Ki Zeh Kama Nichsof Nichsafti (כי זה כמה נכסוף נכספתי): Productive Longing by Jen Airley

it's a real honor to be here and um around such such not you know I I'll say I just came back from America and um and heard a lot of uh was a a lot of different speaking opportunities and the reason I'm sharing this piece is because I've been Z to meet so many different people speak at so many different initiatives at so many different toah hillan groups at so so many different learning programs and programs and it's such an honor to be part of am and I feel we are such an amazing tribe such an amazing nation and it's such a i because I'm in this role I get to see all these different things that go on in all these different communities and it's gorgeous and I just feel like I'm shepping so much and I'm seeing the tinest piece of what sees as uh so just know you're you're in such great company in this room in this organization in our arat and in theam of being part of the yehudi people um we'll see how this is going to work I generally don't write anything because one time I did and it was a FASA but I don't know my head was not so entirely attached so I figured this time I'm going to write if it starts going fash we we'll stop with the papers um as K the goal of tonight really is to um through sharing our personal loss and how we productively became um how we turned it into a productive longing a productive yearning through our personal story the goal tonight is really to feel the loss of the bash and and ultimately feel a productive longing towards that and um and that's that's where we're going you know last year I was at the cotel for Tish abov for NES and I I actually turned to the and I said I'm so sorry but I'm not sad I'm so excited you saw people coming out from every corner people who had been there all night the kids who were playing at the cotel that they had been with their masas from who knows 1 hour this is like at what 5:30 in the morning and I said how can I be sad this is like Mish coming true the the energy is such an amazing like people are like pulling in from every which way to be at theban sight but with fervor and I just felt like I'm it was really hard for me to tap into the morning piece and I I I said I'm sorry Hashem but I'm here and I'm going to D him but I'm just excited and and I hope that we will be at that place this year with uh I'm still hoping I'm still there I'm still at that place of you know we're not we're not done till we're done and uh hoping that it's uh it's going to be the real place you know that Meme that's going around our happiest day turned into a day of morning and now please God our day of morning will turn into the happiest day so I'll share a little bit about our personal um our person loss cuz that's just one way that we can now relate in a very tangible way I know all the different words that are used all the sadness and the grief and the longing and the what are the other synonyms I mean there are loads of them um all the different nuances of pain and uh you know I actually I was thinking I wanted to remind of scho because uh when he showed up when he came to our Sheva house for our Benyamin it was 38 weeks ago yesterday and uh and he gets into the room and he sits right in front of me now cats to me was like the the r like you know who I turn to but in my who I go to it's my go- to Rani person right and he comes into my house and he sits down but has never been a face to face so he sits down and I said I have been waiting for you you not and and I said I um I feel really bad because until this moment until bamin goes up went up to sh I had been daving for's G for am we don't know what it's going to be but I have been daving for the B shame I just I I know it's going to be so good I mean don't even know how good it's going to be but it's going to be so good and then benam goes up to sh and now it's personal now I just want and I felt like now what happened I'm now like he took bam took away my like all Grands thinking about the nation to like my personal need for my personal yeshu andat said you'll use your personal to reach the next level of and I guess that's how I got to this point because I would not be standing here I don't think he even realized what he said but I would not be up here um if it wasn't for this experience I would be very happy to be home on my own and even at the levia I said that I was going to I was very happy to keep to myself keep my own thoughts and emotions to myself and I felt it was a very imish moment a very eska moment where I had to decide am I going to keep to myself or am I going to try and do something for the nation and that was when I had asked everyone at the to take on aah or and from that moment I can't even tell you like the notebooks that were filled people taking on calot and Google Docs and messages of the most glorious things even just yes just not yesterday what on Friday I was at at her Herzel and I have a notebook there that people can also fill in and sign I mean everywhere I go I don't people I was just a New York and M and girls gave me a little petch and they said can you add it to the notebook and they wrote down Cal and it can be anything from like the smallest thing literally like one girl I guess not so small she said for the nine days she's not going to turn on YouTube and one girl I mean anything from you know I'm just going to say shita to somebody cering their kitchen and putting on fill in and all sorts of things and to me this is part of the productive longing part of taking something not so pleasant to