It's All in the Eyes - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

but you know no matter what you've been through having the proper perspective is not something that you could just assume and take for granted uh in a lot of different ways I've been put through the ringer in ways that nobody I know I know has and I still find myself not appreciating things I should obviously appreciate and so we see in this week's Torah portion that there's nothing automatic about perspective and appreciation even hundreds of years of slavery doesn't guarantee that you'll have an appreciation of Freedom that you think that you would reading through this week's portion and even starting the next week's portion which we do during the prayer services on Shabbat afternoon you know in the spot morning we read the entire tour portion of the week and then the afternoon service we read the beginning of the next lease portion and the stories we encounter you know I was starting to weave them together into this sort of thematic pattern which I'd never considered before and I'm eager to share it with you and see if you agree with me so the first piece of the series we see in the first verse of chapter 11 of this week's portion the people took to seeking complaints it was evil in the years of Hashem in the ears of Hashem and Hashem heard and his wrath flared and a fire of Hashem burned against them and it consumed the edge of the camp now what that means the edge of the camp is Up For Debate but it's talking about maybe the leaders because the leaders didn't curtail or control them but either way it starts by telling us that the people were complaining it doesn't necessarily say what they were complaining about that becomes a little bit more clear a little bit later but it just starts by telling us that they were just complaining and I think that uh that the Torah may be conveying to us a deeper truth and quite often if not always the subject of a complaint is not the real problem the deeper issue is the fundamental prism of ingratitude which is distorting the prism of reality causing what is usually a barrage of complaints to rise to the surface all at once and I think by the way you know when I look at device I think sometimes sends us children Hashem sends his children into our lives to see these truths in their most extreme obvious basic forms um and I see with Davos particularly when davash gets tired and everything turns into a complaint no matter how inane and ridiculous it is simply opening up the wrapper of a date bar incorrectly can cause a meltdown of historic proportions I think it's adorable when she does that Shayna doesn't we agree to disagree but anyways we hear the nature of their complaints and it was coming from a craving right here's the verse the air of RAV we could talk about that another time the rabble that was amongst them cultivated a craving and the children of Israel wept once more and said who will give us meat we remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free of charge the Cucumbers the melons the leeks onions and garlic but now our life is parched and there is nothing and we have nothing to anticipate but the Mana it's like nothing to anticipate but the Mana is like cringe-worthy who could say that can you even imagine the audacity is so extreme that it's almost inspiring to have that level of football you know complaining to the creator of the world who rescued you from Egypt gave you the Torah sustaining you through the desert complaining to him that the food that he is personally preparing for you as your private chef then say it's not as good as the food that was given to you by the genocidal taskmasters who enslaved you and murdered your children it's more than Hutch but it actually seems crazy it actually seems crazy okay but let's look at the at the next PC so Miriam and Aaron they uh they come together for a little juicy sibling gossip anyone who has more than one sibling knows that this is very easy to fall into you know when it's your sibling who you both love you both love them something about gossiping about them just feels a little bit more harmless about it almost like it's your right to do it like it's not that bad you know and maybe it's not that is unless your sibling is Moshe rabenu right unless your sibling is Moses the greatest prophet in the world the most humble man in history then maybe it's a problem so here are the verses inside Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the cushite woman that he had married for he married a Christian woman they said was it only Moses that Hashem spoke did he not speak to us as well and Hashem heard of course he heard of course he heard he hears everything and listen we don't need to go into all the details here I am an expert into going into all sorts of side points and forgetting where I was to begin with but the point here is that these two spiritual Giants the first high priest of Israel right Aaron and Miriam the prophetess who saved Moshe from certain death despite their unparalleled greatness they were able to lose perspective to such a degree that they actually slandered their brother with a hint of the accusation that may he may have some sort of ego problem so crazy was this accusation Jeremy's talked about it before we're always attacked on our greatest strength so crazy was this accusation that the truth that the Torah assures Us in the very next verse that Not only was Moshe very humble but that he was the most humble person on the face of the Earth okay and then the next piece that I want to weave into this dark and shameful episode of the spies because the portions of the Torah are sort of a later differentiation so you know we've spoken about this in the past that's the next portion the beginning of