Australia's War on Business is a War on Everyone, by Shoshanna Silcove

    Have you taken a walk down Glen Huntly Road lately? The formerly prosperous and bustling Elsternwick Shopping district that has been much beloved by the locals,  and has been extremely popular with Jewish Melbourne in particular, is now a shadow of its recent self.  The economic calamity known as lockdown has just begun to show its signs there with several storefronts completely shut down on every single block.  The same can be seen on Carlisle Street, and one can presume in every single shopping district in Melbourne. These businesses are not temporarily closed. Nor are they doing business in a limited fashion through 'click and collect' or take away-- not at all. These businesses, many of them that were very profitable and well established, are well and truly done, finished, as in out of business and never to return again.

    For those of you my dear readers who are not business owners this may not actually affect you so much. Perhaps you still have a steady paycheck, are on Jobkeeper or the dole,  work for the government, are a member of the clergy, or work for an educational institution, so for you the restrictions and lockdowns have perhaps been at worst an inconvenience, or even better, a pleasant break from the routine. For the owners of most small to medium businesses, however, this has been an absolute living nightmare--- but just wait, it will be for you as well soon enough, as will be explained in a moment. But for now, if you are  not a business owner try for a moment to put yourself in their shoes.

    Imagine you worked and scrimped and saved for many years to finally own your own business. You take pride in it, it is your 'baby' as they say. You toil more than your employees because all the responsibility lies on your shoulders and, you care about it more than anyone else would, as that would be natural. 

    At times it took tremendous self discipline and sacrifice to keep it going, so much so that maybe you wanted to quit, throw in the towel and give up, but your persevered. During those tough times you paid your employees a salary but not yourself. During those tough times who was there that you could unburden yourself to? Your customers? They would be the last people you would confide in, unless you wanted to ruin your business. Your creditors? Your employees? The bank? The government?  Your competitors? Of course not! How about your friends who are not business owners? They probably mean well but could not relate. Your spouse? Maybe, unless you would rather not have them get anxious and worried about all your problems. The point is that a  business owner is very much on their own, the captain of their own ship, but unlike the navy captain, the business owner cannot rely on the support of their superiors or on the loyalty of their workers, as neither support nor loyalty are coming their way.

    Imagine, after all the hard work and sacrifice the business succeeds. It is humming along day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Some quarters are better than others. Of course there are snags along the way and crises to handle, but in general you go in everyday and know what to expect. You have your routines. You have relationships with people whom you do business with that have been built over many years of trust and, sometimes you become very friendly with those people. You have plans, how to do it better in the next six months than you did in the last, a new exciting idea or product to try, or a new expansion plan, all of which keeps your interest and enthusiasm going. 

    Imagine also you have much of your hard earned money invested in machinery, or stock. Also there are many obligations to meet, not only cumbersome government regulations, but also a steady stream of bills. Bills such as rent, insurances, inventory, utilities, bank loans, consultant fees, accountancy fees, legal fees, payroll, upkeep, marketing, delivery charges, maintenance, taxes, unexpected costs, and the list of expenses goes on and on. All of those obligations rest on the business owner's shoulders and their shoulders alone. Employees go home after a day's work secure in the expectation that they will get their paycheck, but few of them can comprehend how much behind the scenes goes into their job security.

    Now imagine the government decides for whatever reason that not only your business but most of the other businesses are to suddenly stop trading. The daily buzz in your office, factory, restaurant, or whatever it may be,  suddenly ceases. The phones stop ringing. People stop coming to your premises. The daily hustle and bustle of your routine suddenly goes dead. Imagine thinking of all your capital that is tied up suddenly not only not earning you any money, but costing you money, heaps of money, as you stare at the emails and piles of obligations and bills you still have to meet regardless of the government shut down. How do you think that would feel? Do you think you would feel a bit of a vacuum in your life? Would you feel a bit lost? A bit out of sorts, a bit frightened even? 

     Couple all this with a government/media complex that promotes propaganda 24/7 to convince the public that 'we are all in this together.' Do you think the business owner feels that is true or would he or she feel it is a lie? How do you think the mottos 'stay home and save lives'  or 'staying home saves lives' would resonate with the business owner as they are overwhelmed with obligations and no sign when this will all abate and go back to normal? Would it be reasonable for business owners to start to feel abandoned by their country? Would it be reasonable for business owners to start to feel as if their government is actually out to destroy them? That this is a war against small business in general?

    One thing business needs to exist more than anything else and that is a semblance of certainty. Without that business cannot function. How can a business continue if there is no certainty as to how much inventory they will need to order? How can they manage employees without knowing how long they will need them for? Look at so many shops that are closed now and what will you see? Winter clothes in the shop windows that will never be sold. Behind that are warehouses filled with next season's and next year's clothes waiting to be delivered but are all boxed up. Restaurants with heaps of rotting food they will never use. Behind those are orchards that cannot sell their wine, farmers that cannot sell their produce, etc. Think of just one bottle of wine a restaurant will not be buying now. This effects the winery, the orchards, the printers who make the wine labels, the barrels maker who stores the wine, the landlords who warehouse the barrels, and so on and so forth. Entire supply chains are breaking. Small business keeps an entire society going. We are all intricately economically interdependent. This is why the lockdown is an economic calamity.

     Which brings us back, dear readers, to how this all affects even those who are still getting paid, working, or living off government subsidies. None of you are safe either as this must and will come back to effect all of you too. The government depends on taxes, and where do most of the taxes come from? From small and medium businesses. Eventually the tax base will shrink. As it is now the government has told us Jobkeeper and JobSeeker are too much of a strain to keep up much longer. Soon enough millions, and it will be millions, of people are going to be thrown off the government doles. This means they will be seeking jobs, but there will be no jobs. If there are no jobs this means that donations will also dry up, and this is very bad news for those who work for institutions that survive on donations. 