say the least pretty nightmarish and say we're just going to try and make good of it and we're going to try and use it to propel Amy forward as a total aside something that we personally as a family have done is we've opened up a retreat center for soldiers and the those affected from more the story is actually M much crazy we two two years ago bought a house up inat which we had no business doing we had no money to do it was the most like impulsive thing we've ever done okay maybe not ever but it was a pretty impulsive move and it there was no reason Under the Sun why we should have bought this house and we decided okay so we're going to make an investment and we're going to be airbnbs and it's going to be part and it's going to be this and that and then it'll be for the kids and we did all this construction on it which was almost finished in time for the war and then the war started and I had said to my husbands few months later cuz everything obviously just stopped with war and then bam was killed 5 weeks in and it just sat there this whole house everything just sat there nearly complete and then one shabas morning I came home from sh and I said to my husband that I want to open a Yesa for non religious soldiers coming out of War because these soldiers they they some of them you know we we know all the stories they're putting on situs and filling but they don't know the first thing about anything KAS shabis and so I said I want now their hearts are open let's open up this place that they'll come and learn come taste how sweet Torah is come see how yish kite is so beautiful and loving and amazing and so I wanted them to come and that was my in my head I said this to my husband sh this morning and then he said well if they're coming out of Aza you understand they need therapy they cannot just sit and okay so fine we'll have some therapists and art therapy we'll have this therapy that therapy I mean obviously you need good food because soldiers coming yeah you need a barbecue fine they also need a spa this is how it all started and then I told my husband it needs to be like Central Israel Tel Aviv something like accessible I actually even spoke to a gold because he has a place and then I said forget it no it needs to be up in the north away from everything quiet focused and my husband looks at me as this is all like literally and he says I think this is why um we have a house in spat and zo we turn the whole house into B bamin and this is a retreat center that's out up and running already and somebody actually just said to me in New York I mean how is it possible nine months later you already have this place like going I said because Hashem planned it Hashem planned it two years ago and that's uh how Hashem works this is in my eyes productive longing something that I am person not me my family um is personally doing to people say oh so nice you're doing it is just getting all of us to do things and you know to raise ourselves up and to raise the nation up and this is in my eyes the way we are focused on trying to help bring to take our personal pain and try and do it that we can raise Amel up and go with it um you know it's interesting by the way that um I actually was very proud to say this piece over in you know when we make um a see for those who only have children you would never know this but they don't make a on only here I think and but are another a whole level of you know so it's okay because is the idea is when you make uh when you're a is obviously painful for the baby and how is it this is in our explained this to us how is it you can make a Shak on something that causes pain it's one thing I think with yusha or something when someone dies your you yourself are benefiting but you're making AB on someone else that's having pain and so the Rama holds that you do not make a on however I think the and say you can what happens in we can make a on pain because you know that this baby that's bring brought into is part of something much bigger and we understand in that pain with loss any pigua any Terror activity you know we're part of something so much bigger it's not like in Europe a city gets destroyed and that's the end of it you don't hear from it again no Jews ever live there again it just makes us stronger and this is part of life in ell we understand that everything we're part of a piece in the history I always say this war is a tanak level War we're part of something mamash so much bigger and I understand that b is part of something bigger bam is handpicked and and the eares are handpicked and this is and everything that anyhow anybody anybody is handpicked for their mat but we understand that this is our situation I want to just switch Focus now a little bit going towards the next piece it happens to be when I was in America now um our family was flown in to be at a camp and I went around speaking and two weeks in I lost it the first week H everything's busy and I'm you know you're landing and Jet leg and you know you're picking buying everything you need for whatever and then the second week you know and I'm meeting all these people from camp and I schedule but by the second week really I I was crying I felt like my learning even though I had now more time because I wasn't officially working so I had more time to learn but it wasn't like going in and my doing I wasn't focused and even like all the hash process stories that I see like constantly wall it was I felt like Hashem I was like are you angry at me cuz I'm in like M and I I was really I was broken I literally sat outside and I just