Blessing our Suffering - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

I I wanted to talk about uh sort of a little bit of the residual Torah teachings from last week's uh Fellowship that we had together because I spent a lot of time reflecting on some of the ideas that we learned um regarding the creative power of suffering because everybody suffers uh but not everybody's aware you know of how suffering can be harnessed for growth and how it has the capacity to be a source of of light in our lives and in the world and how it's just part of the human condition and in a lot of ways it's a big gift if we're if we're tuned in to the the art of how to channel it and how to really connect to the source through it and um you know and the teaching that really stayed with me the really etched its way into my heart that I kept revisiting in my head uh throughout the week was from chapter 45 verse 4. right it said then Joseph said to his brothers come close to me if you please and they came close and he said I am Joseph your brother let me try him I'm Yusuf your brother it is me that you sold into Egypt so that teaching if you recall was that the word Asher doesn't mean that right he he wasn't saying I am Joseph your brother that you sold into Egypt brother he was saying I'm Joseph your brother because you sold me into Egypt you guys remember this one it was such a teaching I don't know why you know it that it was because of his sale to Egypt which made him into the righteous holy forgiving man that they saw before them at that very moment I'm Joseph this Joseph this guy I'm this Joseph because you sold me into Egypt in some ways giving them credit but definitely taking um The Sting off of their sin in their own minds because you can only imagine the crippling guilt you know Joseph said years in prison but I don't know during those years who was really more in prison Joseph or his brothers meaning a prison of their own making a prison of their own guilt and shame anyways that teaching spoke to me so powerfully because it resonated on the you know as such a deep truth regarding the Journey of my life that it was really the periods of the greatest confusion and suffering which brought forth those qualities which I now considered my best ones my most evolved qualities uh at least my best ones compared to what I had before you know compared to my previous characteristics and then this Shabbat um I was with my sister and her children in in Modi in and uh you know the city of The Maccabees that's where the whole Maccabee Journey started right now it's like a a big city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv it actually has a lot of the qualities of both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv mixed together in one city and anyways the rabbi stood up and he shared an idea that really drove this point home to me in the most beautiful way and so I just wanted to share that with all of you he spoke about this uh rather curious exchange that took place between the brothers and Yosef after the passing of their father yaakov that we see in chapter 50 verses 15 through 17. right it says and when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead they said Joseph will perhaps hate us and will certainly pay us back for all the evil which we did to him and they sent the messenger to Joseph saying your father did command before he died saying so shall you say to Joseph forgive I beg you now the trespasses of your brothers and their sin for they did to you evil and now we beg you forgive the trespass of the Servants of the god of your father and Joseph wept when they spoke to him I don't know there's something also I've always felt like disappointing about this that they had to it's pretty I think that this was a clearly a lie that they said this and they're still in that place but I guess fear makes you do things it makes you say things but the question that I've always had was what made them say this to Joseph what made them so filled with fear what what happened to cause them this insecurity this fear that Joseph would all of a sudden take vengeance upon them so anyways there's a midrash that says that on the way back from yaakov's funeral in Chevron the brothers passed near the spot into which Joseph was cast into the pit all those years ago you can imagine there's like a weird energy there and they probably wanted to take a circuitous roundabout root but Joseph took a detour and he stopped at the pit and he stood there staring into it in silence and then in prayer and this uh you know looking at Joseph like that uh cast fear into their hearts into the hearts of his brothers and they feared the pain and the anger and the Betrayal and the trauma of what they imagined was being revived in his hearts and uh and now that yaakov their father had passed on there would be nothing holding him back from taking Vengeance so uh in this seeming Act of of desperation and Jeremy I'm interested to hear if you think that or any of you in the fellowship I think also I'm really open to this because I feel like I don't see it that clearly but on some level this is true so in the seeming Act of desperation that concocted this plan in which they quoted their father asking Joseph to forgive them and offering themselves the slaves but I think what they didn't understand the sages tell us was that the content of yosef's mind and his heart at the time the content of Joseph's prayer as he stood there at the precipice of that pit gazing inside his prayer was the prayer that one is supposed to make at the spot where a miracle happened and their life was spared I remember when I first came to Israel and there's this wonderful family the Levines that you know Charlie and Shelley Levine they adopted me into their family and uh right around that time Charlie the father got in a head-on