   This promises to be the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and hardly anyone will be spared from its effects. Already we see a gigantic upsurge in mental illness and death. The upsurge in deaths are not from the virus, not at all! The lockdown is the virus, and its deleterious effects on our lives and all the human suffering that comes along with it are yet to be felt. There is only one way to avoid this catastrophe, and that is to reopen our economy, reopen now, and isolate the vulnerable, and go for herd immunity. We must learn to live with this virus or many more will suffer and die than the virus would ever kill.

             

       

        

Where is our Chabad Mettle in the Face of COVID19?, Shoshanna Silcove

•       During the times of the previous Rebbe in the Soviet Union under the evil Stalin, a group within Chabad  formed a special brotherhood. Each member of this brotherhood pledged their lives to the Rebbe, that they would fight to the death to continue and spread the practice of Torah and mitzvos. Many Jews were killed in those dark and dangerous days as Judaism was outlawed. Merely having a learning partner or a Torah book in one's home was an act of defiance and, a knock on the door from the Soviet authorities could mean banishment to the gulag, torture, or death. Informers were everywhere, and secrecy was imperative. There are stories of heroic acts in the face of torture and death, carried out in some cases just for the observance of one small mitzvah. There are stories of nine year old boys being sent by their parents to travel alone, through the vast Russian expanse, to make their way over many weeks in the cold and hostile land with empty stomachs, to yeshivas, all so they could learn Torah. Their parents had no idea if they would ever see or hear from their sons again. There are stories of young men lining up in the forest for hours to get a chance to put on the one tefillin that was available for hundreds of miles knowing if caught it could mean the end of their young lives. Yet these brave Chabad Chassidim kept the fires of Torah observance burning through their fearless self sacrifice.
•       When the previous Rebbe came to America, in a body broken by years of Soviet imprisonment and torture, but still with a great fighting spirit, he declared, "America is not different!" The same self sacrifice for Torah and mitzvos they had in Russia would continue in America, a land that many Jews believed to be a spiritual wasteland with no hope for a revival of Judaism. Of course, we all know that revival came about not only in America, but worldwide under the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, and as the saying goes the rest is history.
•       In present times, the question that begs for an explanation during this COVID19 crisis is, where has this Chabad fighting spirit of fearless self sacrifice gone? When Chabad community leaders and Rabbis acquiesce to Draconian measures with nary a protest and with no apparent regret, and go even beyond government requirements and unnecessarily close down shules, schools, mikvot, and everything that a Torah observant life demands, one wonders, is this even Chabad anymore?
•      These days there is no threat to life and limb, no imminent threat of imprisonment and torture or death by our government. The threats these days to our community is of modest fines, withholding of government funding to institutions, and some bad press. None of these consequences are in any way as destructive to our lives as what the Jews under Stalin faced. These are very much first world problems. And yet the fear of these consequences for not kowtowing to the government's requirements is way out of proportion. There is a lack of resistance  on any level.  The willingness on the part of these communal  decision makers to go even beyond government requirements,  so as to please their government overlords, is astoundingly disappointing and embarrassing.  There is even a lack of motivation to consider and try to find legal loopholes that would enable our Torah community to exist as it should. There is a complete and total capitulation and acquiescence to the government closing down of our Torah communal life that is so great, that it would not be too outrageous to say the Chabad spirit of yesteryear seems to have dissipated completely. 
•        Of course, there are the rationalisations for this. This must be done for pekuach nefesh, but is going even beyond the letter of the government law saving any lives? Not at all! Furthermore, there are the pseudo-spiritual explanations given by certain Rabbis and teachers to lull the community into a false sense of security and used to justify this lack of Chabad spirit. This is definitely the last gasp before Moshiach, they say. We all hope so, but no one really knows for sure when he will finally come or how much suffering we will have to G-d forbid endure until he gets here. They tell us that this is Hoshgacha Protis and it means that Hashem is happy with us not to be davening in minyanim, not doing mivtzoim, not sending children to proper yeshivas, not having frabrengens and kiddushes, He is suppossudly happy with the us not doing all the communal mitzvos Torah demands of us and that we have been doing for a few millenium. That now Hashem wants us to be more 'spiritual' and that all these mitzvos are not needed at the moment.
•       There are more than a few problems with all this from a Torah and from a Chabad point of view. Putting aside all the debate about COVID19 and how much of a threat it is or isn't to life etc., and putting aside that not a single person in our community has died from it Baruch Hashem, meaning we are not in a crisis here at all, and putting aside the fact that the communal leaders have contributed greatly to the unnecessary hysterical trauma and fear of many in our community, how can they simply turn Judaism on its head and suddenly say that all those communal mitzvos are not what Hashem wants? On its face that is an absurdly wrong assertion and one could even say it borders on heresy.
•       Torah is in the doing of mitzvos, not in sitting at home by oneself being 'spiritual' whatever that means. These mitzvos are largely communal and thereby we are required to do them together in groups as a community. Without that there is a gigantic lacking in our service to G-d. Or are we now adopting a new and different reformed religion in the era of COVID19, G-d forbid?
•       Then there is the issue that keeps coming up of our obligation to protect and save lives. Certainly, that is of utmost importance, as Torah teaches us. Yet, if life is all that counts, then why did those Chabad Jews risk theirs, and why did many die, all so Jews could observe Torah and mitzvos? And where is our bitachon? Do we not believe that Hashem gives and takes life, and we are not supposed to live in fear of dying? Is it suddenly the Chabad way to cower in our homes in fear of death, in fear of government fines, in fear of everything? Or are we to be the faithful bold audacious Jews who refuse to cower?
•       Certainly, we have an obligation to protect the vulnerable. Nevertheless, our over reach and incredibly exaggerated over reaction is now doing much more harm to us spiritually and psychologically than is necessary. We are greatly harming our children. What sort of lessons are they gleaning about what it means to stand for Chabad principles by this gross over reaction and hysterical fear? 
• Where is our Chabad mettle? Have we become so timid that we are ready to throw in the towel after all the decades of blood, sweat, tears, and self sacrifice, after all the work and toil?

