10/03/2025
This YOM KIPPUR was quite unlike any other in decades. Evil has had a field day this past year. No need and no point in recounting all the tragedies, horrors, heinous actions and remarks by barbarians, terrorists, confused, misguided people—you’ve heard it enough times.
HOW DO WE deal with this toxic environment to keep ourselves sane, balanced, reasonable and relatively calm midst the storm?
We can’t escape it — unless you choose to go live on a mountainside in Tibet. Alone. So, there’s hardly a choice. It comes down to more than endurance and patience, waiting for the storm to pass, and often (more so these days) when one passes, there’s a new one right behind it. Forces of evil afoot are coming faster, quicker, more sinister and clever than ever.
Maintaining inner peace and living in harmony with people, above all feeling God’s Peace around you when you’re faced with circumstances far beyond your control… that requires strict discipline. It does not mean ignoring a problem; certainly it does not mean living in denial.
Holocaust survivors could not ignore what was happening around them.
The benefit of catastrophes that we can see and feel, is that we can see and feel them. The evil afoot today is in people’s hands – – unseen, creeping up into the brain, slowly but efficiently taking over, unfelt, fully in control… until it’s too late — it occupies the mind, heart and soul.
It struck me many many years ago how evil the very name of it is: World Wide Web. We can so easily get trapped in it, especially children for whom “games” are specifically targeted and designed to be addictive.
Therein lies the beast.

There is but one way to defeat this enemy: Determination, discernment, discipline—these must be acquired through faith in God our Creator, CHOOSING THE WAY HE has shown us…
More tomorrow. L’Shanah Tovah.
