left Jerusalem about six months ago and started experiencing new challenges in this new place, I've also started to make a conscious effort to say "yes" to life by totally surrendering to what is.

The most difficult but the most powerful part in this daily exercise is to realize that what I experience each present moment is intrinsically good and internalize this realization beyond my rational mind. This way each present moment becomes a purpose in itself instead of remaining a stepping stone for some never attainable "brighter" future.

This way I've stopped seeing my present state as an "exile" or preparation for some "redemption". I've never been more peaceful than now in my entire life.

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Use(fulness) of Parallel Texts for Language Learning

Several years ago I realized the usefulness of parallet texts for language learning and have started using them to improve my Russian, though not so systematically. This method of language learning seems more common in Russia than the other countries I've visited, at least considering the quantity of such texts in major bookstores in Moscow.

In my continued daily and weekly study of Chabad Chassidus I use such parallel texts in the Hebrew (and Yiddish) original and its Russian translation. What I like best (and continue to read every weekday and every Sabbath respectively) are two of the Chabad classics - Tanya (printed version / free online version) and Hayom yom (printed version / free online version).

From the next week I'm finally starting my long-year project to read some of my most favorite books in English in parallel with their respective translations in Russian (online list).

One of the greatest benefits of parallel texts is that you get the exact equivalents in the source and target languages in every specific context, assuming that the translations are precise.

Hopefully, this method of continuing to learn Russian, together with work with a private teacher, among others, will help me improve my Russian. I haven't been more highly motivated than now to raise my level of proficiency in both written and spoken Russian.

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Death of Something That Used to Be Very Precious to Me

These days I've starting saying "kaddish" symbolically to something that used to be very precious to me. It started to die inside me a few months ago, but in retrospect it must have been dying for a long time in the eyes of those who see the reality more objectively. I was simply unaware how serious its sickness had been until rather recently. But now I can't fail to notice it, nor can I deny it.

I still have a hard time accepting this death as it forces me to totally replan the rest of my life accordingly. One thing seems certain, at least as of now. I can't and don't want to continue as if it were still alive for me though it may still look alive to those who have a blind faith in it.

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Necessity to Press Olives to Extract Oil from Them

I still remember being quite tired of hearing "success" almost everyone wished me on autopilot when I told my friends and acquaintances in Jerusalem that I would leave Jerusalem for some personal mission in the Diaspora. I didn't ask each one of them what they exactly meant by "success", but I have good reason to assume that "success" for many, if not all, of them, means realization of what the ego wants.

The ultimate purpose of our life, or the reason why the soul "descends" to this physical world by borrowing a physical body and being coupled with the ego, is not to continue to "success", that is, to keep realizing what the ego wants but to accomplish spiritual growth.

Muscles of not only the body but also the soul can't grow if they remain in the comfort zone. Experiencing life challenges is one of the best ways to get out of the comfort zone. Chassidus teaches that each one of us is born with the necessary resources for getting over every life challenge we encounter.

When we only remain in the comfort zone, we often end up not noticing and making use of these resources that are buried inside us and are waiting to be used by us just as it's necessary to press olives to extract oil from them.

My "olives" are being pressed again since I left Jerusalem for my new personal mission. I wonder what kind of new "oil" will be extracted from this experience of encountering new life challenges and hopefully conquering them one after another.

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Red Line Not to Be Crossed

There is a red line to everything not to be crossed. If someone crosses it, I have to walk away from him. This applies not only to individuals but also to social collectives.

Recently I've learned that what constitutes the ultimate red line for me. It the worst imaginable manifestation orinating from the worst illusion of the collective ego. If someone manifests this by himself, I definitely have to walk away from him. This manifestation contradicts my most fundamental belief so much that when I witnessed someone supporting it, thus being complicit in it, I had to make a very difficult decision to walk away from him.

