Faith without Blemish - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

shalom friends it has been quite a passover for us here at the farm and i hope it's been a meaningful one for all of you as well because the truth is that i know that we all wanted to share more messages and teachings over the holiday itself but here at the farm the two most exhausting times of the year are passover and sukkot there's rarely a free moment and when there is it's often spent collapsed on the sofa in exhaustion just between appointments and and and believe me i'm not complaining i love every moment of it there's just nothing i'd rather be doing and i want to tell you why because as you know right passover is seven days the first day and the seventh day are full-fledged yomtov's meaning holidays there's no electricity no phones no cars without getting into all the details it's very similar to shabbat but the five days in the middle are a different story they're called ho hamoid which i guess you could define as like the mundane within the holy they're sort of like the intermediate days of holiness they're definitely holy right you wouldn't wear trill and even fill in the phylacteries you wear them during the week on every day that you pray but the holiness of the is so enhanced is so great that it provides this amplification of spirituality which the twilight usually offer meaning that the day itself is imbued with great holiness the holiness of passover just not the same degree as the first and the seventh days all of this is detailed by the way in the book of numbers chapter 28 verses 16 to 25. i won't get to all of those details because i don't want to hijack jeremy's fellowship but i did want to share with you because it's a big part of jewish life here in israel and around the world but really more here in israel because in america during those five middle days life really does go on normally it's not a it's not a jewish country right so it's not built into the calendar so while people use their vacation days for the first and the seventh day in america most people don't even have enough vacation days to cover those middle days as well definitely not on passover and on sukkot on the feast of tabernacles so on a practical level other than special prayers and synagogue and eating matza instead of bread those days don't really stand out but in israel it's a very different story the whole country is on vacation right whether you're more religious less religious it's just what's done the most secular israeli refers to uh to passover you know before and after passover even if they don't keep every aspect of it it's just scheduled into the calendar it's so much part of a part of the national consciousness it's just it's just a time for national vacation but not exactly at the arugula farm right on our mountain we take vacation after passover at least that's when we would we don't actually do that because you know the farm just like lights up over passover we literally had thousands of people flooding our mountain they're just like i'll try to send a few pictures of it you know but it was just overwhelming and we're very busy and it gives me great joy because it's an extreme example of one of the primary reasons i believe hashem sent us out here to give people from throughout israel and around the world an opportunity to experience the holiness of this place really how how mysteriously sacred these mountains are because there really is a lot of mystery to it it just doesn't add up otherwise because all of israel all of israel is holy right all of judea is holy but when people come out here i'm just telling you as a general rule at least they're so touched so profoundly moved so deep in their souls it's just something i can't intellectually comprehend and in that way by the way this mountain actually reminds me of so many of you because i can understand intellectually why truth seekers particularly from christian backgrounds as many of you are would be drawn to connect to the jewish roots of their faith but the the fire and the passion and the love and the yearning that i see in so many of you well that is it's got to be from a deeper place a hidden place that i can't necessarily understand and from our conversations together by the way i've come to believe that many of you also don't fully understand what god is doing in your hearts either anyways bottom line is it's just so busy on the one hand it's a lot of work and on the other hand like i said there's nothing i'd rather be doing with my time or my life which by the way is the reason it's so important that shane and i are on this mission together because while other families are out on vacation she's here by my side greeting thousands of people into our home and giving them food and love and attention and really just like being the sarah to the abraham that i aspire to be anyways the farm was more of a destination than i can remember there were tour buses that booked a head uh and and also just constantly coming out every single day but the majority of people just showed up right they heard about it somehow word of mouth in israel is a real thing right i even uh i even implemented a new approach that may seem obvious but there were just so many personal requests come in that would have been impossible for me to entertain everybody so rather than uh so for the first time i started booking everybody at once saying just come out i would have just listened to my voice right now this is since the first day i started losing my voice so a couple of times over the holiday i scheduled this you know this open tour and it was packed and it was invigorating and i actually really want to start scheduling a weekly tour at least at least once a week exactly like that so yes it was challenging but it was also great and then it ended with a with this one two punch right the holy seventh day was followed immediately by shabbat which meant 49 hours of resting and praying and eating and just being we actually had my parents come out which was really important because my father isn't really doing very well at all he's in a wheelchair now and he's on painkillers with this crippling sciatica so for those that know what it is it's terrible