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כִּי לֹא מַחְשְׁבוֹתַי מַחְשְׁבוֹתֵיכֶם, וְלֹא דַרְכֵיכֶם דְּרָכָי

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

An 'Urgent' WhatsApp message...

So someone sent me this message on WhatsApp tonight:
URGENT! Please share with as much people as possible. The Rav hamekoubal Nissim Shalom declared that his grandfather ZT"L appeared to him in a dream and revealed to him that the Machiach is at his door, and ordered him to let as many jewish people as possible know about it as well as many people as possible. The Rav insisted upon the fact that whoever will send this message will be saved from the suffering which are supposed to occur with the coming of Machiach and that whoever won't do it will sustain a substantial loss of money. The Rav asked to send this message to at least 12 people, a number corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel. It is a very favorable moment now in heaven , and to those who might be skeptical and not believe in the words of the Rav should know that the Rav would never make such a declaration without serious reasons to do so because it is forbidden to give false hopes to the Jewish people. From the Rav Yoel Benharoushe. Thank you.
So how does one approach such a chain mail skeptically?

Well, one of the following shall do the trick:
  1. Chain mail messages should always get you in a skeptic mindset!
  2. Google the whole message and you will find the oldest reference to be a Yeshivah World News topic dated 2010 (it's December 2017 now, the mashiach surely is stuck in traffic somewhere!).
  3. Note that the name of the alleged grandfather of the mekubal (kabbalist) is not mentioned.
  4. Note that no dates are mentioned (that will surely fuck up the success of any chain mail!).
  5. In a real fake chain mail, there's always a vague promise "whoever will send this message will be saved from the suffering which are supposed to occur with the coming of Machiach" and a threat if you don't forward the message: "whoever won't do it will sustain a substantial loss of money".
  6. Google 'Nissim Shalom' and you will find no other reference to the guy besides this chain mail and some sefardi Facebook profiles.
  7. Look up who Rabbi "Yoel Benharoushe" is on Google and you will find the name of some guy who owns an art gallery.
  8. Lastly, the following should be common sense to you:

    mekubal-forward-12-people
Kindly let me know in the comments if I missed something.