Ideally, I would also walk away from the social collective itself that is deeply stuck in its illusory collective ego and is constantly nurtured by it. The individual I had to walk away from belongs to this collective. The saddest part is that he is not exceptional in supporting not only this manifestation per se but even its escalation and this collective ego is not the only one that manifests itself in the same, most horrendous, manner.

I still have to think thoroughly if I can walk away at all from this social collective, and if yes, how. This realization is the result of the third series of my awakening and is causing a tectonic shift to my life. I'm even starting to say kaddish symbolically to myself as something that used to be very precious to me has died.

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Western Mainstream Media Outlets as Propaganda Tools of the "Empire of Lies"

"When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals." - Julian Assange

It's almost two years since I woke up to realize that Western mainstream media outlets are nothing but propaganda tools of the "Empire of Lies" and its "oligarchs". They tell lies after lies as if to breathe. The more lies of theirs I'm exposed to, the more disgusted I become, but the more helpless I also feel as what is at stake is a whole complex that is far beyond the power of individuals.

I even feel more helpless when I encounter people after people who consume these lies as if they were facts, without being aware that they are brainwashed. A recent poll in the US showed that only about 30% still trust mainstream media.

It's rather hard to believe this number as a number of individual journalists I trust and follow say that the US is the most propagandized nation on the planet. Most of my friends in Jerusalem seem to relate to Western mainstream media in blind faith. Some of them treated me as if I were a propagandist, repeating the same propaganda of these outlets to accuse whistleblowers as propagandists.

The last nail in the coffin for me with regards to these propagandists, or the "stenographers" of the "Empire of Lies" was their utter silence or intentional ignorance of the trial of Julian Assange in one colony of this empire. Corporate journalism is long dead for me, but this trial served for me its official deathday.

"If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry." - Edward Snowden

PS: List of my favorite independent journalists

PPS: Please allow me to recommend you a courageous and eloquent Australian independent journalist named Caitlin Johnstone, who has been criticizing Western mainstream media outlets as propaganda tools of the "Empire(s) of Lies". The following are some of her best gems on this issue:

• Propaganda Isn't Something That Only Happens to Others
• Awakening from the Narrative Matrix
• Psychological Tyranny Is Still Tyranny
• A Prison Where the Prisoners Don't Know They're in Prison
• Most Propaganda Looks Nothing Like This
• Propaganda Restricts Speech More Than Censorship Does
• Why Propaganda Works
• Fighting Propaganda Is a Matter of Survival

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Historic Interview of Tucker Carlson with President Vladimir Putin

* Update (2024-02-16): Links to some commetaries were added at the end of this post as PS.

As a kind of historical record, therefore without much ado, I'd like to recommend all of you to watch a two-hour historic interview of Tucker Carlson with President Vladimir Putin, which was recorded on Tuesday, February 6 in Moscow and broadcasted on Thursday, February 8, in English and/or Russian if you haven't watched it yet and especially if you've never listened to President Vladimir Putin in his own words:

• English
  • Tucker Carlson's website
  • Tucker Carlson's X account
  • Tucker Carlson's Rumble channel
  • Kremlin's website in English (with transcript)
• Russian
  • Sputnik's Rutube channel
  • RT's Rutube channel
  • Kremlin's website in Russian (with transcript)

I have much to say about President Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson and the contents of this historic interview as well as all the fuss Western "journalits" have made about it. But I've decided to add nothing personal here so that you may watch it with no prejudice and labeling.

Enjoy!

PS (2024-02-16): Some commentaries on the interview worth checking

• Tucker's First Discussion since the Vladimir Putin Interview by Tucker Carlson
• Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin by The Duran
• The Vladimir Putin Interview - Part One by William Schryver
• The Vladimir Putin Interview - Part Two by William Schryver

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Additional Educational Initiative in the New Place

One of my boyhood dreams was to become a polyglot. Since then I've learned 12 foreign languages and become fluent in four of them, so I can probably say that I've realized this dream of mine.