it's very painful so we'd be very grateful for your prayers his name is mordechai hershel anyways thank you for that but it was really good for us to be together in the mountains during such a difficult time and at least that's what they said you know that it was healing it felt healing to them just to be out here anyway so i hope all of you are able to experience the healingness of this place too but anyways passover ended with that seventh day and that seventh day is what i wanted to discuss with you during the rest of my message here right now because many of people don't really know what that seventh day is really about or what makes it so special but rav biederman explains that the seventh day is a day that's auspicious for full faith a day in which our faith can be strengthened profoundly and internalizing the power of that day can strengthen us even now even now if we really take it to heart because on the seventh day what happened the sea parted and we walked through it after which it returned to its natural state wiping out the egyptians all together right they say that a simple handmaiden saw the divine in a way that the prophets of israel didn't and it was on that day that the torah tells us that the israelites achieved full faith as we see in chapter 14 verse 31 right we say it in our prayers all the time via menu bashem israel saw the great hand that hashem inflicted upon egypt and the people revered hashem and they had faith in hashem and in moses his servant meaning finally only then did they really have faith that up until then there was a moom right there was a a blemish in their faith that up until then and you know i'm sure they believed they had faith but it wasn't complete faith sir if biederman shares what the sages explain were there two questions right what was disturbing their immunity disturbing their faith so one question many of you may have had it as well why did they have to tell pharaoh that when they were leaving egypt that they only wanted to leave for three days right they were like in this position of strength hashem brought pharaoh and all of egypt down to their knees just say you're leaving for good right the second question is similar why did they tell the egyptians that they only wanted to borrow their valuables their clothes their treasures why not just say it's ours now right it's pennies on the dollar for the years of brutal enslavement why just say that they're borrowing it so these two questions plagued them and it disturbed their faith but once they saw the parting of the sea and the drowning of the egyptians our sages explained only then did they really know only then did they realize that the anger and the betrayal the pharaoh and the egyptians felt and what they perceived was was this betrayal against them that they had been lied to well that fury pushed them over the edge and caused them to chase after the israelites to kill them right and that actually resulted in the annihilation of the egyptians in the sea and the historic sanctification of god's name that resulted from that right it was only then that it all made sense to them and their faith was complete and that's why i wanted to share this message with all of you because we can learn from this during our times when we are already seeing right all around me right now we're already seeing the redemption unfolding but there's still so many questions so many of us are going through so much pain and so many of you reach out to me and i'm grateful for that not only on personal level of on a global level on a global level on an unpersonal level because as things happen in the world and in our lives that we we may not understand everything you scratch that we will not understand everything we will not understand how everything particularly the pain and the grief in our lives is for the good we will not understand how it's part of redemption but it is in our hands to have complete faith anyways i know it's hard i know it is believe me i know it is but it's it's something that we need to pray for and aspire to but we can have that complete faith despite the questions if we look back at the blemish in the faith of those israelites and take that lesson into our hearts you know i was even just talking to jeremy about this yesterday right we've seen with our own eyes the miracles after miracles that brought us out to this mountain and have guided us every step of the way yet there are still moments of doubt real moments long moments sometimes moments of not understanding but it's during those moments that we we really can strengthen our faith and know that just as we see god so clearly looking backwards in history hashem is with us now and guiding every detail of our lives even now and so my friends i want to bless you and bless myself bless all of us with the gift of perfect faith and the knowledge that hashem is with us and there is a reason a good reason for even those things that we can't possibly fathom that we can possibly understand they're all part of the redemption that's unfolding today shalom my friends back to you jeremy my name is ari and i live here on the edge of the judean frontier and just as the prophets foretold the mountains of judah are coming to life the in-gathering of the exiles is taking place right before our eyes the dead language of hebrew has been revived and the final prophecy is manifesting before our eyes as the righteous of the nations are coming together with humble hearts here in the land of israel fellowship we come together every single sunday live in person over zoom to connect to the secrets of the hebrew language the secrets of the torah of the bible and connect with each other because in the end of the day it's the friendships and the relationships that are bringing us together because we have one thing in common our fear and our love for the god of israel and now i'm inviting you to join us along with hundreds of jewish and christian families from all around the world to experience the beauty and the holiness and the magnificence of our fellowship so click below and get the first five sessions for free as well as joining us on our next session so you can taste the beauty and the holiness that is happening on this mountain