82. What Can We Do About the War?

Welcome to the Connected for Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started.

 And we are live. Welcome everyone to the connected for real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman and this is a podcast that's usually about marriage and business and how to deal with that intersection. But today I would like to talk a little bit about your personal role. in this war. I will tie it up a little bit with marriage just because I can't avoid the topic.

I love it so much. But I think it's really important for us to know what we can do. First of all, I'm hearing a lot of people I'm not going to call you guys out, but mostly men who are backseat driving the country like, Oh, he shouldn't have done this. He should have done that. He should have taken a left.

He should have taken a right. What is he waiting for? Right. a lot of trying to predict, trying to  advise, trying to stay in control of what's going on. And It is not easy, but it's not helping anyone. It's really not doing much right. Cause we don't have the power of the steering wheel.

We are not the people in the government and the power and the ones who are making decisions. If you are, please make the right decisions, but you know, I, I'm not sure they're listening, but anyway assuming that you are the prime minister, then. You don't have much control over what's happening. What we can control is ourselves.

And last week when the war just, just started, I had a podcast episode. You can go back and listen to it. It's called war. Big letters. And it's about the experience and how we're dealing with the emotional release and how we're protecting the children and all of that. It's a really great podcast episode that, you know, got a lot of traction.

Today, I'd like to talk about what's actually in our power beyond what we think is in our power. Okay. So, Let me start with a story. Yesterday I was speaking to my father and he's so sweet. He said I have to tell the story. So I will tell you the story. Because it is very illustrative. Is that a word?

Illustrative? whatever. It illustrates really well the situation that we're in. Okay. So there was the King and the King's son and the King's son did something really bad. And so the King kicked him out and the son figured out how to be a civilian. And he found himself a place where he can be an apprentice and he became a shoemaker.

And as he's working for this man who's the shoemaker and he's apprenticing, he is getting every day a loaf of bread and a place to sleep. And he has everything he needs. And he, he learns to live a normal life like everyone else and live on his. Loaf of bread and his place to sleep. And then one day the shoemaker dies and the shoemaker's son takes over and the shoemaker's son decides that, you know what?

A whole loaf of bread is just too much. I'm gonna give you half a loaf of bread and a place to sleep every day. And so this guy is really upset and he is trying to find who's going to help him. And lo and behold, the king who is. you know, waiting for his son to just ask to come home already because he misses him so much, decides that he's going to go to that town and hold court.

And anybody who wants can come and ask the king anything. And so the son comes to ask the king to help him. And the king says, so what can I help you with? And he says, let me tell you what happened. I was an apprentice and I used to get a whole loaf of bread and I used to have a place to sleep. And then, you know, the shoemaker died and the shoemaker's son took over and he lowered my wage to half a loaf of bread.

And. So the king is all waiting like, so what do you want, you know, like he's expecting him to say, I just want to come home. I just want to be , the son of the king again. I don't want to be living this like regular life anymore. And instead the kid is just, you know, the son is just like, I just want to get my whole loaf of bread every day.

I want there to be justice. Right? That's what I want. I just want to go back to how it used to be. And the king is like, you fool. You're my son. You're the son of the king. You are a prince. And you had the opportunity to ask for anything, anything. You could have gotten on your knees and said, I am so sorry about everything I've done, and I just want to come home already, and I miss you, and I want to be where I need to be.

And you could have cried and you could have said, I know that life could be better and I don't need to live this regular lowly life. I could have something that is so much greater and I'm asking you to bring me back. And I would have said yes. Because I too miss you and I, I want you back and I am ready for you to come back.

And I think that you've learned a lot in this journey that you've been on. And I think you've matured and I think that you're ready to come back. Why are you not asking for it? Right? This story is so perfect because it's exactly what we're going through. Here we are, we are living a life that is not ideal.

The ideal life is where God has his place, he has his home, there is a temple, and All of the world sees the light from that and everything is in its place and nobody is suffering and everything is just in flow and we are so limited. We have such a hard time. We can't even imagine what that looks like.