Rabbis Gripped with Mass Delusional Hysteria, by Shoshanna Silcove

             One reason Chabad attracted me many years ago was that the Rabbis were confident enough in their own beliefs that they could accept and even welcome just about any question or challenge. They were all open minded and more than willing to explain everything, no matter how difficult.
           However, there is a marked change in Chabad now when it comes to the COVID issue. They have become completely closed minded and utterly unwilling and seemingly unable to explain why they have paskened the way they have paskened. Rabbis all over Chabad are obsessed with COVID restrictions, propagating fear and mass hysteria. Many are going even beyond their own governments' requirements. They seem to be completely impervious to facts and unable to reason about this topic.  This is not the way of Chabad! This is not the way of the Rebbe! 
           The only conclusion I can come to which can explain this extremely strange phenomena of Chabad Rabbis being this irrational is that this must be a maasah Satan!
          In the general population there is a good amount of irrational fear, but at least one can discuss and reason with many people, even if they disagree. There is even a worldwide debate on this issue going on presently based on science and reason.  However, in the frum community at large, and in Chabad in particular, there is no discussion and moreover, discussion is not allowed. It is as if we have suddenly become communistic--the Rabbis say so and that is it! And if chas v'shalom you question how they come to their decisions you are met with derision and are either ignored or told that you are dangerous and even may be called a rodef!  This reaction by them for simply asking for explanations to their decrees is absurd on its face.  Yet, here we have almost an entire community of educated and learned Rabbis and, their followers whom the Rabbis have influenced to behave like them in regards to COVID, spreading hysterical  paranoid trauma to a fever pitch.  
        What good can come from this perpetuation of hysterical trauma? Think of the psychological damage being done, especially to the children and their chinuch. Think of the spiritual damage being done while community members are being told that if they go to shule, minyanim, frabrengens, or simchas that they are purveyors of illness and death. Why are the Rabbis not at all advocating for the resumption of our communal religious life? Instead of  easily succumbing to the most Draconian restrictions imaginable of our religious life, why aren't the Rabbis looking for ways and means for us to practice our communal religion safely? Instead they seem to actually be giving up on practicing communal Yiddishkyte entirely! How destructive is this to us as G-d fearing Jews? Can we at least discuss this and come up with viable solutions instead of just being given ridiculous nonsensical and conflicting inconsistent orders without any explanations nor compassion shown?  The Rabbis seem to give out orders and then run away and hide.  Has anyone yet thought of what kind of a Tishrei we will be having? Dare we ask? 
        All this could very well be a mass maasah Satan, after all, we have had such things in the past. Didn't a majority of Jews follow the Shabbtai Tzvi, including the most pious and learned Rabbonim of the day? They were also completely impervious to reason and could not be challenged in their rock solid commitment and beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary.  And could one also not say the same for the extreme radical Messianists who still believe the Rebbe is alive in his body as before Gimmel Tammuz, that they are suffering from some sort of mass delusion, some sort of mass hysteria?
      Mass delusions are not unknown in history. As a matter of fact, there are many examples. The Salem Witch trials,  and one could also call the anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany a mass delusion as well. The Muslim world is replete with mass delusions, as are the angry mobs smashing statues in America. It should not be too difficult for us Jews with our long history  to imagine that we too could fall victim to being victims of our own mass hysterical delusion.
       The only reply one is offered when one asks why the over the top fear of COVID and the call for unfounded, exaggerated restrictions and precautions is one phrase, 'pekuach nefesh' they cry! Yet, ask them to explain how this is pekuach nefesh ( see my blog article previous to this one that shows how this is in fact not pekuach nefesh) and one cannot get any logically reasoned reply. What one does get in response are emotional outbursts from people who have not thought any of this through and, who cannot seem to get a grip of their emotions long enough to actually examine the facts and reason.

    

Rabbis Must Explain How COVID Restrictions are Based on Pekuach Nefesh?, by Shoshanna Silcove

To Rabbis who are embracing Draconian COVID restrictions on the premise of pekuach nefesh. 'Mei heichan dantuni'? From where do you derive this psak?
Torah criterion for a plague is approximately 3 deaths per 1000 daily, or 15 deaths per day if one is looking at the Crown Heights Jewish population of 15,000. Therefore, in Crown Heights, in order for COVID to fall under the category of a plague, thereby meaning pekuach nefesh applies, there would have had to have been 45 deaths per day.
However, at its peak there were not even 15 COVID deaths a week, with only a total of 30 COVID deaths in Crown Heights, nowhere near 45 COVID deaths a day needed to constitute a plague in a population of 15,000 like Crown Heights. This total of 30 deaths in Crown Heights is not counting the entire Chabad worldwide COVID deaths, which were all reported on COL too, mixed in with the local Crown Heights COVID deaths, making it seem that all these deaths were happening in Crown Heights thereby inflating the Crown Heights death toll, adding to the hysteria. This means that there was never a COVID plague and, therefore the mitzvah of pekuach nefesh cannot be applied, not only in Crown Heights, but anywhere else in the world as nowhere were there enough daily deaths to meet the Torah definition of a plague.
Here in Australia, with a population of 25,000,000 we have had 104 COVID deaths as of today. Surely one does not need to do very much calculating to see that no COVID plague exists here in Oz. The same holds true in America with a population of 328,000,000 and 130,000 COVID deaths, there is no plague there either.
Let's look at number of deaths in Australia from other causes. In 2019 car fatalities in Australia were 1182. Yet, we do not say that we should not drive a car because of pekuach nefesh. Number of deaths from drowning in 2019 in Oz was 291, smaller but still more than twice than from COVID deaths. Yet, we are not told to stop swimming because of pekuach nefesh. In Australia the regular seasonal flu known as influenza kills an average of 15,00 to 3,000 people per year (according to the Influenza Specialist Group). Yet, there are no calls for any restrictions, no talk from our Rabbis of pekuach nefesh. Moreover, despite having a flu vaccine, these deaths still occur.
So to the Rabbis who are insisting on these drastic measures and lockdowns, Mei heichan dantuni? Please, explain, how can this be justified on the premise of pekuach nefesh?

