Fountain of Youth - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

foreign friends uh so I'm pre-recording this video meaning that I am not here with you live right now which as you know is quite a rare occurrence I actually don't think it's happened maybe in years you know I've missed friends weddings bar mitzvahs all sorts of things for this Fellowship uh not because I feel like I have to or because you won't forgive an occasional absence but because of how deeply important this Fellowship is to me really it keeps me anchored and inspired and connected and if I miss it for whatever reason it just throws me off but tonight I'm not here in person because of a very special thing that's happening I'm officiating a bar mitzvah of my my best friend growing up he was the uh the original Jeremy meaning that uh like everybody always says Ari and Jeremy when I was growing up it was Ari and Thomas but as opposed to settling the hills of Judea Thomas and I were wreaking havoc and getting in trouble every everywhere we went at all times uh Thomas and his family they escaped check his Slovakia when he was 8 eight years old leaving everything behind and now he has built up his family and while yes he does still live in Texas and I'm working on him he loves Israel and he's bringing his son and his family here for his sons Bar Mitzvah anyways 35 years later I'm officiating the bar mitzvah of his son at the kotel which is something that I just couldn't miss particularly because Thomas and his sons are kohanim meaning they're descended from the tribe of Aaron which makes them quasi-spiritual nobility uh in the Jewish people now the idea of treating kaneem with reverence and respect has been somewhat I guess diluted or forgotten during the Millennia in the diaspora where all the distinctions between the kohanim and the regular Israelites have been somewhat forgotten I mean there's been no Temple but uh but those of us in the land as the times of the temple are approaching are becoming more sensitive to these laws you know the kohanim are to be the first ones called up to blessed at the Torah uh to make key douche to bless the bread or the prayer after blessings because it's for that reason to bless that the kohanim are created right We're a nation of kohanim to the world and the kohenima I guess the KOA name does anyways I'm trying to be more sensitive to these laws and uh God willing with the impending construction of the temple I just couldn't miss this and the whole Cohen thing aside he was just my best friend growing up I had to do it it's just a lifetime event that I couldn't miss and speaking of Lifetime events uh this past Thursday night Jeremy threw a surprise party for tahila's birthday and it was special and everybody can tell from tehela's shock and Jeremy's like unadulterated insane cackling laughter Joy I could tell that something special uh as as uh probably uh happened behind the scenes there but that's not my story to tell I'm pretty confident Jeremy will tell you or he told you already um but you know as we often do at events like these we went around the room and everybody was able to give tahila a blessing and the blessings were beautiful I blessed her Shayna blessed her we all blessed her which is a great joy uh for us being the tequila is such a great blessing for all of us even on chobachi tended to my wound my finger was getting infected and she did things and fixed it and that was really nice also anyways at the end tehila spoke she spoke these beautiful words of of Torah of course just off the cuff no prep but uh but she quoted the first words of the Torah portion and the life of Sarah was 100 years and 20 years and seven years these were the years of Sarah's life and uh and so Rashi explains that uh It Was Written in this curious way to teach that when Sarah was 100 years old it was like she was 20 with respect uh to sin like she was sinless because a 20 year old is considered without sin because they are considered fully mature enough to be responsible fully for their sins and when she was 20 years old she was like seven with regards to Beauty and I don't think uh you know this explanation is is talking merely about physical Beauty and youthfulness it's uh it's something deeper and so anyways tahila spoke beautifully about how Jeremy has kept her young through all the adventures that he took them on and his Antics and all of that and she ended with the words um may we grow old together and stay young together and then that's what I wanted to spend uh our precious time talking about today on this Fellowship what was it about both Abraham and Sarah that allowed them to stay so young even throughout their rather a tumultuous lives perhaps it's because they started having kids at a much older age their parents were great their their friends were uh you know parents grandparents great grandparents by the time they had their kids you know Shane and I can testify that while this can be very hard it definitely keeps you younger but I think it's something else as well and again just to be clear I'm not talking about uh youth like the externally focused Western version of staying young which tends to be like this you know Relentless and even depressing battle against aging you know there's facelifts in plastic surgery and midlife crises and sports cars I'm not talking about all that obviously I'm talking about staying young in our hearts maintaining a youthful and and vigorous Spirits because life is art you know we talk about it on the fellowship we see it we pray for each other we see what we're going through it's just hard for everybody everybody suffers show me someone that doesn't suffer and I'll show you someone that you just don't know that well because suffering is a part of life and people can become jaded and cynical you know in response to um to pain and tragedy and Trauma many people