We don't know what life is without suffering because we're so used to suffering. We are so used to suffering. We don't even comprehend what that means that life could be without suffering. It could be in flow. Things could just work. Mind blowing, right? And that is the ideal. The ideal is that God is king, and everyone knows that God is king, and everyone serves, and everyone faces, and everybody is equal.

In a life that is in a different realm of reality. It is just ideal. And we can have that. We can have that if we want it. And our responsibility is to want it. And we're afraid to want it. We don't even know what we want. We are so limited that we don't want to want. Because we don't know what wanting means.

And if you guys have been following me for long enough, and if you haven't, please go back and listen. The calm method is the method I created to create flow. Step one is, the C, connect to yourself. And the question that you're asking yourself when you connect to yourself is, what do I really want? And here too, you are using the calm method to get to step one.

What do I really want? Well, let me tell you what I really want is the ideal life where God has his home and then we have our homes and then everything is at home and then you feel at home in your body and then there's just like this abundance of everything falls into place, right? When God is in his place, then everything falls into place.

I want you to take that in. And I was thinking in the middle of the night, it came to me, Eizehu chacham? Who is smart? This is in Pirkei Avot. Haroei etanolad. The one who could see the, you know, what's being born. And... You would think, okay, yeah, the smart people are the ones who are seeing ahead. They're telling us how many are going to be, you know injured and oh my gosh, the casualties and what's going to be, and what's going to be and doomsday and all this stuff.

And let me tell you, they're fine. They're in reality, they're just in a different level of consciousness. They don't understand fully. what it means to see birth. And so let me describe to you birth, okay? I've been through it seven times. First you find out you're pregnant, and then everyone has to tell you about their pregnancy and how they went through it.

and all of their experiences. And then it's like, it hurts so much. Oh my God, this and that, right? And then you start hearing everybody's crazy stories and it fills your brain with noise. Okay, great. We're doing wonderfully. Please avoid people who are telling you scary stories. Okay. Anyway, next you start feeling contractions, right?

You're ready to give birth. And you're starting to feel contractions. If this is your first time and you have not been educated and you have no idea what's going on, your thoughts and your beliefs and your immediate Reality is I'm dying, right? It hurts so much. There's something wrong. I am dying. And if you're a little bit advanced, you're like, Something's wrong with my baby.

There's a lot of pain. There's something going on. My stomach is changing shapes. There's like contractions happening and they keep getting worse. Something's wrong with my baby. He's gonna die. There's gonna be some like terrible thing, right? The doomsday thing is a very natural thing that happens when you are uneducated.

Right when you don't know anything about birth, but let me tell you the most amazing thing about birth The contractions are actually helping your baby come out. They are assisting you in labor and If you don't fight them, and if you don't resist them and if you're not in conflict with them you can get into a flow almost like hypnobirthing Or, you know, sort of like leaning into your body where you are assisting your body and you are letting it do its thing.

And you're in this like almost like waves of allowing yourself to open, allowing yourself to receive, allowing the whole thing to just take, take shape. You are in the process. And instead of fighting the process, you are focusing. On what's coming. And usually the thing that helps me in my birth is if I can visualize the after if I can see myself holding the baby and playing with the baby and I talked to the baby and I'm like, baby, you're coming.

You're really coming. It's okay. You're almost there. Keep going. We're really very close, right? And in my last birth, I had a home birth this last time because it was COVID. Thank God everything, you know, everything worked. Yeah. In the best way possible. The fact that COVID hit right as I needed it to, and that I was able to have a home birth and with a midwife and everything, thank God went so well.

I'm very, very grateful. I, I was in such a meditative state that I did not notice that there were people around. And at the end when I finally gave birth and the baby came out and I held my baby and she told me like you could sit down now and I sat down with the baby and I look around and suddenly I saw my mother and my mother in law and my daughter and my husband and the midwife and the doula.

There were six people there and I did not know that they were there. Okay. So there is this ability to completely get into a zone where you are working with your body, where you're, you're working with the contractions and the pain isn't as strong. Okay. Yeah, it did hurt a little, but it wasn't as crazy as, you know, those movies and things.

