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Faith When It Makes No Sense - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship
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I'm still working through throwing my
hands up in the air and trusting Hashem
that he knows what he's doing in this
war. I It sounds crazy to say the words.
I'm just being honest. You know, I
shared it with you last week. I've been
feeling this sadness in my heart that
things didn't go as I thought they
should go. I mean, it's really
unbelievable. Overnight, life has gone
back to normal. Whatever that means,
back to normal. You know, we went from
being on the verge of what felt like
milit
World War II, Armageddon, the
apocalypse, whatever you want to call
it. To me, it sure felt like we were on
the verge of it. And we went from that
to a sense of calm and security, which
arguably we haven't felt since before
October 7th, 2023 when Hamas launched
this brutal, vicious, traumatizing,
genocidal surprise attack against us.
Now, you'd think that we as a nation
would feel nothing but gratitude. And
you'd think that I, as Arya Bramitz,
after everything I've been through,
would feel overflowing joy and
thankfulness and nothing else. But I'm
not. I mean, I feel those things, but
definitely not nothing else. And I know
I'm not alone. And while there is some
small comfort in knowing others feel the
same, it's only a slight consolation.
Because no matter how hard I try, I
can't seem to let it go completely. I
can't fully accept the way things have
turned out. And that makes me feel
ungrateful. It reminds me of a joke. I
may have uh told it to you before. A
Jewish grandmother is at a beach with
her little grandson playing in the sand.
And suddenly, a huge wave comes crashing
in and sweeps the boy out to sea. The
grandmother falls to her knees, lifts
her hands up to heaven, and cries out,
"Dear God, please return my grandson to
me. After all I've suffered in my life,
he's all I have in the world. I'll be
more observant. I'll light the Sabbath
candles. I'll give to charity. Just
please bring him back." Miraculously,
another wave rolls and gently deposits
the boy right back at her feet,
unharmed. And she looks him over
carefully. Then she glares up at the sky
and says, "He was wearing a hat. I can't
help but to feel like I'm that
grandmother. Hashem has done these great
miracles and I'm looking up and saying,
"Yeah, but you could have done it like
this." But what can I do? It's simply
the truth of how I often feel these
days. It's as if we were standing on
this brink of a massive fundamental
upheaval of biblical and historic
proportions. Not only in the story of
the state of Israel and not only in the
saga of the Jewish people, but in the
destiny of mankind. I mean, we've spoken
about this before, how the ultimate
struggle in history began in the Garden
of Eden when Adam and Eve defied the
explicit command of Hashem by eating
from the tree of knowledge. And as a
consequence of that rebellion, the evil
inclination was infused within them and
by extension within each and every one
of us. This force of confusion and doubt
doesn't only exist within us but also
manifests in the world around us. It
takes its purest and most potent form in
the nation of Amalcch, whose very
essence is dedicated to extinguishing
the light of the one true God and by
extension to eradicating his people
Israel from the face of the earth to
extinguishing our light. For we are his
witnesses. Our light is his light. And
there have been moments it has seemed
that Israel might finally defeat this
darkness once and for all, redeeming
that primordial sin and bringing
humanity back towards the gates of Eden.
I know that might sound grandiose, but
in truth, I really believe that is
what's at stake here. The last time that
we really had Amalcch cornered to the
degree that we could have completely
finished them off was I believe in
chapter 1 of the book of Samuel.
This is uh chapter 15:es 2:3. Thus said
the Lord of hosts, I am exacting the
penalty for what Amalecch did to Israel
for the assault he made upon them on the
road on their way up from Egypt. Now go
attack Amalecch and prescribe all that
belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill
man and woman alike, infant and
suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
This was the words of the prophet Samuel
on behalf of God to Saul. But Saul
doesn't do it. He doesn't see it all the
way through. Samuel, of course, knew
this prophetically. He knew
prophetically what happened with Saul.
And he went to meet Saul on the
battlefield. And here is what happened.