felt like Hashem is just not talking to me anymore that's said he signed me off I don't know I I left Israel and he's I don't know I didn't know what to make of it and I thought maybe this is a thing like in this happens like you know you're just not as connected so I reached out to two people that I know I turn to r m being one of them sh carrian being another these are people that I know I hold by and I know they also travel so I thought maybe this is like a phenomenon like like maybe they know what I'm talking about so I sent them both messages they're both very busy people I know if I really needed them I can call and they both very upset when I don't take advantage of that but I just sent them a message s them they're both very busy and they don't answer right away and not day one and not day two of because what happened by the time they did answer I was kot I had time to sort it out myself and I realized really by the next day already because you know when you go through that it's it already comes to you I realized that it wasn't that Hashem left me but I disconnected from Hashem I was too distracted I was busy with all sorts of other things and I wasn't focused I understand that it really is a thing but I realized that I was the one that really was not focused and that was my my journey back and I realized that this is part of it so much so many times we think that it's has who is far away from us but really it's actually us you know I actually some I I was describing sometimes I describe to the children hasem is like at the airport scene you know when you're waiting for your you know your people to arrive and you know you're and you're greeting them you're holding all the signs and like just waiting there with your arms open hasem is like standing there keep with his arms open wide waiting for us to run to him are we running it's not it's not it's not Hashem it's us am I running the Reon to be like just thrown into his arms so that piece uh was pretty much about that I had a um in Camp I had I have a have ausa here in and she was also in Camp she was actually one of the people instrumental and convincing me to go we had our there and we started learning a saer k byman is died a couple of years ago from covid and we learned there this safer was actually there that um that was when zir messaged me and we had just finished the chapter on Kim and I'm learning this chapter I'm what are and we kept like me and my Hebrew I don't I mean it was decent but MIM and it didn't really explain ah yearnings because I kept thinking like K why would it be like yearning for money I couldn't understand the but I guess the same way some people have a cha for money we have a cha for other greater things and that's that was the chapter and that was the inspiration for uh I guess the next piece of this journey of in America but the title and um it's all the saer is really about theal of G the process of G and how it's K Kima slowly slowly right we think it has to be like the big bang but like roods had said a camp if we did the Big Bang then all these extra hundreds of thousands of people millions of people are going to come to cell and we're not going to have not enough space on the road not enough hospitals not enough that Gil has to be latl and obviously you see what's going on with all constructions you have another tunnel that opens another fast train that opens another Express tunnel that open they think they're getting ready for I don't know what we know they're getting ready for mashia because everybody has to be able to get to don't worry but now we're ready for the big ending so it's okay um let's see ah this is a piece I wanted to talk about so in his sa he talks about um he brings down the kuari and he um and this is really where it gets a little more significant I'm going to do it inside and then I will uh and then we'll explain he talks about first he quotes so again it's dman quoting the kar and he brings the from from where he talks about actually I have the English oh no I um hold on I want to just translate properly before I and he says you will arise and show Hashem obviously Hashem you will arise and show Mercy for there will come time the time to favor her the appointed time will have come for your servants have cherished her stones and favor her dust even like the right even the stones and the dust are going to be so precious so he says this is still thear when is going to be built when have this when they have yearnings for it when they desire it this and and when is it going to happen when they have such a desire when they have such um for no you know um for its stones and its dust and so then he continues to explain you wish this is Israel is gon to be built when they have such desires for it not just earnings but really this place and and the expression of this expression of this point the Pinnacle of desires who is your actions when it brings you to a place of action now this is important not just your desires but when they are Desiring even the stones and the dust meaning he's talking about here that this has to be something more practical here he's talking about for is but it's also obviously for as the makor meaning he's talking about this idea of having such desire that you people come to AR but also to come to and really want to build now I just want to explain this a little more because I think the point is is that this has to be something a little more tangible a little more practical and as we know yearning for the BET mikdash is not something the most practical meaning um in kak when do we