Jews Should Be the Least Trusting of Government Authorities, by Shoshanna Silcove

      Many around me and in the frum world in general speak as if all medical people have the same outlooks, opinions, and methods. That is just not true. We need to have our own discernment and decide for ourselves which medical authorities are telling us what is true and the best advice. We cannot be uneducated and naive followers. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves because much of the medical expert community is corrupted by nefarious government entities, including the Chinese Communist Party (like the WHO). 
      There is a growing movement around the world of people who recognise that much of the information coming from the mainstream regarding COVID are distortions, lies and propaganda of a medical tyranny being manipulated by elites in order to expand totalitarian control over their societies and eventually towards tightening world control. Our liberties are being restricted by using COVID fear mongering. The governments will never use medical experts that go against their power play agendas. I notice many frum people are extremely naive and do not think their government is lying to them. We Jews of all people should understand they indeed do and they presently are!

The Lockdown is the Deadliest Virus Of All, by Shoshanna Silcove

It is a false choice to say this is about money or lives. I never ever said money is more important than lives. That is a disgusting accusation, and very insulting implying that somehow anyone who has the view that the lockdown was a mistake is somehow immoral. I was totally against lockdowns from the start precisely because lockdowns are much more deadly than the virus. Lockdowns were totally ineffective and unnecessary. There is no scientific evidence that lockdowns stopped a single infection, it is just some propaganda we are told by the media and the politicians.
Firstly, the FACTS are that the lockdown came too late here in Oz to be effective. The scientific evidence proves the virus was already here since last Nov, and the lockdown came in March when the virus was already spread among the population, so it was too late to have an effect. Moreover, the vast majority of people who get CV have zero symptoms, and the virus has a 98-99% recovery rate. So many people already had CV before the lockdowns without knowing they were infected and then they became immune also without knowing that too.
Secondly, there was no reason to isolate the healthy people, we should have just isolated the vulnerable. All lockdowns did was destroy economies, they did nothing to stop the spread of the virus. Just look around. States in America that were open did not have any higher infections rates than states that locked down. In fact, the economic lockdowns actually kill more people than the virus as evidenced by FACTS like the dramatically horrifying rise in suicides due to the economic devastation, due to people being too afraid to go out to clinics and hospitals for medical care and tests rising the rate of deaths due to other diseases, such as cancer and heart attacks, etc. The lockdowns killed and will kill more people than the virus.
The initial predictions from the 'experts' were that millions would die from CV. Actually, 450,000 have died from CV. The predictions were way off, and governments based their panicky decisions based on grossly overestimated numbers by Neil Ferguson that were completely debunked, and the governments have never corrected their mistakes. This over reaction was emotion based.
Why are people being made to wear masks, gloves, and take the their temperature when there is no medical evidence to warrant these measures? Why are governments basing policies on emotions and not FACTS?
Furthermore, the lockdown perpetuates this crisis far into the future whereas, if we had not locked down and allowed for herd immunity to take over, we would be just about finished with the virus by now. As it is the virus is still among the population because we did not allow herd immunity to make it dormant. We would also not be facing an economic crash that will have devastating effects for many years to come.
I did hours and hours of research on this from sources worldwide. More and more people are realising how devastating the lockdowns are, that the 'cure' was far worse than the disease, and was the greatest blunder and folly in all of modern history. So before any of you virtue signalers get on your high horse with self righteous accusations that people who are against lockdowns care more about money than lives, do some research and look at facts instead of emotions and the fear mongering from the media.

A COVID19 Refusnik, by Shoshanna Silcove

What is a Karen? Karen is a slur that is used to typify a person perceived to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is considered appropriate or necessary.

I had a run in with a Karen today. I went to a local med clinic just to pay a bill. This woman half my age who works there handed me a mask. She did it so casually without even thinking she may need to be polite enough to actually ask me if I want to put it on, she held it towards my face invading my personal space as if it was a given that I put it on without complaint. I refused it. She at first looked shocked, then anger flared in her eyes which I could see just above the mask she was wearing. How dare I disobey her tiny bit of authority! 
      Thinly disguising her temper she said, 'If you want to come into the waiting room you need to wear a mask,' holding it out in a position almost like she was ready to shove it onto my face. 
      I calmly replied '"I do not wear masks. The Surgeon General of the United States said they lower immunity." She looked puzzled as if this was something she never heard before. Still holding the mask in the same aggressive position,  she gave an eye roll to another employee who nodded her head like a school marm scolding a child for being naughty. I stared them both down, so after a few seconds she saw I was standing my ground and, in exasperation at my disobedience, she said I should wait outside, which I did. In just about a minute the professional I needed to pay came out and took me into his office and I paid no problem. Anyone who wants my business will not get it if they insist on me wearing a mask, I do not care who they think they are.
It may not seem like a big deal to other people, but for me it was a small victory as a COVID19 Refusnik. The more like minded people who see through the mass hysteria and lies refuse to comply with these ridiculous unscientific measures and the more we reject the 'New Normal' as abnormal in our everyday lives, the better! How dare these petty obnoxious Karens treat us like peons that they can bully! We are not peons, this is a Democratic free country and we are independent citizens and we need to act like it!
Being a COVID19 Refusnik means refusing to join the Group Think which is defined by Wikipedia as thus: Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
       By stating facts and statistics in a calm and rational manner, over and over again, and dispelling the myths, lies, and propaganda of the COVID19 Scamdemic, we can assert our rights and help to put a stop to the insanity thrust upon us by lying incompetent  power hungry politicians and delusional 'experts'
    We can start a mass movement of COVID19 Refusniks just by refusing to become intimidated by all the Karens, even in small everyday seemingly petty things. Today it is some brainwashed Karen obnoxiously bullying you to wear a mask, and tomorrow it is a full blown totalitarian society. Exaggeration? History warns us it is indeed not!

