Being Present in Our Troubles - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

Shalom friends it's h so good to see all of you I'm recording this uh pre-recording this as I'm not sure that I will be able to successfully broadcast today so uh so this is a pre-recording um and you know in the past week's fellowships I've been doing a lot of focusing on on how this War uh that we're in is primarily a war within our own Hearts I've been focusing on how it's an inside game and I think that I've been focusing so much on this because it's a form of of self therapy because my my heart is uh it's it's I feel like it's been my primary Battlefield there are so many enemies attacking us attacking me anger rage fear perspective Focus just to name a few of them but underneath so many of these spiritual adversaries attacking me um is a general Foundation of wishing often I find myself wishing that this whole thing wasn't happening at all that this wasn't our reality that this wasn't our situation that we weren't just viciously and horrifically massacred in the South that I didn't wake up every morning to new soldiers faces every single morning with the first words of the notification being those cursed words cleared for publication that's what it always says cleared for publication meaning that the family's been told and now the rest of the country can find out and every single day more murdered dead soldiers these Jewels I found myself wishing things that things were were different and then when reading through this week's para the Torah portion I encountered an idea that really spoke to me and in some way um I felt like there was a healing that happened when I re-encountered this idea I got it from of Beerman who brings the you know these beautiful ideas often share with you and the idea was around this whole idea of wishing that everything like this wasn't happening wishing that the world was different uh but before I get to it let me just take a moment and paint a backdrop for you so yoseph is sold into uh he's thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers that hated him so much they wanted to kill him and after enduring that horrific and perfidious betrayal he's subject to slavery in Egypt where he finds tremendous Grace in the eyes of potifar right his Egyptian owner but as We Know he was very uh he was very handsome and potifar wife makes it a personal Conquest to seduce him into adultery and uh you know we can only imagine as a Young Man the challenges that that faced but due to his fear of Heaven his moral code his allegiance to the teachings of his father he overcomes these seductions only to be accused of rape the very antithesis of what actually happened the complete opposite of who he actually was he finds himself in a deep Egyptian dungeon and this's what the Torah actually tells usam then Joseph's Master took him and placed him in the prison the place where the king's prisoners were confined and he was there in the prison now as we know the Torah there's no wasted words not even a wasted letter everything is deliberate everything teaches us something so it seems that these last words are unnecessary right he was thrown in jail of course he was in jail where else would he be and uh and I'm sure that many of the veterans here in this Fellowship already know where this is going the sages teach us that when he was in prison he was there he was there in prison the tourah is telling us that he was fully present that that down there in the depths of the Egyptian dungeons suffering for a crime that not only didn't he commit but a crime that was the diametrical opposite of his superhuman self-control and virtue and strength that he was not spiraling into a Vortex of regret and resentment and victimhood no he was able to fully be present and embrace his reality knowing for reasons that he couldn't possibly understand that he wasn't supposed to understand that he was exactly where he needed to be that he was exactly where Hashem wanted him to be and how could he know that with such certainty because that's where he was and that was the faith and the trust of ysf of Joseph of Joseph the sadik and that is the faith that's being demanded of each and every one of us right now because let's think about it here we are we're being accused of war crimes and genocide exactly the opposite of who we are as we're running as we know the most moral war in the history of Wars where we've sacrificed nearly a hundred of our precious soldiers in order to prevent any innocent civilian deaths and you probably know why I'm doing the qu quotation marks and it's because I don't actually believe that allowing our soldiers to die is the moral thing to do because I actually believe that it is immoral to sacrifice our soldiers to protect Nazi jihadist terrorists and their sympathizers which is nearly the entire population of Gaza but that's not the point the point is that like Joseph we're being accused of being exactly the opposite of who we truly are and we find ourselves in a pit in a dungeon of murder and hatred and pain and so what do we learn from ysep what do we learn from him we learn not to Beman our reality not to resent our situation not to be angry about it and not to fear it but to accept it in faith and understand that this is exactly where we need to be on our journey towards Redemption despite the fact we have no idea how we're going to get there how Redemption is going to play out we have no idea we don't know and we aren't supposed to know we are supposed to trust in Hashem with every ounce of our being now I understand that some people have a an aversion to this type of thinking they feel like this type of thinking can lead to a complacency to a detached sort of surrender that we aren't supposed to act at all that we're supposed to just pray and wait and that is not what I'm saying here I believe we're supposed to do everything in our power to defeat our enemies and stop the desecration of hashem's name that is growing stronger every day we're supposed to pick up our weapons and fight with all that we have to avenge the slaughtered raped murdered Sons and Daughters of Israel but that exertion that Asser ition needs to be built upon a foundation of faith and trust that this is where we're supposed to be does that make sense we're we're supposed to be fighting with all of our hearts but at the same time to know that this war we're fighting it because this is where Hashem wants us to be right now he wants us to be fighting against Hamas against healah against Iran against the global Jihad and yes to fight against the forces of evil and darkness and death that are throughout the world who are aligning themselves with them right now but there's a world of difference between fighting with our backs against the wall because we feel forced against our will to fight for our survival there's a world of difference between that and choosing to be here choosing to embrace the situation that Hashem has put us in and and taking this opportunity to sanctify his name and to fight for his Nation so yes my friends this is a fight for our existence but the real battle is within our own hearts and I bless us that we're able to embody the faith and the trust of Joseph and embrace this reality with the faith and the trust and the knowledge that it's hashem's will to be fighting this fight that we're exactly where we're supposed to be and when we do that I know in my heart that Redemption is right around the corner we have we have the faith of Joseph in our spiritual DNA we have the courage and the ferocity of the macbes pulsing through our veins may we Merit to channel that faith and that trust and that love and that courage and bring the Redemption quickly in our days amen