The Gevaldigg Blog

Yom Kippur just ended here in Israel a few hours ago and I want to take a few moments to share a few thoughts that I had during to past 10 days of Repentance. The past few weeks have witnessed some incredible events take place in the financial world. There are, of course, lessons that need to be learned from all event that happen in the world, but especially when such major event happen between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

The lesson that I believe Hashem is sending us now is a reminder that He runs the world. We read several time every day that Hashem Echad, u’Shemo Echad (G-d is One, and His name is One). We know that nothing truly exists in this universe except for Him. However, despite this daily proclamation, many of us place our trust and faith in other things. Whether, it’s money or western society or physical strength and beauty, most of us have come to rely too strongly on external forces. Here is Israel, people have always placed there faith in America to take care of things. These statements apply to those of us who consider ourselves to be “Religious” and you claim that we put our faith in Hashem alone.

I believe that this week’s upheaval of the financial markets all around the world have come as a wake up call before Yom Kippur. “You think that everything is fine because you have money and because America (or England or Australia or etc.) is running the show? Think again!” Hashem runs the show and he controls who shall live and who shall die, who shall prosper and who shall become poor. I felt that it was appropriate that Yom Kippur here in Israel began before the stock markets opened in America on Wednesday. Many of us truly went in to this Holiest of Days not knowing what was going to happen.

I was chatting with my friend Yosef a few days ago and he told me about a Dvar Torah that he was reading (unfortunately, I don’t have sources) about the Chevlai Moshiach (the birth pains of Moshiach. He said that before Moshiach comes, all the false things that people place their faith in (money, America, etc.) will slowly start to destabilize and that this can be a terrible experience for many people. However, for those people who have always been aware that Hashem truly runs the world, it will be an amazing experience as the rest of the world begins to understand Hashem as well. He mentioned that in the world to come, Hashem will “remove the sun from its sheath” and the same light will give incredible pleasure to the righteous people and incredible pain to those who were evil and refused to acknowledge G-d. Yosef quoted Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan as saying that this light refers to the light of truth. The inescapable awareness in its full implications that the reward and punishment in the world to come depending on what a person did with their time in this world and their free will. Rabbi Kaplan said that the “fire” of Gehinom (hell) is simple the incredible shame that a person will feel based on this realization of the truth.

Friends, I believe that the destabilization of the world is starting; Stock markets are crashing, major natural disaster are destroying thousands of lives, global warming is increasing and terrorists are threatening America’s homeland. Hashem’s truth is starting to be revealed in it true glory for those of us who choose to see it. This year, let’s train ourselves to see Hashem kingdom and control and everything around us. When we say Shema everyday, let’s keep in mind that there really is nothing else besides the One G-d.

I’d like to bless the whole Gevaldigg community, all of Am Yisrael and all of the world that the year 5769 should be filled with an increased revelation and realization of Hashem glory and with all the true blessing that will naturally flow from that realization. Shana Tova!

This post is for all you bloggers out there who want to begin publicizing your WordPress blogs on Gevaldigg.com. As you know, linking each of your blog posts to the Gevaladigg Submit page is an excellent way to get votes on Gevaldigg and to gain popularity for your website. Unfortunately, the WP admin panel does not allow you to add the voting widget (bookmarklet) to your template directly. Therefore, you’ll need to access your the file via an FTP program (such as Filezilla). In this entry, I’ll try to walk you through the process. For simplicity sake, I’m going to do this based on the default WP template.

1. First, open the single.php file found here, wp-content/themes/default/single.php.
2. Second, copy the code next to the widget that you want to use from our Gevaldigg widget page.
3. Paste the widget code into the single.php file. Assuming that you want the widget to appear at the bottom of the article, you should paste the code after line 19. Line 19 should say:

<?php the_tags( ‘<p>Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘</p>’); ?>

Now this sections of the file should look like this:

<?php the_tags( ‘<p>Tags: ‘, ‘, ‘, ‘</p>’); ?>

<script type=”text/javascript”>submit_url = ‘http://targeturl.com/’;</script>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.gevaldigg.com/evb2/button.php”></script>

<p class=”postmetadata alt”>
<small>

4. Now, you need to update the targeturl. Replace targeturl.com in the code with your domain name followed by your permalink structure (you can find the permalink structure by going to your admin panel, clicking on settings and then permalinks). For example, code that I use for this blog is, http://gevaldigg.com/%postname%/ (Tip: I have found that for some reason, you may need to delete the apostrophe ( ‘ ) from after your URL in the widget code in order to get it to work.)
5. Save the updated single.php file and transfer it back to your server via the FTP program.
6. Lastly, go to your blog and see if the image is appearing properly and if the link is working properly. The best way to test is to vote for your site via the link.

An alternative method for entering the code is to paste it manually at the end of every individual post. This method gives you the ability to have the widget only appear on some posts and not others. To do so, simply copy and paste the code in to the HTML of the post that you are writing in your WP admin panel. Don’t forget to update the target URL as discribed in step four above.

If neither of these processes works, feel free to write us an email at info@gevaldigg.com and we’ll try to see if we can help (Leave a phone number and we’ll try to call you back ASAP).

You can submit divrei Torah, news articles, videos, images or any other Jewish content from any website.Or, if you like a site that somebody else has submitted, you can vote for that site.

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Yashar Koach,

Aaron

Gevaldigg.com