Perplexing Questions People are Asking About the Yeshiva CV19 Guidelines, by Shoshanna Silcove

    The initial letter for CV19 guidelines for the Chabad Melbourne Community, which were sent out to the email lists of Yeshiva Centre and Young Yeshiva, left one with many perplexing questions.
This letter was written on the Melbourne Beis Din letterhead and signed by several community Rabbis and local G.P.'s.
    It is perplexing as to why they felt the need to go above and beyond the government restrictions at the time. For instance, back then the government allowed indoor gatherings, yet the Yeshiva guidelines only gave permission for outdoor minyanim. Why were they even more restrictive than the very strict Victorian government? Moreover, it seems there was no scientific justification for this.
    Equally perplexing was the restriction on davening with a minyan for shacharis while mincha and marriv were allowed. In their second letter they tried to explain this but, their explanation was even more perplexing. It said that since shacharis davening was longer in duration than the other two, one may tend want to sit down, implying that the virus could be caught from the seats.  Additionally, one brings tefillin bags and talleism which could also make the virus spread. This begs the question, do the doctors  who signed this letter believe that sitting down, tefillin bags, and taleism are able to spread CV19?  This seems improbable that they believe this as this goes against the known science.
     Another inexplicable restriction was the closure of the men's mikvah. The women's mikvah was still open, so why close the men's? Also, did this mean the doctors who signed this believe that the virus lives in chlorine? If so, this would be inexplicable because to believe so would be absolutely against the known science. So why close any mikvaot at all?
     One of the Rabbis actually directed the community to call the police should they see anyone violating the CV19 restrictions. Even a lay person who is not a Rabbi or a doctor finds this extremely problematic considering that this could fall under the category of mesirah (the prohibition against informing on a Jew to the gentiles). Now one could argue that this directive to inform was because of the commandment of pekuach nefesh (the saving of a Jewish life) which takes precedence over everything else. However, this argument does not hold water when one considers that the Yeshiva restrictions went above and beyond even the very strict Victorian government restrictions, and those very extreme restrictions would therefore not, according to science, going to be effective in saving any lives at all. So one is left perplexed as to why a Rav would instruct Jews to inform on other Jews?
    So  all this begs the questions: were the signatories of this letter following science or not? Moreover, why did they feel compelled to go above and beyond the restrictions that the government required? What could have possibly motivated these contradictory, inconsistent restrictions that do not seem to be based on the known science and seem to make no sense at all? Were they just basing all this on their own fear ? If so, then could one assert they are spreading mass hysteria?
    From where or what do the signatories of these letters base their directives on? Inquiring minds would like to know.
 

 


 

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Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic Part 4, by Shoshanna Silcove

    When Rabbis and community leaders are gaslit by the media/government complex they make foolish decisions that threaten to damage or even destroy their communities. When Rabbis and community leaders become intoxicated by their power, they become blinded to their own foolish mistakes. When Rabbis and community leaders prioritise their public image and approval from the gentile government as more important than the interests of the people they serve, they become frauds. When Rabbis and community leaders allow themselves to be ruled by their hearts and not their minds, when they are gripped by the fear and mass hysteria whipped up by the media/government complex, they can become impervious to all logic and facts and they are then dangerous to their communities' well being.

   Can all this happen? Is it happening? Torah warns us of the danger of unbridled egos and power lust. Rabbis, according to Judaism, are not given respect automatically, it has to be earned. There are many examples in Jewish history of all kinds of Rabbis over the ages who either because of foolishness or their own evil impulses caused huge destruction to the Jews they were supposed to be serving. We cannot be naive and blind followers of Rabbis as that is not the Torah way. Rabbis are not closer to G-d or higher than regular people. In fact, we are taught that Rabbis have a special responsibility to do the right thing or they can bring whole communities down. The Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke about the teaching of 'Me Heichan dan tuni?" which means 'From where do you derive this legal decision?" This is a question we not only have a right to ask Rabbis, but we are compelled to because we Jews must understand the reasoning, logic and sources of their decisions. Judaism is not a cult.

     In the beginning of the CV19 crisis I had a conversation with a Rabbi I had a close and respectful relationship with for over two decades.  I questioned his assertion that every extreme measure, including shutting down the entire world economy, was worth it to save even one life. My viewpoint was that this was patently absurd. As expected the Rabbi quoted a few Torah sources to back up this absurd assertion, especially the law that states that the saving of a life takes precedence over everything else ( known as Pekuach nefesh). I  explained my view was that his usage of that law was not as clear cut as he made it out to be under these unusual circumstances, that he was using this law without taking into account the context of our situation.

   The example I gave to illustrate was a hospital. A hospital has limited resources. The decisions made are based on the best allocation of those resources. Should they expend them on a single patient with a small chance of recovery, and perhaps use those resources all up on someone who they know will die soon? Then there may be no resources left to save other patients who need those resources to live, and many more will die than just the one terminal one.  Or should they use those same resources on patients who they know they can save, and have more left over to save many more lives?  I explained this is how society works. Society is constantly doing a cost benefit analysis knowing that it is inevitable that some people will die, as that cannot be avoided. Therefore, society must ask, what is the best possible allocation of our resources for the best possible outcome ? Another example is, we know if we keep the speed limit at ten kilometers an hour on the highway there will be virtually zero deaths. But we do not do that. Instead we keep the speed limit at one hundred kilometers an hour knowing this will definitely cause deaths. Why does society do this? Simply because we accept that in order for a society to function at its best level for the greater good we must accept there will be some negative and even tragic outcomes that cannot be avoided. Society cannot actually function any other way. Without making  a cost  benefit analysis and allowing for an acceptable level of risk, society would be in total  anarchy and chaos. This seems to be quite evident.

