Abraham The Trail Blazer - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

so the rebbe asked a question and i i've had this question myself throughout my own life he asks why the nation of israel in our prayers and in our hearts when we're praying especially on yom kippur when we feel like we're without any merits left any personal merits we dip into the reserves of our forefathers particularly abraham who bound us all in this covenant of mesiru nephesh of self-sacrifice for hashem but the rebbe asks why why do we have to dip into abraham's self-sacrifice because you know this is this is what i always thought there are untold myriads hundreds of thousands millions of jews throughout history who have faced exactly the same sacrifice the stories of these of many of them we know right but the vast majority of them we don't know one of the most famous which came to my mind immediately and then the rebbe actually goes on to mention is the story of hana who encouraged her seven children to be sent to their torturous deaths rather than to merely bow to a greek idol have you heard the story of hana i remember from when i'm a little boy and she was known to have proclaimed to them she shattered them my children go to abraham your father and say to him you bound one offering upon the altar and i have bound seven offerings and she was right there's holocausts pogroms inquisitions it's impossible to imagine how many sacrificed their lives willingly sacrifice their lives and the lives of their families rather than give in and compromise on the truth of the one true god so if that's true why is it only abraham's merits that we tap into when there's there's so many others and to be fair many of these others seem to have done so if we're going to be honest in more difficult circumstances than even abraham because they didn't have this prophetic that strengthened and fortified this in unimaginably painful decision they just had to go based on their intuition and their gut and they didn't have of a divine voice speaking to them and so was so so that's the question and the answer that the rebbe gives is just so beautiful so here's what he says and this is the way that the story was presented the rabbi brings a metaphor that was passed down from the hasidic sages and so this is how it goes all right there was an unexplored wilderness that had yet to be traveled through right there were no trails there was it was just wild and it seemed untraversable this wilderness and there there were no maps of course there were no markings no one had ever been there it had never encountered the soul of a foot but then one man came and he accomplished that which not only seemed completely impossible but no one even dared to try and he forged a path through this impossible and unexplored terrain all right so the metaphor goes on to explain that others future people were able to take the same difficult dangerous and extraordinarily painful path that this first pioneer forged but no matter how brutal it seemed they always had his map to follow you see where i'm going here many of them traversed the path through even more difficult circumstances while he did it in daylight maybe the weather was good they did it at night in stormy weather nonetheless they all recognized that their success in traveling this path was due to his first blazing this trail and therefore their tremendous sacrifices were in some way they were an extension of his own and so we learned from this that abraham was the first pioneer of mesiru nephesh of self-sacrifice true self-sacrifice in which he was fully willing to sacrifice not only his beloved son and not only his future and his legacy but also his mission in the world the very truth of his message right one of the great messages that he had was to these child sacrificing idolatrous pagans and his message was that the one true god of israel despises child sacrifice and here he was on the verge of negating that truth of his fundamental message as well he was willing to sacrifice his son his future his message everything so he blazed that first trail of self-sacrifice for hashem as the masks are coming off and much of the world is turning not only against israel but yes against the jewish people if you feel different if your love for israel is growing deeper and stronger if you're thirsting to cleave to the nation of israel and to the god of israel if you're thirsting to learn authentic torah from jews in judea then the land of israel fellowship is for you hundreds of individuals and families from around the world come together on zoom every week in what can only be described as a fellowship of love friendship of learning and praying and belonging a fellowship really unlike any other it's more than just a movement it's a family to learn more about the land of israel fellowship click on www.thelandofisral.com backslash fellowship or send an email to fellowship at the land of israel.com love and blessings from judea