Intuiting the Light - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

so I just wanted to share share something a little bit that's on my heart because there's a lot of things I wanted to share with you guys today and this is a it's a big Torah portion big big right the giving of the tour of the Ten Commandments but I just can't jump into the text without talking about what's been happening here in the land because what's been happening here for me has been all encompassing it really hit me very very hard it was hard for me to even talk about the car ramming uh that happened in the remote bus stop in Jerusalem on Friday for a while I was just so broken from it I was so broken I had to lock myself away in a room for a couple of hours away from Shayna away from the kids I just couldn't risk you know I see how like gosh picks up on everything I could have risked bringing them down was my job to keep them happy and up and strong so I just needed to like work through the initial wave of it and then my friend Akiva I don't know if you guys remember Akiva he showed up to Be Our Guest for Shabbat and I asked him how he takes these things and he said to me he's like you know it's really interesting it really depends on where my heart is when it's open he said it can really affect me deeply but sometimes my heart is just sealed and it feels like Stone and it sort of relieved me to hear this because you know I remembered how often that had been the case with me how often I heard and and I saw these devastating news of Terror attacks and I just felt numb well now I just prayed to Hashem please I said let me feel this you know let me cry with my people let me feel their pain Let Me Be Connected I just don't want to feel numb and at that moment I realized that Hashem had answered my prayer has somebody answered my prayer I was definitely feeling it and in my grief and in my sadness I at least had a little bit of a wave of gratitude come over me that despite how painful this was at least I was feeling it I was thinking Hashem for the tears and for the sadness you know I I just I just remember I know what it's looked like what it's like to look darkness in the eye and to feel little at least compared to what you know you should be feeling you feel it but you don't you know you should if you were if we didn't have these calluses around our hearts what we would be feeling is far different we we know it at least there's a feeling that I've had and this past Friday I was really feeling it and at that point before Shabbat it seemed like it seemed like there were only two confirmed murders right there was a six-year-old boy who was waiting with his father and his brothers in his Shabbat clothes waiting at the bus stop and uh just to get home for Shabbat six-year-old boy just cut down right against such innocence this is contrasted with such evil and then I see these headlines starting to come like this one right I don't know if you guys saw this it says CNN Headline what did it say two dead including child as car Rams people at Jerusalem bus stop like no the car is an autonomous vehicle and the uh Jihadi Arab has no agency of his own he doesn't even exist in a picture you know just like it just it's like salt in the womb as the world is whitewashing the depth of the evil that we're facing and I just started feeling so much rage and anger and fury and I was like picturing I was wishing I was there just wishing I could have been wishing I could have stopped it wishing I could have jumped in the wind and that I could have been the one to put a bullet in that terrorist set and then Shabbat began Brennan you're really not supposed to mourn on Shabbat there are stories of you know the righteous of Israel who lost their loves loved ones on Shabbat and went on on Shabbat putting aside the grief and the sadness and continuously singing and being happy not shedding one tear until Shabbat ends and then the grief would consume them and they would weep and they would mourn but not on Shabbat you're not supposed to grieve you know it's a taste of the world to come it's a time of happiness but it's hard to legislate emotions right it's hard to command someone to feel a certain way or to commence someone to not feel a certain way but uh but this week's Torah portion does exactly that thing right the tenth Commandments is that what you guys were thinking just now the tenth commandment Thou shalt not covet you shouldn't covet you shouldn't be jealous and I always found that commandment I reflect on that a lot because I find it very empowered because what it says to me is that that it's an illusion demanding us not to covet he's telling us the coveting is false that it's a falsehood that there's really nothing true to it that our friends lot was perfectly designed for him and not for us and that if we really did have his lot if we really did have that thing that we're coveting it would not make us happy on the contrary to make our lives significantly worse no matter how clear the vision of it in our mind of us having this thing no matter what it would not make us happy and so through that commandment ourselves telling us the jealousy and coveting is an illusion so in my heart I heard Hashem saying it's okay degrees it's natural it's normal you know grief I'm grieving with you Hashem Grieves with us he's feeling the sand is with us but on Shabbat and Shabbat we go deeper I'm Shabbat grieving we can't grieve because it doesn't exist The Depths and the level and the dimension