      The response this Rabbi gave me was that this is the same thinking as the Nazis. I was stunned. Not only was this response a disgusting insult, but it made no sense. This is a highly intelligent person, how could he make such a specious, illogical, and blatantly wrong comparison? It was then that I realised his response was fear based. The panic and fear gripped him to the point where his thinking abilities were completely suppressed. This Rabbi is a very good well meaning person. He is actually very compassionate and suffered some personal loss from CV19. His desire is that no one else should have any more pain and loss or death. His motives are altruistic However, the panic and fear overrode his critical thinking abilities making him incapable of seeing the bigger picture.

   Therefore, when this Rabbi came out with extreme Draconian restrictive measures that went even further than the government, and were not based on the known scientific evidence, I was not surprised. Furthermore, this became mass hysteria that it is shared by a group of Rabbis and community leaders, walking in lockstep conformity to each other. This mass hysteria is then shared further with the community at large, many of whom are  also very fearful and misinformed by the government/media propaganda. 

    Dennis Prager, famous American commentator, author and radio host, taught me some very important lessons. One of these is that having knowledge does not mean someone has wisdom, that they are two very different things. An expert can have many degrees, have extensive knowledge in their field, but still be foolish and unwise. When a person is gripped by strong emotions such as fear and panic, they can lose their ability to be wise.

    Morever, more and more people worldwide are beginning to realise the point I was trying to make that Rabbi see several months ago, and that is that the economic lockdowns, the Draconian community restrictions, actually did more damage than the CV19 virus did. It is now becoming crystal clear that the economic crash the lockdowns caused  are resulting in many more deaths than the virus due to many factors. These are unintended consequences like deaths from the dramatic frightening rises in suicides, violent crimes, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse etc, all things that are rising because of people being economically devastated.   Wise people  who were against these draconian restrictions and lockdowns were able to foresee all these unintended consequences.

  The same unintended consequences threaten to destroy our own Jewish communities as well. Well meaning but spooked community leaders and Rabbis are instituting unnecessary and Draconian restrictions that not only make no logical or scientific sense in terms of the public health,  but are also absolutely poisonous and noxious to our spiritual, mental, and financial well being. And my fear is that the damage that ensues can never be repaired, G-d forbid.

    It is imperative upon each and every one of us to take it upon ourselves to get a grip on our fear and use our minds. We must spend time and effort to verify what the Rabbis and community leaders are telling us. We cannot passively accept their directives at face value. We live in a world replete with information at our fingertips. We must do our own research. We must be responsible adults and equip ourselves with the knowledge to be able to understand and ask the right questions, before it is too late and we soon find ourselves living in a community that is unrecognizable to our Jewish sensibilities and one we loathe to pass onto the the next generation.

    

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic-Part 3, by Shoshanna Silcove

Isn't it interesting that so many men who were never seen at minyanim (except for Shabbes) in the pre-Corona days, are now lauding some of the Rabbis for having instructed people not to go to minyanim? It used to be that they felt a twinge of guilt for not going to minyanim. But now, after some of the Rabbis sent out the strongly implied message that minyanim are not compulsory, their guilt is minimised. Not only that, they can now virtue signal, all about how noble they are for staying home, that not going to minyanim is actually a virtuous thing. 

These men never heeded these Rabbis in the past about other issues regarding Torah and Mitzvot, and are now going around self righteously saying 'The Rabbonim said' to excuse their lack of observance of davening with minyanim in the past until now, and to make themselves feel and look very virtuous. 

Furthermore, some of the Rabbonim neglected to explain just how crucial davening with minyanim is to Chassidim, and even went so far as to tell people to call the police and report anyone davening with a minyan. And at that time when some of the Rabbonim instructed people to moser on their fellow Jews for davening with a minyan, those minyanim were actually legal. Where are our Chassidisha hashkofos? Why aren't Rabbonim giving out the message, that even with this Corona situation, that davening with minyanim is chiyuv? Is all this Torah based or based on virtue signaling and their obsession to  get approval from the goyish government? None of this is based on the correct Chassidisha hashkofos in my opinion (am I allowed to have an opinion?). Their motives seem to be ulterior and not leshem shamayim.

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic-Part 2, by Shoshanna Silcove

"Facts don't care about your feelings," Ben Shapiro, American conservative political commentator, public speaker, media executive, and author.

"The brain rules the heart," a Chassidic adage from The Tanya

    My mother's passing made me into an outsider from the age of five. I was the only girl in the entire Forest Road Elementary School who lost their mother. This gave me instantaneous playground fame. Everyone seemed to be staring at me, the adults with sad sympathetic looks and, the children with a combination of confusion and fear. Maybe it could happen to their mothers too? They whispered behind my back. I was that girl whose mother died. Her passing made me used to being able to walk a different path to those around me.

    Nevertheless, being an outsider did not mean that I would not become a victim of mind control. At one time or another we all fall victim to mind control. It's is all around us and,  takes on  various methods and forms. It can be ordinary advertising that uses repetition and emotional manipulation to motivate us to buy things, or it can be indoctrination by schools and religious institutions. 

    I went to Stonybrook University to get an education. I wound up getting an indoctrination into left wing ideologies. There simply were no alternative views presented, so like most students, I assimilated the usual left wing  'isims' of academia. It would not occur to me that I fell victim to mind control until I became religious through Lubavitch.

    Learning Torah true Judaism caused me to challenge every aspect of my life as well as all the secular orthodoxies I had been inculcated with. It was then I realised just how much mind control I had been subjected to all my life and vowed to never allow that to happen to me again. I would remain a questioner. This suited my new religious lifestyle just fine because Torah encourages questioning and is in fact largely based on discussion, critical thinking, and debate.

   However, while Torah encourages critical thinking, the culture of an Orthodox Jewish community sometimes does not. This often encourages conformity. It is to me a strange and inexplicable paradox that there is sometimes a gap between Torah learning, which emphasizes discussion and debate,  and the culture of Orthodox communities, which can tend to value social conformity.