the next portion we'll talk about it next week Moshe sent the spies into the land and they were not supposed to be spies at all what were they supposed to be what were they supposed to be tourists they were supposed to be tourists they were supposed to tour the land here's the verses chapter 13 verses one and two Hashem spoke to mosha Singh send forth men if you please men meaning like men of dignity men of leadership send forth men if you please vayuturu the land of Canaan they should why you tour the land of Canaan that I give to the children of Israel one man each from his father's tribe shall you send everyone a leader among them so value tours often translated as you should they should spy out the land of pain but that's really not I don't know why it's translated that way by uturu they were sent to be tourists from tour and what do tourists do they go to Trip Advisor to see all the beautiful places in the land to get inspired to enjoy themselves they want to come back with good pictures and things to brag about things to share about they want to say good things but these appointed leaders took the directive in a very entirely different direction the opposite direction instead of having the eyes to see the Beauty and the Holiness and the light they saw fear and danger and threats and darkness and the more I was reflecting back on these three back-to-back narratives the complainers Miriam and Aaron with the the gossip about Moshe and the whole thing with the spies it became clear that the underlying blemish was not in the specific subject they were contending with or complaining about it wasn't about the food it wasn't about Moshe it wasn't about the land I think the blemish was much more basic than that it was about the eyes through which they were seeing things it was about the fundamental prism through which everything in their lives everything in their world was being perceived and received and the more I reflected on it the more deeply I identified with all of them the complainers and Miriam and Aaron and the spies I was just you know just going through the different parts of my life in my head because I have this whiteboard Jeremy knows how many hundreds of white boards I have and the feudal attempt to make sense of what is inside my brain and one of my whiteboards has every single category of my life from you know nutrition to exercise spiritual uh study chorus study uh meditation exercise marriage children anyways it could go on and on and on I was going through all of these different parts of my life and I was painfully realizing that if I was going to be honest about it despite the overwhelming unimaginable Myriad of blessings that has been showered upon me in nearly every facet of my life there was something that I wish was different in some way and I felt bad about this and well at first I was really judging myself really harshly about it the more I was reflecting on it in light of the portion uh you know that critical self-judgment started softening as I realized what great biblical company I was in we're all in you know because you know to us to us here in this Fellowship well these three stories may make you you know think about these characters and Miriam Russia and the nation of Israel and the spies they sound like complainers and just people of little faith totally lacking faith when you are in it when I'm in it when I'm in that place when my the head is spinning and all I see is anger and and rage when you're Swept Away in this compelling Narrative of grievance and victimhood it seems to you that it's so true the way you're seeing it that there's simply no other way that you can look at it there's no other way that it can be seen obviously it's true it actually seems like you know in some ways our eyes are the most vulnerable organs in our bodies they're the most susceptible to being warped and twisted with distortions and Illusions which got me to think about a debate that I recently heard that I was deeply troubled by Jeremy I haven't discussed the video but I wanted to it left me feeling very uneasy and it was a debate featuring Dennis Prager do you guys know what I'm talking about did you hear about this Dennis Prager and it was about pornography and I'm going you know I'm going on too long here so I'm not going to share the clips that I wanted to share that that he said and but I'll summarize his points basically he was saying that according to Judaism we are judged by our actions and not our thoughts and that somehow pornography isn't inherently that evil that's what I took from what he was saying that it can somehow be used to bolster a marriage and not necessarily damage the marriage he was saying that pornography is not necessarily so evil that most theologians saying that a lot of the I think he was debating a Christian guy also that you know some and I was so deeply disturbed by this because it felt like it was a desecration of hashem's name um because you know from everything I understand and you know even more for them from everything I understand everything I deeply and intuitively know that's just wrong it's not true what he's saying not only is it incorrect it's just wrong and here was Dennis Prager someone who I really really respected and you know what I still respect him I don't have to like flush throw the baby out the bathwater I'm sure he says good things that he says but he's someone that I really really and a lot of people respect and look to him as the source of understanding Judaism and here he was you know sharing a perspective that I felt honestly it probably said more about him and his viewing habits than it did about Torah or Judaism I was so Disturbed that I actually commented on the YouTube video which I don't think I've ever done before who got comments