It really is a different experience.

And the only thing that. makes the difference between a horrific birth and an amazing birth is the ability to see what's coming. The ability to see what's actually coming. Your body is telling you you're dying. Your brain is telling you the baby is in stress. There's something going on. This pain means something is wrong.

And if you are smart enough, right, who is smart. If you are wise enough to be able to focus on what's coming and what's actually happening, you can get through it with so much less resistance, so much less stress, so much less pain, just lowering all those terrible levels of anxiety. Because you are so connected to what's coming.

And that's what I want to talk about today, is how are we going to get so connected to what's actually coming, that all of the noise about the lower consciousness stuff, like, oh, we're doomed, and this war is worse than the holocaust. Guys, The contractions keep getting worse. I can't explain to you physically how that happens, but we're really close to the end.

And when we're really close to the end, it just keeps getting ouchier. And the last ones hurt a lot. Like as much as I was in my meditative state, I still said, ow, it hurts. In the last one, okay, so the last one hurts a lot and I cannot take that away But what I can do is remind us all that there is something beyond the pain There is something beyond this thing that looks like we as limited people Can see through and that is there is redemption there is God's presence.

There is an entirely new reality that is going to be setting in that we have no idea what it looks like because we are so disconnected. And the more you can connect to it, the more you can feel a little bit more of that focus. It adds hope, it adds light, it allows you to focus on the destination and on where we're going, and it takes away some of the power of all the noise, because you know, if you're smart enough and you've been educated enough in birth, somebody's going to tell you, Oh my god, you're dying.

You're like, no, I'm not. Like, I know I'm not, right? Something's wrong with your baby. It must be hurting so much. Like, no, it's not hurting at all. Like, it's fine. The baby is okay. It's coming out. He's happy, you know? Yes, maybe he's not happy to come out because he's just a baby, but whatever. Ask my husband.

Everything for me is happy. But anyway, so what can you actually do? So I wrote down a bunch of my ideas. I want you to realize that the only thing that we can control as humans is our will. We. Want. You. Back. Yesterday, I went up to the Temple Mount, Har Habayit. The night before, I went to the mikvah, I dunked in the ritual bath, in preparation for going up to the Temple Mount, because you can't just show up.

This is God's home. You've got to come prepared. You cannot come in leather shoes. You have to come with, you know, we walked barefoot, but some people walk with, you know vegan shoes, like the, you know, the non leather stuff. You're not allowed to come as if it's a hike. You can't come with a hiking backpack.

You cannot come with a hiking stick. You, are home. You're showing up and you're coming home and it is the most present, presence, grounded experience that I can think of and it was the thing that turned around this entire experience for me. One of my friends said, Oh boy, last week was a heck of a year and I started laughing because that's exactly how it felt.

Last week was, woof, a very stressful, very roller coaster, very emotional, a lot of, a lot of everything. There was just a lot all around. And this week I committed to going up to the Temple Mount. I committed to You know, to pray there for everybody. And I asked anybody who can send me names and I received many, many of you, you know, beautiful names.

I prayed for everyone. It was a really special experience. The reason why I went there is because during the time of war, we are told that what we need to do is come to the place that God chose, which is the temple Mount and tear down the heavens. That is where we are meant to go. That is the instructions in the instruction manual.

It tells you in the time of war or a terrible, you know, this, what you're supposed to do is everyone is supposed to run to the temple mount and they're supposed to blow the chauffeur and they're supposed to blow the trumpets and they're supposed to tear. down the sky with their cries and with their prayers and just want to come home.

And I have to tell you, the experience was magnificent. The place was empty. We saw maybe a hundred, maybe 10, sorry, not a hundred. We saw maybe 10 Arabs total in our entire time. We were there. The. The whole plaza was completely, completely clear of people and the floor was wet because, you know, it had rained the night before and we were, you know, I was walking barefoot and my two daughters were with me and they were also barefoot and we were praying and we were, you know, just connecting on a really deep level.