Samuel 1 153
When Samuel came to Saul, Saul said to
him, "Blessed are you of the Lord. I
have fulfilled the Lord's command." But
Samuel said, "What then is the bleeding
of the sheep in my ears and the loing of
the cattle that I hear?" Saul answered,
"They brought them up from the
Amalachites, for the troops spared the
best of the sheep and cattle to
sacrifice to the Lord your God as and we
prescribed the rest." Samuel of course
sees through this and he confronts him
directly. But Samuel said, "Does the
Lord delight in burnt offerings and
sacrifices as much as in obedience to
the Lord's command? Surely obedience is
better than sacrifice, compliance than
the fat of rams. For rebellion is like
the sin of divination, defiance like
iniquity and tarim. Because you rejected
the word of the Lord, he has rejected
you as king." Our sages teach us that we
already know intuitively that this is
true. We know this to be true. That if
that pivotal mistake of Saul that
empowered Amalcch, keeping Aag alive,
keeping the nation of Amalcch alive and
forcing us to continue this devastating
war against their evil darkness. It was
that mistake that kept the nation alive
and resulted in October 7th. Here it is
directly from the book of Exodus. For
there is a hand on the throne of God.
The Lord will be at war with Amalecch
from generation to generation. Meaning
that until that war is over, war itself
will never be over. And Saul had the
opportunity to end it all. Right there.
The great sage Rabenu Bakaya, he says on
that very verse, he says, "Were it not
for the sin of Saul in sparing Ag and
the best of Amalikch's cattle, Amalcch
would have been entirely destroyed and
the name of God and his throne would
have been complete."
The midash goes on to explain, "If Shaul
had killed Aag as he was commanded,
Haman would not have risen and Israel
would not have suffered that decree."
Let there be no mistake. Ayatollah Kmeni
in Iran is the embodiment of the progeny
and the legacy of Amalcch in the world
today. I think I shared with you the way
Ayatollah Kmeni's name is actually
pronounced in Farsy. It's not Kahamei.
It's Hammani. Hamani. That's right. Just
like Haman. He is the Haman of our
generation. He is the gag of the aag of
our days. He's the Amalch of our times.
And just last week it was clear that
through the great miracles of Hashem,
the armies of Israel were being wielded
as a sword in his hands. And just as in
the days of Samuel and Saul, the forces
of Amalcch were being decimated in this
glorious miraculous fashion. And yet,
right at the moment when Agog himself
was brought to his knees and the sword
was in our grasp, we listened to the
voices urging us to back down, to hold
back from finishing the task. Whatever
the reasons or justification, they're
ultimately irrelevant.
Now, once again, we're plunged back into
the confusion. There's talk of reviving
the Abraham Accords, but somehow amid
all the discussions, the words
Palestinian state being contingent
that's being thrown around. It's utterly
insane and absurd. Precisely the kind of
thinking that brought us to October 7th
in the first place. It also deeply
undermines the truth and the beauty of
the Abraham Accords themselves whose
genius was that they weren't contingent
on anything other than the genuine
desire of both sides to reconcile and
build peace. The moment you make peace
contingent, especially on establishing a
terror state in the heart of the very
land that God promised to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, you sabotage the very
foundations upon which the accords were
built. Even whispering such ideas
undermines any chances they might have
had. If only we had possessed the faith
to see this through, to do whatever was
necessary to end this darkness and this
nightmare for Israel and for the entire
world, regardless of what the empires
and the nations and the superpowers
might say. Had we simply finished the
mission, it would have at the very least
brought tremendous glory to Hashem's
name in the world instead of allowing
others to swoop in and claim that even a
measure of that glory and credit belongs
to them. The heart of the matter is
this. It would have required tremendous
faith in God and trust in him alone to
summon the political, military, and
national will to finish what's needed
that needed to be done then. And that
faith, the courage to defy Trump and the
UN and the entire world calling for
deescalation may have been the very
faith necessary to rectify Saul's
original sin, to obliterate Amalcch and
to sanctify Hashem's name before all
humanity.
But that's not how it happened. And so
my struggle now is to accept that
reality as Hashem's will and to
internalize the truth that Hashem alone
is running the show and that redemption
will unfold in his perfect wisdom, not
according to my limited perspective and
understanding. My consolation is that my
anguish and existential pain are not for
myself. That much I know with certainty.