    Which brings us to our current situation regarding the COVID19 phenomena. It did not take long for me to start asking the right questions.  Factual questions. While many around me were gripped by emotion, I lost sleep thinking and thinking, trying to figure it all out. Too much of what the government and the media was telling us just did not add up. While almost everyone around me in my community blindly accepted the mainstream narrative, I could not help but notice the inconsistencies and discrepancies.
    Was I scared? Who wouldn't be scared? The media was doing its level best to scare the wits out of everyone. Many in the local community here in Melbourne became totally preoccupied with the reports of  what seemed to be a horror show going on in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Many of the people here were connected to people in New York who either became infected or  passed away. They were grieving and traumatised,  so much so that often when I  aired my questioning of  the  narrative I would get the same reply, 'Do you know what is happening in Crown Heights?"  This line was supposed to prove to me that this was the most horrible pandemic since the bubonic plague, and that what was happening in Crown Heights was an apocalypse. The reports from Crown Heights was all the proof  one needed, and if I questioned that,  then I was being a cold callous person who cared nothing for human life. I kept hearing that same line over and over again by many different people in our community. It was bizarre how almost everyone was in the same panicked hysterical state of mind.  
    I realised that when a person is panicked their cognitive abilities can literally turn off, they cannot think rationally, everything becomes an emotional reaction. Of course,  I reminded myself that the facts don't care about my feelings, and I kept repeating the Chassidic adage of 'the mind rules the heart".  While others could hardly discuss issues rationally, while people retreated more and more into their homes, into their shells, cowering in terror, I kept researching and probing.  It did not take long for me to actually discover the inaccuracies we were being told. These inaccuracies are so blatant and the only reason they were so easily accepted is because of the mass hysteria. 

to be continued, in part 3.....
    

    

   

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic--Part I, by Shoshanna Silcove

    It has been said that cool heads prevail, but do they? As I watch the majority of modern society go down the rabbit hole of COVID19 mass hysteria and panic, I question the validity of that saying. It's as if one day someone flipped a switch and suddenly we were thrust into a surreal world in which panic and paranoia are the new norm.
    Admittedly at first, I too got caught up in the fervour of it all. I listened to the ominous news reports of rising infection and death tolls akin to the Spanish flu of 1918. Scary words like 'pandemic' conjured up images from a bad science fiction movie.  I was worried and lost sleep. I wore gloves and a mask when I went to the supermarket. My initial response was fear.
    Then after a couple of days, I found myself contemplating the onerous task of washing every single grocery item before putting them away, and I took hold of myself. This is not healthy, I thought, this is panic and hysteria. This is no way to live.
    Death and loss are not strangers to me. My mother passed away when I was five years old. As a child I lost many close relatives.  My father always told me that life was for the living, and life must go on. That attitude helped me get through the grief of my childhood. Many years ago at age 24, I came close to dying and, had a near death experience. I am, unfortunately, quite practiced in the emotions and rituals of grief over lost loved ones, and I overcame my own fear of death many years ago. Perhaps this, along with a skeptical analytical nature, helped me to control myself from joining the mass hysteria and panic of COVID19.
    It is never easy to follow the path less traveled. It is far easier to follow the pack and accept the media/government narrative without question. Nevertheless, I noticed that the story we were being told had too many holes in it and it kept shifting.
   Initially, we were told to expect literally millions of lives would be lost to COVID19. The hospitals would be overrun. The chemists would be running out of drugs. Almost every house would have had at least one infection, or even worse, a death. We were warned, stay home, or you will be risking lives. This would be a plague!  I waited and watched from my home in Melbourne, Australia. I heard horror stories coming out of Italy, England, and America.
    As a member of the Jewish Orthodox Chassidic sect known as Lubavitch,  I was especially interested in the events of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY, the headquarters of the Lubavitcher Chassidim, and a place I lived in for 14 years.  Lubavitch is a close knit group, everyone is only six degrees from everyone else, even from overseas. The Jewish community in Melbourne were horrified to hear of a number of people passing away in Crown Heights.
    Fear is an extremely powerful emotion. I once heard a business coach say fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Often when a person is gripped by fear their intellectual faculties can be stifled.  I wondered, was this applicable to COVID19? I was stuck home like everybody else, and on top of that I was suffering from a bruised hip from a fall so I couldn't really move around much. So I decided to do research, to do some truth seeking, and find out if the Great Panic of 2020 was actually anything to panic about  at all and,  I discovered  what may be of interest to others.

....to be continued in Part 2.

A Plea to Rabbis Not to Submit to Tyranny, by Shoshanna Silcove

The paranoia, the mass hysteria, the naivety of many of the Rabbis when it comes to the COVID medical tyranny, who totally submit to the tyrannical lying government with their ignorant Draconian decrees and virtue signaling, that is destroying Jewish life, all combined, means it stinks to be in the frum community these days. I am especially disappointed in many of my fellow Chabadniks. Have they forgotten what it means to have courage? These are descendants of Jews who were unafraid under the Soviet oppression, who would go to the ends of the earth to make sure the mitzvah could be performed even under the pain of death. And many did indeed die. And today, supposedly in the name of pekuach nefesh (saving of life), they are slavishly, naively, and sheepishly submitting to and trying to force upon us absurd unnecessary restrictions, going even beyond what the government demands. Why? Because of fear from the mass hysteria and lies by the media? Because of fear of losing government funding? Fear of losing prestige, hence the virtue signaling? Some Rabbis say these extreme restrictions are for pekuach nefesh. I wonder, how exactly is this pekuach nefesh to go beyond what even the tyrannical corrupt government requires? As the Rebbe taught us to ask, "Mei Heicahn Dan Tuni"?( From where do you derive such a directive?). This is what our Rebbe taught us we need to ask Rabbonim when we cannot accept or understand their directives or decisions. Rabbis are not closer to Hashem than the rest of us. I daven that they remember the strong Chabad tradition and history of courage and of strength to go against the evil societal trends, and get a hold of their senses with the Chassidic adage of 'Moach shalit ha el ha lev',(mind over the heart) and use their Chochoma, Bina and Daas, (Knowledge, Intuition, and Wisdom) and do the work needed to truly understand the facts of the situation we are in before they do untold damage, especially to our youth!