By the way, it was also Rosh Chodesh. So I got to say Hallel and I got to pray Musaf and, you know, there was even a bunch of men there and they had a minion and they were able to pray properly, which was really beautiful. The situation up there. If in case you've heard in the past that you know, they're they're mean or they scream at you or they don't let you pray.

It's totally different now. They have completely changed their their attitude towards the Jewish people who want to go up. They're allowing everyone. To get together and pray and and we even had time to speak and a woman came and said that she's thanking God for her. I think it was her son or her grandson who came back you know, injured but alive and she came to say thank you for that.

And then someone else spoke. It was a really beautiful. Is it the Mount of Alaska? No, it's the Temple Mount. I think you mean El Aqsa. El Aqsa is the building right next to it. That's what the Arabs call it. But the Temple Mount is, you know, the actual place where the temple stood. And it still holds the holiness.

Even though the temple isn't standing and it's where the third temple is going to be when we finally get to this next level of redemption. So it was a really amazing experience. We were a group of 17 women. And on top of that, there was about 10 men. So it was a really nice big group. The, we had. I don't know, maybe 10 armed guards around us and they were really sweet.

They were patient with us. They let us pray. They let me finish all the way to the end. They didn't hurry me at all. They let us speak. They let us. You know, whatever we were just, it was a really special, special oh, yeah, it was really beautiful. So if you can do that and you're able to, I highly recommend, I highly recommend that you prepare and that you come, you know, properly and follow the guidelines.

And, you know, of course we don't go up to the place where we're not allowed to go. We go in a perimeter around the place and around the places. We know very well where the maps are. We, you know, some people say we're not allowed to go up because we don't know. We know, okay. We have maps.

We have plenty of rabbis, even the Rambam Maimonides writes about this. He describes exactly where he walked and where he, what he saw when he came to visit. So we have plenty of evidence and plenty of, of information about it is definitely not correct that we don't know. And if you can, I highly recommend you go and do the same.

Go to the place where you were told to go, this is a prescription and ask, ask God, please come back. We need you. Thank you. We're ready. We want you. We, we are ready. And even if we're not ready, we want to be ready and we want it to be. If you are for any reason, not able to go up to the temple Mount, maybe you are not pure.

You got your period or any other reason. Maybe it's not the right time. Maybe it's not something you feel comfortable doing. All those things are completely. valid. There are other ways. There is something called Sivuv Shearim, which is circling on the outside perimeter of the Temple Mount. You go with a group and a guide and they usually do it with music and  singing and dancing.

It's really, really a beautiful experience and you circle on the outside through, ,  the quarters and, , around the perimeter and you can learn a lot. You can experience a lot and you go from gate to gate. So it's called Sivuv Shearim because you are circling the gates of the Temple Mount.

This too. is an amazing experience. You do not need to prepare for such a thing because you're on the outside, so there's no need to go and immerse in a Ritual bath in a mikvah. There is, you know, the only preparation you need is, I guess, to bring a sweater and and some walking shoes. Okay, so I highly recommend that if you could find out more information about that and sign up is a very fun experience.

I've done it once. My daughter went recently. She said she really liked it. Other things that you can do. If you are not local, if you are not present, you can learn. I don't know if you guys see behind me, if you're watching live or if you're watching the replay, we got ourselves a little model of the temple and we are educating ourselves with what's what and what happens where.

And it's just really interesting to learn new things and to widen your horizons about reality and ideal reality and higher consciousness and different questions that come up. Recently we were talking about after you give birth, you're supposed to give a. An offering,  for post birth offering and, we were talking about how all these women who've had like, I don't know, eight kids, 12 kids are going to come and like have to bring 12 offerings.

Like that's a lot. It turns out it's a dove, so it's not that expensive. It's not so bad, but we didn't know that at the time. So we were like, you know, talking about it and laughing about it and is she going to be able to do it? And like, Parts because it's just too expensive to do all at once. Could you imagine, you know, the, the priests show up on the first day of work and there's like thousands of women waiting online just to give their offerings because they all had babies in the last, like, you know, whatever amount of years.