Later in my life something I hadn't even dreamed of happened. I fell in love with Hebrew, which was one of these 12 languages, and decided to dedicate my life to its study. I ended up receiving my PhD in Hebrew linguistics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then even tenure in Hebrew linguistics at another Israeli university.

Something even less expected happened afterwards. I decided to leave this tenured position of my own free will and started spreading through language what transcends language, first in Israel, then in this new place after leaving Israel at the end of September 2023.

Though I had no appetite for teaching languages per se, I continued to look for some way to make the best use of my experiences of learning and researching languages (and linguistics) for many years, until I had two fateful encounters in this new place in the middle of last month.

When I visited the local library of this new place to see if I could participate in some group of volunteers, I saw many high school students studying there in silence. Some of them must have been studying English. I was sorry for them as I felt they were wasting their precious time learning English in an inefficent manner. Then I was reminded of one method I encountered about 44 years ago when I was in their age.

Thanks to this method, my proficiency in English made a dramatic program. As I continued to study 11 more languages as an undergraduate, then graducate student in three universities, I applied this method of learning foreign languages to the study of all these languages and became fluent in four of them, which were (and still are) important to me. I didn't want to invest the equal amount of my time and energy in the study of the rest of the languages I studied as they were less important. Now I'm applying this method to my renewed study of Russian - my most beloved language.

I never told about this method to anyone else. At the same library later on the same day I had an even more fateful encounter. I stumbled upon a book that explains in a very convincing manner with evidential proofs why this method works. It's based on the principles of the so-called neuroplasticity. I felt a sudden urge to share it with these high school students as well as adults.

There must be many people who teach English and other major languages here (and elsewhere in the world), but I wonder how many people teach how to learn foreign languages by rewiring our brain. With this in mind I launched an additional educational initiative called "Multilingual Brain".

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Ignorance of Ignorance

If you don't know what you don't know, how can you become aware of your ignorance as the first step to knowing what you don't know? And if you see someone else who doesn't know what he doesn't know, how can you help him become aware of his ignorance?

It's by sheer divine grace that I woke up from my sleep state about six years ago as a result of hitting the rock bottom in my life. Until then I wasn't aware I had been asleep. The more I woke up slowly but steadily, the more people around me, including my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, I found who were asleep and unaware of this state of theirs.

Since then I've left academia, where I spent almost 30 years, to take upon myself a professional mission to help others wake up through the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, which I was lucky enough to encounter at the first stage of my spiritual awakening six years ago.

But I've been struggling with the challenge of this ignorance of ignorance by my potential clients, first in Israel, then in a new place I relocated to about four months ago. I haven't found any magical formula yet for breaking this vicious circle.

I've also started experiencing the same problem, mostly in my private life, after each of the two subsequent waves of my awakenings in two other areas. In these areas I've already given up the idea of helping others wake up as this has nothing to do with my income.

When someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know starts accusing me of my view in these areas that is incomprehensible and repulsive to him, I've already learned to simply walk away from him in silence not only figuratively but even physically sometimes without even trying to explain to him but with compassion for them. I also try to remain as humble and non-judgemental as possible.

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Dwindling Possibiliy of Returning to Jerusalem after Completing the Present Personal Mission

Since I left Jerusalem at the end of September after living there for about 24 years in total, I've been asking myself if I can return there to live there after completing the present personal mission somewhere in the diaspora. I'm becoming more and more pessimistic about this possibility.

The main reason for this is a practical one - money. To be more precise, I'm afraid that the monthly pension I'm supposed to receive from the age of 67 from my personal pension fund through my former employer isn't enough to live in Jerusalem, especially in the same neighborhood where I lived for 19 years.

At least in relative terms my monthly pension isn't bad at all, especially in view of the fact that I only worked for 16 years in the university without waiting for the official retirement age. For this I'm grateful to my former emplorer. Right before I left Israel I was shocked to discover that the husband of someone I studied with 30 years ago worked as a doctor in a hospital for about 35 years and will receive more or less the same amount as I.