feel a real loss when we had something and we lost it right this is what I started with when you like a poor person when he just desires money but he's been raised as a poor person he doesn't really understand but it is he didn't lose anything he has a desire to have money but he never had to never have done he never lost it yeah where as opposed to somebody who had wealth and then lost it they feel a different they feel the mourning and also desire it and it's very hard for us to get to a place where we can feel that we're mourning over the bet mikdash because we are not born at a time where we had it and lost it so rki speaks about this lot um actually his ra K's son RL Kanki and he shares a lot about this in um in a V that he just put out and he did talk about this poor person and he explained that we never lived in the time of the bet mikdash so we can't properly mourn but what's his answer we have to actually learn about it and understand it because if we learn about it and try and figure out what it will be like with the BET mikash and not just jens's like oh it's going to be so good then we can actually desire it more and I'm just going to give you a few pieces of what he spoke about so kki explains like this first of all she do you know what the singing is going to be like the orchestra of voices you know now we have there's going to be like a new note like don't there's going to be even another the the beauty of the singing is going to be something we've never heard before and the right we there's never going to be somebody that will be with sin in because as long as there's a Corban that's going on a anybody I'm hoping we're already in the vicinity like they say m the whole state of Israel is going to be anybody that's in is going to be affected by that that means free from you know that feeling we feel Kipper right like I'm clean every night same thing that's what it's going to be and they say every day there's going to beim you know they say like with you know like the story of mosha Feinstein up in the country or in I think it was a story maybe in the hospital but there were like never flies around him there could be flies everywhere and never around him that's what it's but it's going to be for everyone like the magic like I feel like I can't even put into words and I think that if I were to be able to find the words we wouldn't stop begging all day long for mashiach all day long we would be crying for GAA because we would all want it so badly and if we can find I I guess this is this is part of the aod because Hashem has not revealed maybe I know a lot of people do I know there's a movie that came out finding M there are people really understand these things I don't look into it because I think that this idea of not knowing and just the dreaming is is good enough for me some people need sources but I think we can all be the yosea and all be the dreamers and just imagine how glorious it's going to be I know when I I Mish picture like the lights hovering over actually today in I even it was even here I expanded it to here what can I tell you but this is what we can do and so if we can somehow picture how glorious it will be and our desire and so at this this is a little bit of thei a little bit of the heat Bon of understanding a tiny piece now that we can now try and make the process a little more Massi a little more physical and now we're going to talk about a little bit of the physical longing the physical practical longings now for and for the bet mikash so first of all I think number one is recognizing that um just like my personal experience of realizing that it was not Hashem that was distanced it was me I think that maybe everybody in here is holding and it is just me and not anybody else but I think on a certain level everybody can relate to having us need to go and not wait for him to come to us and realize that we are distracted in this world we're distracted this is a physical world and um I think that it's not St that the title came to me on chabus of because the song of can only be on shabas right CU shabas is one day we're going to get to this shabus but on shabas what a day that we are we turn off the outside to turn on the inside right we disconnect to connect it's the day that we can say and um if we can somehow bring that into a daily piece and the second piece I think that if we focus on the Ultimate Prize being the bet mikdash if that's our goal you know I tell people out of Benyamin stories that um you know inside AA and I really share this a lot when I go speak because it's very important for people to realize that inside Aza every house has a picture of alaa well at least it did now it's nice pile of rubble but um every house Mish had a picture of alaa the Dome of the Rock harab in fact I even confirmed this because Bam's friends who came over started telling me this and then a a a big head Commander came to the house and I asked him if this is true because I said I'm telling everybody this so I want to just make sure it's all right and he says it's not just on their houses it's not just on their walls on their foreheads on their like banners on their on the bombs that they make pictures of Dome of the Rock even you know when you've seen the news of ter of from up North how many times you see in the news it says the name of theal terrorist and it says on your Roe to they know this war is about y every terrorist knows that they're fighting a holy war and it is about Y and the question is do we know that this is about y do we know we're fighting for y now we're coming to