Every Aussie a Fair Go, by Shoshanna Silcove

I have a good idea, all the people who are calling for an economic shutdown should agree to not have any income. It makes sense. If you want to stop the incomes of millions of other people because you believe money is not important and we must save lives by shutting everything down, than you should agree to giving up your income too, even if it comes from Centrelink, ok?

How Did the Mass Hysteria Happen?, by Shoshanna Silcove

The initial projection models were way, way off. The so-called 'experts' admitted as such. This triggered the panic. Then governments and world leaders acted on those overblown inacurate numbers and the momentum of mass hysteria was exacerbated by the mass media. The media driven hysteria, combined with the political motivations of the left, which saw and grabbed an opportunity to spread more authoritarian government socialist control, brought us to this situation. Politicians and 'experts' cannot now reveal that they went down the wrong path lest they lose face. This will be recorded in history as the world depression that did not have to happen and, one of the greatest follies of mankind.

Say Bye Bye to Religious Jewish Life in Australia, by Shoshanna Silcove

Religious Jewish life for Chabad in Australia is ruined. Anash here are scared out of their minds with a mass hysteria that is unbelievable. They have been completely traumatised by the totalitarian mind control of the government/media complex. I doubt they will ever go back to shule. Imagine a Shavous without shule! How I wish the Rebbe were here to guide us! Most of them, except for a minority who are still capable of some critical and rational thought, believe all the propaganda and lies fervently without even daring to ask a question. This submissive zombified mind set will ruin their lives and the lives of their children. I have been trying to show people in anash information, cold hard facts, to help them assuage their irrational terror, but mostly to no avail. They are on the path of total self destruction.

Australia Used to Be a Nice Country, by Shoshanna Silcove

Australia was a very nice country while it lasted. In a matter of a few weeks our feckless, power hungry, ego maniacal, foolish, reckless, political leaders destroyed our rich capitalist system. Our civil liberties are being unraveled by the day. Australia is now well on its way to become a socialist country. We will all be much poorer and less free. A democratic capitalist govt has no right to disrupt our businesses and take away our private property rights. A democratic capitalist govt has no right to put us under surveillance and restrict our freedom of movement. These policies are only done by authoritarian dictatorships. And yet the majority of the Australian public, in a media driven stupor, and under the spell of mind control, is voluntarily marching down the path to their own subjugation.

The False Choice of Lives Before Money, by Shoshanna Silcove

Firstly, I am not afraid of either an economic crash or of death, as I am only afraid of G-d. Secondly, any discussion of a solution to the Corona crisis that minimizes or ignores the enormous impact of an economic halt on human life, is short sighted, unserious, foolish, and shallow. We live in an extremely complicated and interdependent socio-economic structure. Any artificial interference or halt to our socio-economic activity has a huge domino effect and directly impacts human lives. It is interesting to note that the vast majority of people who are calling for economic cessation are not at risk of losing their livelihoods, businesses, homes, or of starving to death. In such circumstances it is very easy to be flippant about closing down the economy because such people believe they are not affected by it (although they very well might be down the line but are in denial of that fact presently ). The meme of “lives before money” is media driven virtue signaling that makes one sound so noble but, is in reality foolish and selfish because it neglects to take into account the many millions of lives that will be ruined or destroyed by economic devastation. There are myriad of examples of this devastation to human life that are occurring with increased frequency daily, so much so that it is quite apparent to all except those in denial that the Corona virus is far less a threat to human life than the economic devastation that is being forced upon us as its cure.

Crown Heights and Corona both begin with 'C", by Shoshanna Silcove

It is always tragic when people die, every life is precious. As Torah believing Jews we know Hashem takes a person's life when He decides, and He has a myriad methods of doing so. All those Yidden who passed away in NY recently from Corona--well their time had come, Corona or no Corona. The average age of the people in Crown Heights who passed away from Corona was way over 70, and many were in their upper 80's and even 90's. They most likely did not die from Corona, but with Corona. In other words, they were frail and perhaps ill, and anything that weakened their immune systems, even a common cold, would have ended their lives. There are a small number of young people who passed away supposedly with Corona, but we cannot say for sure if they actually died because of Corona because we do not know if they have other diseases as well, and we do not do autopsies. For us to all extrapolate from these deaths in NY, that we who are not in the vulnerable categories, are all in equal and extreme danger of dying from Corona, is completely unfounded and irrational. This is based on fear. I studied this carefully. The chances of a person who is not in the vulnerable category of dying from Corona are far too insignificant to merit this level of panic and restrictions. IN fact, as time goes on we are finding out that more and more people had Corona and that the vast majority of these cases had either very mild symptons or none at all. This means the death rate for Corona is actually no higher than the death rate for the common seasonal flu. The initial models were false and they projected many millions of deaths. The mass media reported those false projections and whipped up a hysterical frenzy the like of which the world has never seen. Now the politicians who ordered the shutdowns of most of the world economy are in the mode of saving face--they cannot admit the truth, that the Corona virus was never actually the apocalyptic pandemic they made everyone believe. They need to justify their reckless and foolish actions which have triggered a spiral towards a worldwide economic depression. Hence, they will flood the media with propaganda justifying why they just destroyed the world economy for what it is being revealed was simply a bad flu. Of course, as Jews we believe everything is part of His Master Plan. Obviously He wants all this to happen, but that is a topic for another time.

How Bob Dylan Brought Me Closer to Yiddishkite, by Shoshanna Silcove

“ Does Judaism believe in life after death?”