So it's just, it was very funny to start talking about the new reality and what it's going to look like and how it's going to be. And it was also really fun to have other people around who were. More knowledgeable than us to give us a little bit of information. Like if you don't give the offering, then you're not fully pure and you must give one, one offering after a birth in order to purify.

And they, and then one of the men said that there's even a new, it's not new, but there was one rabbi who a long, long time ago made a, a decree that if someone is. In that situation where they owe a bunch, they can just do one and cover all of them. So that was a really fun,  new piece of, of knowledge that that added to our conversation.

And this is just an example of how you can bring up questions and learn more and get into. What's actually going to look like, how it's going to be, you know, are we going to,

are we going to be showing up and And experiencing different things. And how is it going to look and what is it going to feel like? And, you know, everyone with their kids and their goats and there's going to be a lot of very interesting sites that we are not even imagining. But then again, I want to bring us back to, you know, giving birth.

If the mother knew how much her life would change once this baby was born. You know, if she even comprehended the amount of growth and who she would become thanks to this experience and thanks to having this baby in her life, I don't know if she would believe you. I don't know. Like if you came and said, Oh my God, this is the thing that's going to change your life forever.

Yeah, you can maybe possibly understand ish, but unless you went through it, you won't ever understand. That's how it is. That's how it's going to be. We're going to suddenly find ourselves dealing with new things. You know, screaming at our kid, like, don't touch that. I don't know what, you know, and, and it's going to be normal.

Just like we do with parenting and that's going to be really cool. Okay. So we spoke about, you can learn more. You can actually take action and, you know, move towards doing something that feels. It's aligned. You can want it more. You can support the movements that are working towards bringing more awareness.

I know the group that I went up with to the Temple Mount is Women for the Temple, Nashim Lamana Mikdash, and it's run by Rina Ariel, the mother of Halil Yaffa Ariel, who was murdered I don't know how many years ago. It was already very terrible situation. And she's an amazing woman. She is now helping other people who've had to go through similar things.

And she is strengthening them, which is just absolutely incredible. So, you know, people like her find out, how can I help? How can I support? How much do you need? What are you working towards? Right? And they have big goals and they want to. grow  their ability to impact and their ability to teach. They have zoom classes.

They have in person classes. They have get togethers. Obviously they go once a month up to the temple mount as a group. And, and it's a really beautiful community and movement that is starting and they're not the only ones. There's many, many such movements that are working towards bringing awareness of what's actually.

What actually matters. Okay. What else you could do is you can talk about it. You can ask questions, you can fantasize, you can dream, you can journal about wanting it and what it's going to do and how it's going to change. And I want you to just realize the fact that we don't feel at home in our bodies, the fact that we don't feel at home in our homes.

There's a lot of couples who are not feeling at home. They're not, they're not feeling it. And that's, that's real suffering that that's my specialty. If you're in that boat, please reach out. If you know, there's a lot of people who don't have a home. Physically, they're just looking for a home.

They're looking to own. They're looking to not have to move every year all of that suffering All of that suffering is because god does not have his home and as soon as he has his home Everything else will fall into place And all we have to do is wanted and focus on it and believe it and be so 100 percent there.

And when the pain hits, and when the contractions feel like they're tight, taking a deep breath and meditating on this amazing, crazy, unattainable experience that we can only imagine if we try, and the more you can focus on that, the less you will feel the pain.

And so to end, I want you to take a deep breath.

I want to offer you the opportunity to release all of the stress. All of the anxiety, all of the noise, just blow it all out.

And when you inhale, inhale clean, clear, pure, divine light in, into your body. Fill yourself up. expand and allow God to get that much closer

and then say, I want to be back in the palace. I want to be home. I'm ready.

And may all of our prayers be answered. And may all of the soldiers come home safe, healthy in their bodies and healthy in their souls.

And may God protect all of us. I love you all. Have a great day.

 And that's it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn't it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode.

Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget you can be connected for real.