Tish I think the reality is very real to us but all these months I tell us I tell us the people in America I said you're all soldiers you're all fighting you all have to fight I don't care that you're not I do care you're not in Israel but you're not in on the front line and you're not with a gun you don't need you don't need your uniform you're a soldier you're fighting and fight with your and with your and with your because we're fighting for y it's not just that fighting for this border or that border and if we know that we're fighting for then we fight for real right we have something very important to fight for and I say that if you D in which we D in for anyway in all of our but if we everyone sometimes gets distracted again with our you know this one needs Yeshua and this one needs a and this needs to come home and this family needs to be reunited you know that if we get the it's like the genie you know what I'm saying like we get everything so if we get the Bas of M we have it all so that's like you know like why cut ourselves short and just stening for what's right in front of us like let's focus on the big thing the main right like from Goldberg say like make the main thing the main thing you know the main thing is that the main thing should be the main thing and that's the Bas of mes and um I think this you know I I I don't know if any of you um I have a a lady at the cotel that I know when I go I mean in in the mornings when I go for Nate she's there I don't know maybe she's there all day long she's probably there all day long so this sweet little American lady she's the cutest thing and whenever you meet her and this is three years now she gives you a br that you should be Z to greet mashia it's the sweetest thing so I said in good health and B add on a little bit to her but this is this is the way and I think that that is really the that we all need and we should all work towards and if we can really realize that this is where our true true should be our true yearnings and desires to really have this desire to really see in all of his glory like it it's and it's so in our reach and I I think I'm just I'll share just a cute little bamin piece because my husband always says you don't talk about bamin enough recently trust me I think about him all day and uh but I'll share just one cute um bam story that um two years ago we ran the Jerusalem Marathon together uh we did the half marathon and um as we're running you know it's like a frat with all the hills and uh we get to jaitin you know you're running uphill and bamin is pushing me Ben go don't push he says no no I'm just helping I said no no don't push you want to go faster go faster no no I'm doing with this with you okay I guess I wasn't going fast enough for him because he's still pushing me more to which you should just know I uh whenever there's uphills in life I do feel his hand on my back and I feel that he's got his hand on half of CLA st's back pushing them uphill and definitely his friends feel that but um the sweet piece was that at the end um so I don't know if there are any runners in this group but and as we're getting to like kilometer 19 out of the 21 you know he's like Mommy can we start sprinting and I said no you're going to burn out it's too early and then we get to kilometer 20 Mommy now can we start Sprint obviously he had a lot of left I mean he's this was easy for him mommy is very like slow and steady and um by the way it's a nice trick for mothers if you ever want to have private time with your kid train for a race because then it's hours that you have them just to yourselves that was smart right um for a kid who doesn't talk much I got to like you know um have forced one-on-one time with him and then so we get to kilometer 20 he wants to start sprinting no not yet L I know the course yeah yeah you turn and once you turn and you go then you see the finish line so I said once you see the Finish Line That's so we turns and we go and we start seeing and I said now now now You Floor it now we push right this is how I feel like we're at right now we're at the Finish Line how long of the Sprint do we have left I don't know nobody knows but we all know the Sprint is we're ready to Sprint and M now much now this next less than 24 hours if we can always think like you know like pretend the camera's on you CU that's like the best thing when you think that there's a camera watching you right because then you're like best behaved but if you feel like the camera's on you then just for 24 hours now like we just have to get to the Finish Line we just have to Sprint and get there with every possible kak and like Riel said and if it's not now B then we keep going and at least now we have another major major build block under us Another Brick in the Wall another big brick of the I keep saying and all of his buddies up in sh aside from the fact I always say no more learning issues they're sitting enjoying they can sit no more he's can sit and have a perfect but there every time we hear you know like we call it thunder but it's not Thunder it's you know a sayfe it's the guys up there dancing around the B so they're dancing so hard that this above we can be so just bring the bite down if they want to send Rockets they just need to send one just hit the one the one site that they had pictures of all in AA just hit the Dome of the Rock and then the B can come down right on top of the plumbing everything's ready so please let's just get to the Finish Line with our arms up in the in the greatest like winners finish of dancing in together [Music]