collision on his way to work in the morning and the other person died and Charlie was injured quite badly but his life was spared and then all the times that I drove with him in the morning he said that every day as he passed that sacred spot to where the accident happened he made the blessing um King of the universe who performed a miracle for me in this very place and I would say I mean every time and we would talk about it every time and I remember when Shayna and I flew to America together to receive her grandmother's blessing right the same Holocaust surviving grandmother after which our beloved Vash is named so you know as we were driving back uh from the airport into New Jersey I had Shayna stop and one of my Miracle places and I say one of because my uh my near-death encounters have been quite a few for those of you that know the story bombings and stabbings in the World Trade Center and all sorts of stuff but anyways this was the highlights this was a highlight near-death encounter for me and so we stopped at the very spot where uh where it happened to me I could tell you about it but I actually or not I Shayna actually dug up and found the video that I wanted to share with you so here it is and about 17 years ago after I was in the Army in Lebanon and Chevron in Gaza in the Israeli Army I came here to New York for a year and a half to get my degree at Yeshiva University I've been here about two weeks and I was in this very place 17 years ago late at night wearing a coupon seat seat and I got stabbed in the back and in the arm just walking down the street right here which was an interesting thing to have happen considering I was finally in New York in America a safe place and out of the line of fire in Israel and I got stabbed right here in New York in front of this very building I haven't been back here since and as I was driving by I said maybe I should get out and I should make a bracha make a blessing because it was miraculous I got stabbed in the back and it missed all the important stuff I got four stitches in my back two in my arm in the hospital for a few hours and I was out and that was a miracle so I thought I would share with all of you as I make a bracha in this place foreign place in New York City so Jews in New York Jews in America just remember it's not the safest place in the world a lot of crazy things happen burned here I got stabbed here I saw the World Trade Center come down Israel is a safer place just consider that good Jeremy did you tell Tabitha to cut my message short as I was about to no no I didn't I didn't I did that just happened but I think it's hysterical to watch you already like 10 years ago be like get out of America it's dangerous it's sort of the message it's the message sort of Lent itself to that but anyways what is the nature of that blessing right what is its Essence it's gratitude it's thankfulness it's a recognition that Hashem has been guiding and and uh orchestrating the events of our lives and I believe that that life-saving Miracles are there to remind us that every moment is a life-saving miracle and every moment is a source of blessing and gratitude every moment could be our last for any number of reasons and that's what I think shocked me about the situation it seems that Joseph's brother still didn't recognize who their brother really was they still didn't really see Joseph they still didn't fathom that Joseph wasn't marinating in anger and in resentment but he was constantly bathing himself in gratitude and thankfulness constantly reorienting and reframing what happened to him and seeing it through a Divine prison and not through a prism of man's own you know resentment and and uh and hatred anyways in many ways that's stabbing while it was traumatizing and I actually still have physical pain from it you know it healed up really well and then like six years ago I started getting this crippling pain emanating directly from the stab room and I went to this doctor and that doctor and this doctor nobody could tell me what it was I never even correlated the pain to the Stab Wound but it turned out that I finally went to one doctor that said oh absolutely that's where it's from spiritual stuff emotional stuff but also Scar Tissue stuff is coming up and I've been going through it and so it was it was traumatizing and I still have physical pain from it but it was that stabbing that was a turning point in many ways for me after which I really really started feeling that I'm living on borrowed time that it's silly for me to hedge my bets and take the road more traveled that I shouldn't be here anyways you know go for the gold live my dreams follow my heart there's no question that when I personally decided to think everything I had into these Barren Hills and plant my roots two kilometers you know over a mile away from my closest neighbor that that part of that willingness to put it out all out on the line it came from that stabbing uh Jeremy I don't know what your excuse is I don't think you had too many you know life life-threatening miracles happen to you I don't know where you got it from but I guess you didn't need it you're a higher level than me functioning at a higher level but but either way I'm much higher much higher much better absolutely but uh but I want to bless all of us my friends that we should be able to look back at our suffering and to bless it and not only Bless The Suffering but bless the vehicle with which it was inflicted upon us and not only vets but the highest level I want to bless us all Hashem should bless all of us that we should have the faith and the trust and the presence of mind to bless the suffering not only looking back at it but while we're in it that that the greatest suffering we have we should be able to say even at the time Baruch that is made for me a miracle in this very place