develop calluses around their heart switch on the one hand May buffer the intensity of the pain of life but on the other hand there's a price to pay for uh for those calluses and the prices that they really prevent us from from really feeling you know these calluses prevent us from really feeling love and joy and happiness from really feeling a true dynamic living connection to Hashem to the god of of all life to the god of true life and so I want to uh I want to share with you a picture primarily brought down by uh raveli malach bitterman about the inner lives of Abraham and Sarah a little bit just a touch and I think they convey at least some of these deep truths about about why they were able to stay so young so you know David Azul he points out that the very first word of the portion already alludes to this truth the first words the first word is v e u v and so what's that VAV and yud and hey and VAV and yud in you and uh and and he explained that this word meaning the construct of the word itself that it goes both backwards and forwards as the same word he explains that uh that that conveys Sarah's philosophy write her outlook on life that if things were going backwards and it seems bad and painful and disappointing which by the way we knew much of Sarah's life seemed like that at least you know after all she did spend the first 90 years of her life Barren and yearning and then she was kidnapped numerous times she felt compelled to give her her beloved husband a concubine so that he could father a son instead of her and that's just scratching the surface of what she went through so um but despite all of that she considered all of her bad years the same as the good years were meaning everything was going forward and everything was going well in a revealed way that's how she viewed life that's what Rashi says they were all Chavez they were all equal before her they were all equally good she always found the good in every situation and if she couldn't see that good she had the perfect faith that it was good whether or not she understood why and of course Abraham shared that same quality the Torah tells us about the end of expired and died at a good old age mature and content and he was gathered unto his people so everyone was content right he was satisfied despite living a life of non-stop trials and tribulations and tests he left the world happy and content and uh and what allowed for this contentment Bobby amim his days Came Upon him right this was the reality every day every day was coming and every day he received with that same Spirit from the days samyutak was born to the day when he joyously I woke early in the morning to sacrifice him each and every day he was content with his lot and by living being content with your lot each day when that unknown day of death arrives you leave the world being content as well so to show the contrast you know between Abraham and Sarah and so much of the rest of humanity where viterman brings down the verse from cohelet from Ecclesiastes oh heavy who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he who loves abundance with gain this is all vanity so bottom line leaving the world with a sense of satisfaction and contentment is simply not a common achievement now there is a story of biederman shared that I wanted to share with you uh almost exactly word for word uh about the the Jews of Libya before World War II so in Libya before World War II the wealthier Jews lived in Tripoli and the poor Jews lived outside the city in underground caves and these their primitive accommodations were really they were just carved out of rock and they lived on dirt floors and lighting was only from the sunlight that Shone down the stairwell or you know outside their homes or the caves or whatever you know you could you could understand if these poor Jews were sometimes jealous of the wealthier Jews who lived in comfortable conditions and Tripoli but when these uh we know when the cursed Nazis arrived in Libya the Jews of Tripoli were deported to Bergen beltsin and other concentration camps but on the other hand most of those living in the underground caves were saved and eventually made their way to the land of Israel and some of them are still alive today and so that they now realize you know how fortunate they were to have lived in those caves had they resided in those spacious bright homes in Tripoli they too would have been deported to the camps and murdered and you know in ways like this many people look back at their lives and discover that their hardships were were really for their benefit for their benefit you know not only in ways that we can comprehend but also um in ways that we can't comprehend because of our limited awareness uh just on the most simple level right without having experienced our hardships and pain we simply wouldn't have the capacity to truly appreciate happiness and joy you know anyone who's recovered from an illness back to health anyone who's graduated from a toxic relationship to a healthy one anyone who's ever really experienced Darkness can testify to the profound dimension of appreciation and gratitude and recognition they have for the light okay my friends I'm going too long so being that it's my Hebrew birthday today my real birthday and I have a particularly powerful gift to bless I wanna seize this opportunity to do exactly that to bless all of you all of us that uh that we should follow in the steps of Abraham and Sarah and and live lives of gratitude and happiness and youthfulness right youthfulness well lives of love and lives of faith and Hashem should pour upon us overwhelming abundance of everything good revealed good only revealed good we should have revealed good in our lives lives of youthfulness and zest and further love for each other love for Hashem and uh and as we grow old together may we stay forever young amen shalom