It's a it's really coming from this
burning jealousy for Hashem's honor
which feels trampled and diminished in
the wake of such great miracles and
kindness and and mercies that he poured
upon the nation of Israel and upon me
personally. So my internal work now is
to seek deeper insight into why this
element of our national character
continues to plague us. Maybe there's
something to learn here. There's
something to do. And you know, instead
of resenting it and resisting it or
lashing out in anger at it, I'm really
trying to humble myself and ask Hashem
for the wisdom to understand it, to
understand why. Why do we seem to come
so close to finishing the mission only
to step back at the last moment? Why
does this why does why does redemption
always feel like it's right there, just
within reach, and yet it slips through
our fingers? And I've been wrestling
with that question and as I have my
thoughts have kept returning to this
week's para as they always do when we
seek understanding for the challenges we
face we face both personally and as a
nation which brings us to Korak. You
know Korak was a man who stood on the
brink of greatness. He was brilliant. He
was charismatic. He was a Levite of
noble lineage. And yet he fell into the
same trap that has snared so many
throughout history, including King Saul
in his war against Amalcch. Kor's
rebellion was not merely a political
power grab. It was an ideological
rebellion. He claimed, "Ravlam, you have
taken too much upon yourselves. For all
the congregation are holy, every one of
them, and Hashem is among them. Why then
do you raise yourself above the assembly
of Hashem?" That's what he said to
Moses. On the surface, his words sounded
so righteous, equality, holiness for
all. But Moshe saw through it. He
understood that Koraf's real sin was not
about seeking holiness, but about
refusing to accept Hashem's will when it
clashed with his own desires and
understanding. Korak couldn't accept
that Hashem chooses who leads. Hashem
chooses. Hashem chooses how the world
unfolds and how redemption progresses.
He wanted holiness, but on his terms.
And that, my friends, is my own personal
struggle right now. I want redemption,
but it appears I want it on my terms. I
want Amalcch wiped out on my timeline. I
want Hashem's glory revealed to the
world, the entire world right now. But
Parsha Korak reminds us, sometimes our
spiritual yearning, no matter how
righteous it feels, can become a
rebellion if we demand that Hashem's
will match ours. Korak fell because he
could not surrender to the mystery of
Hashem's plan. And that's what I'm
wrestling with. It's so easy to look at
the geopolitics, the armies, the deals,
the superpowers, and to imagine that we
see the full picture. But we don't. Saul
couldn't see it at all. Korak couldn't
see it at all. And neither can we. At
least neither can I. We stand in the
middle of this cosmic tapestry. From our
limited vantage point, it looks like
threads are tangled and frayed. But from
above, from Hashem's view, it's a
masterpiece in progress. That's why
Moshe fell on his face when Korak
rebelled. Because the only way to
navigate confusion and disappointment is
with humility. To admit, I don't
understand, but I trust you, Hashem. And
that's where I'm trying to get to. My
heartbreak over what didn't happen in
Iran, over the retreat from wiping
Amalcch out once and for all, that
heartbreak is real. But if I cling to my
own vision of how redemption should
look, I risk becoming like Korak.
Certain certain that my plan is better
than Hashem's. And so I'm coming to the
realization that my avoda, my inner
work, my service of Hashem is to hold
two truths at once. On the one hand, to
continue yearning with all of my heart
for Hashem's name to be glorified, for
Amalcch to be destroyed, for Israel to
dwell safely in our land, and for the
rebuilding of the temple, and not only
to yearn for it and pray for it, but to
do everything in my power to seek to
manifest it in the world, while at the
same time to surrender to Hashem's plan,
even when it makes no sense to me at
all. Because ultimately, as Schlommo
said,
many are the thoughts in a man's heart,
but it is the council of Hashem that
will stand.
Or as Moshe says later in Deuteronomy,
the hidden things belong to Hashem, our
God, but the revealed things belong to
us. So my prayer for myself and for all
of us is that Hashem gives us the
strength to keep fighting for truth, to
keep yearning for redemption, and at the
same time to trust him completely even
when the path takes turns we don't
expect or understand. Because one thing
I know for sure, Gula is coming.
Redemption is on its way. Whether it
happens the way we imagine or in the way
we never dreamt, it will come. And may
we merit to see it speedily in our days.
Amen.
[Music]