on YouTube videos and my comment was really quoting one verse I tried to find the comment but I couldn't find it but I remember the verse that I quoted which quite perfectly is positioned in this next week's Torah portion after the story of the spies chronologically right after the three stories that we've been talking about here's the verse it's part of the verse it's not the whole verse you shall not stray though you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes which lead you astray not only that Ari but I do want to point out that the word in Hebrew I'm about to say that the word oh you're about to say that okay good no it's okay you go ahead it's clear in the Hebrew yeah so what I was going to say is it meaning it's it says though the word that's used as a shared them meaning you shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes which you prostitute after it's like you know harlotry that your eyes lead you to harlotry that's the word that's used and to me this version is conveying the deepest truth this version is telling us that Dennis Prager couldn't be more wrong that it all starts with the eyes we need to guard our eyes with the vigilance because if we don't if we glance at things that we shouldn't be looking at if we focus on things that are not our business or our domain we are fundamentally compromising our spiritual immune system and opening it up to be infiltrated by Foreign distorted perverse thoughts which can lead to these fantasies that we then start comparing our actual Beautiful Life compared to these fantasies and it it can these it can be so overwhelming and compelling that it can lead us to act in a way that if we were to see it happening to someone else we would judge them as insane which is actually what it is you know if we allow our eyes to excessively see and focus on that which we shouldn't it can actually lead us to momentary psychosis to Temporary Insanity it's an idea in Torah Judaism which is one of the reasons by the way that someone that commits suicide God forbid is able to be buried in a Jewish cemetery because the sages of Israel say that we assume that in that moment right as it's happening before it happens they were in this moment of total temporary insanity that they can't even be judged for that and so it leads us to Temporary Insanity and to act in in ways that are so that the dissonance between our values and our self-perception and who we perceive ourselves to that action causes us to feel irreconcilably dark in a world of Shame and regret it's somewhere that I've been you know it's numerous times in my life all because we were looking at things and focusing upon things which we shouldn't and this is why we cover our eyes every morning and every night and pronounce the deepest truth we recite that so that we can remember that Hashem is Oneness behind he's behind everything and everything Hashem does is good everything that happens is good and how can we make sure to see it that way the next verse tells us we say it every day twice a day at least the next verse tells us as we read in the Shema but you shall love the Lord your God with all your hearts and all your soul and all your might with love love is the only way love is the only thing way we can defeat this love is the only way we can really Embrace and rise to this occasion which you know why am I happy when Vash wakes me up five times throughout the night why do I think that the Tantrums that she throws about the color of her spoon are so adorable the answer is because I just love her so much that by extension I love everything about her I'll discipline her I'll discipline her strongly but my love for her never ever wavers you know this world can be very compelling and the masks and the illusions of duality uh and this world can be so convincing which is why we need to be constantly immersed in Torah and in prayer and in Acts of Holiness because Borum boredom and squandering time on silliness and emptiness can carry more of a price than we think you know I've been praying with some of these ultra-orthodox Jews and I go early and I watch them learning the talmud with each other and they are screaming and fighting and into it for hours and hours and immersed in it and it's not my thing but you know what I get why they do it because at least it is giving very serious hard focus on Torah and hashem's laws and hashem's words and that is a better place to be than just letting your mind wander anywhere at the very least so anyway before I end this message to you because I know I'm way over time here I just want to say you know that I struggle with this stuff like I'm sure all of you do but actually probably many of you don't but I struggle with it just as much as you if not more and there are times that I have fallen on my face but I want to bless us that we judge ourselves with the knowledge that the nation of Israel fell on their faces right after the giving of the Torah that they complained to God right after the great revelation of the Torah the Miriam the prophetess and Aaron the high priest fell on their faces when talking about Moses the most humble man ever and that the princes of the tribes of Israel fell on their faces so magnificently that we're still paying the price of the slander they spoke about the land of Israel all because they saw it through the wrong prism and we're gonna fall into it again so we're in good company in our failures but the key to staying strong the key to staying in that good company that we just spoke about is rising up again and again even stronger Having learned from our mistakes and internalizing those lessons to see the world through a prism of goodness and blessing and only words of blessing and praise and positivity should emerge from our from our mouths