In addition to this "negative" reason, so to speak, I also have one "positive" reason for not returning to Jerusalem and spend the last chapter of my life in the present reincarnation there. I feel that I've already realized the dream of living in Jerusalem - the dream I started to have after spending five years as a PhD student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It took me about ten years to return to Jerusalem. There is one city I've been dreaming of living in.

Actually, I made a short visit to this "dream city" of mine at the beginning of July before leaving Jerusalem. I wanted to check how I would feel there after six years of absence. I also wanted to make sure that I hadn't been idealizing the city. To make a long story short, I fell in love with the city anew. On the one hand, I enjoyed every moment I spent there, but on the other hand, I was so sad as I couldn't remain there as I already knew I had to go on my personal mission somewhere else.

Anyway, I'm more and more inclined to this option of trying something Iv'e never trying. I also have a few other reasons for wanting to try this option, but they are too complicated and too personal to share with you here.

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The First Professional Lectures and the First Private Lesson in the New Place

It's about three months since I came to this new place for some personal mission with public implications, the most important of which is my educational initiative to transform darkness into light.

This week I finally took the first step in this direction - perhaps a small step for others in absolute terms but a big one for me in relative terms - I taught the first lecture of each of the two courses I had planned as part of this educational initiative. I don't have many students yet, but I thought - and still think - it more important to start than to wait until I have enough students.

The two courses, both of which are based on the teachings of Chabad Chassidus, are commentaries of the Pentateuch by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, who is the teacher of my former teachers in Jerusalem, and positivity bias according to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh rebbe of Chabad.

I was especially touched to see a junior high school student as one of my students in the second course with his father. He was rather shy during this first lecture, but his father told me later that his son burst into talking in excitement right after the lecture. Those seeds of positivity I shared with them in this first lecture are just the tip of an iceberg, but I've already sensed anew that "a little light dispels a lot of darkess" as Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, said.

I also had another, no less important, first-time experience this week. I finally had my first private lesson in my most favorite language, Russian! I found my new private teacher in a local Russian course. Somehow I sensed intuitively that she must be an excellent teacher even before I took part in one lesson of hers in this course at a local culture school for adults. My intuition was correct. Right after this lesson I asked her to be my private teacher, and to my joy, she agreed on the spot.

I wanted to improve my practical skill of Russian in speaking and writing not only for its own sake as I love this language so much that I even consider it as one of the two daily spiritual nourishments but also for some practical purpose.

While waiting for this first private lesson for almost two months, I corresponded with her in Russian, which has already helped me a lot. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover through this correspondence that we also seem to share the same ideas about spirituality, Western mainstream media and geopolitics - the three areas in which I've experienced awakenings.

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Pleasure of a Bath and Natural Hot Springs

By following the recommendation by my "sponsor" here I've started to taking a bath every weekday in the evening instead of only taking a shower, probably for the first time in many years. In the past 19 years of living in Jerusalem I couldn't take a bath simply because this was technically impossible. Now I realize what I missed all these years.

In the meanwhile I've stumbled upon a couple of professional articles on the benefits of taking a bath. Regardless of these medical benefits I simply enjoy this old new daily habit. It fascilitate my shift from work to sleep via this habit and a daily practice of yoga. This pleasure is first and foremost physical, but also affects my mental and emotional wellbeing. Physical relazation leads to mental and emotional relaxation.

I enjoy taking a bath so much that I've even started visiting a natural indoor hot spring I've found at the distance of a 50-minute ride by bus or a 30-minute by train from where I've been given where to stay for free. For a couple of practical reasons I can only afford this pleasure once a month. The day of this monthly visit has already become a special day for me.

I enjoy this natural indoor hot spring so much that I made a spontaneous decision yesterday to visit a natural outdoor hot spring I've found in the same region. In spite of the weather and its isolated location it was full of visitors, including many from other countries. I can't express verbally even one hundredth of the pleasure I had yesterday in this special outdoor hot spring that seems to be known not only in the region but also in the whole country and even beyond.

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