that we're on Shabbat grief is is an illusion right the Shabbat is a taste of the world to come the ultimate Shabbat right the days of mashiach Hashem will dry all of our tears and our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with joy and on that great day we'll look back and see how everything was from Hashem everything was from Hashem everything was for a blessing we will see it clear on that day then right well we'll see it clear but now even the greatest Mystic in the world can't possibly understand this family that just lost two boys six years old and eight years old we're not supposed to be anything but but a heartbroken over this that even a tragedy is as horrific and devastating and crippling has happened this past Friday somehow was part of the Redemption but we'll know that when the time comes we'll know that it was part of the Revelation and we'll know that without it that light would not have been able to come into the world which makes it part of that light but we can understand that now we can't understand it but on Shabbat we can know it we can know it even if we don't understand it and therefore through that faith we can transcend our grief as that you know wave of of holy time of Shabbat envelops us and subsumes us you know someone after the last Fellowship sent me a message that after last week's session the they were thanking me for my openness and my vulnerability and they told me that um every tourist year that they've been listening to lately has all had the same theme battling the darkness elevating the darkness bringing light from the darkness and then I realized that not only has that been the theme of nearly every tour that I've been sharing then but also all the classes in the Torah teachings I've listened and learned and the reason for that is that the nation of Israel is intuitive right now we're into our entry period it was good real darkness bring it in our Collective Soul and is being reflected in our Collective voice the collective message that we're feeling compelled to the world to Proclaim to humanity and I can say that we necessarily understand in our heads but it's a feeling that we feel in our hearts and I actually read this idea that I'm about to share with you is a political book it's called a light tonight there's a blessing that we say that morning that I always felt sort of uh Steve out in being sort of a different and strange moving blessing it's last year [Music] blessed to you Lord our god king of the universe [Music] between day and nights I know this is going long but it's worth it it's worth it the teaching I'm going to share with you uh resonated with me in a particularly powerful way since since I own my own chicken coop right because I've noticed in the most clear and irrefutable way that the rooster does indeed Crow but he doesn't crow at sunrise that would just be too decent a thing for him to do he crows every day about 20 minutes before sunrise and that's what Rabbi Samson rafalhurst actually teaches he sees the rooster as a metaphor for the Jewish people so when the world is in the darkest place the darkness before the sunrise the darkness before the greatest lights the Jewish people are the rooster of the world the rooster of the world were Awakening mankind to the coming light of Hashem despite the fact that we're statistically insignificant sizes of people nonetheless we declare to the four corners of the world that the light of Hashem is coming in even if we don't fully understand it ourselves and just as the rooster begins its work while it's dark so that's what we're doing right now the nation of Israel despite our own personal pain and sadness we're still shining the light and I couldn't help but to notice that within the same day that the Israeli delegation to Turkey right this these righteous Heroes who are happy to risk their own lives pulling earthquake victims Muslim earthquake victims from the rubble on the same day that they saved the life of a six-year-old a Muslim boy by pulling him from the rubble that very day a Muslim Jihadi terrorist callously and viciously with pure evil in his heart murdered a six-year-old boy just for being a Jew so I think it takes a special strength to see beyond the darkness that's enveloping us to the light that is awaiting us and that's the mission of the Jewish people and that's our mission in this fellowship and that's how you've been holding all of us up to do that mission and we're fulfilling it together so uh over Shabbat you know I found myself asking again again how do we bring the light from this Darkness the answer wasn't coming to me I thought it would be and it wasn't but despite all the talk I'm still struggling to figure it out but Hashem will provide the answer if we don't give up on the struggle and if we pray enough and if we just know it in our hearts even if we don't understand it in our heads if we simply never stop seeking the light of his truth from within the illusion of all this darkness in the world Hashem is always there waiting for us and while I don't have the answers one thing I do know I know it in my heart is that the great day is coming when Hashem will shine his light of healing and love and truth to the whole world and and it's up to us to decide whether we want to be a a candle in that illumination and I want to thank all of you for holding up me and for holding up Jeremy for holding up the entire nation of Israel holding each other up to be a candle in the darkness for the whole world