Love Through Words - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

there's been this theme developing not intentionally throughout these fellowships around the idea of God's love um is it conditional is it not conditional what does it mean so by now in this Fellowship we've you know deled into the subject of hashem's names so I'm not going to restate all of it each time but you know how each name reveals a different secret into hashem's revelation of his light in the world because if it's true that there's nothing but godliness in the world that that God is all that there is then how is it that there's this very very convincing and persuasive perception or Illusion of multiplicity of everything being separate and different when in reality there is God's Oneness behind all of it and so for example the name Elohim is a revelation of God through the laws of nature which also represents the idea of divine Justice because there is divine Justice on one dimension but a higher more Transcendent Dimension is a higher more Transcendent name which is the tetragramaton which is yud and he and VAV and he which is the four-letter uh name that is the highest Dimension that you know people try to pronounce it but really you're not supposed to try to pronounce it because we can't pronounce it because we can't understand it we can't understand complete Transcendence over time and so we're not able able to even pronounce it we look at it and we internalize it and we think about it but we can't pronounce it although there are those that do um and uh so you know this name conveys God's loving kindness it conveys his compassion which is at the very essence of Hashem so is there Divine Justice yes there is divine Justice and that is a very real and true Dimension but when you go deeper past that Dimension behind that Justice is just love and compassion for everybody and for everything that is God's very essence now we've spoken about this before but the Torah portion conveys a deep Insight not only into hashem's love for us but into how we're ideally supposed to manifest that love for each other so this is the portion of the Torah portion that I I I always pull out I I can't help but doing it because it always speaks to me so powerfully and Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the Rock and he said to them here now here now you rebels must we fetch you out water from this rock and Moses lifted up his hand and with his Rod he struck the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also and the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron because you did not believe in me to sanctifying me in the eyes of the people of Israel therefore therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them this is the water of mariva because the people of Israel strove with the Lord and he was Sanctified in them now there's a lot of discussion regarding what exactly the big mistake was here but to me the reason given that has always spoken the most powerfully at least to me in my heart was the idea that Moses's sin here was that he called the nation Rebels right he didn't say they were being rebellious he said that they were Rebels for one brief moment in his life Moses slipped up regarding the nation that he loved so deeply and for that moment he conflated their current behavior with their very essence and yes considering their you know their recent track record from the golden calf to the episode of the spies to their constant complaints and rebellions one could forgive him it was a you know an all too human mistake but at Moses's level it was a mistake of huge consequence I mean imagine that your three-year-old gets his hands in the groceries opens up the carton of eggs and throws them across the room as a matter of fact I just yesterday morning um I didn't want sheilo to I take the kids out almost every morning into our chicken coup they feed the chickens they collect the eggs and sheilo is just two years old and I said to the kids don't pick up any of the eggs because we have this one massive chicken called the Brahma and the Brahma when you get too close to the eggs he can get aggressive and sheilo is about his size so I didn't want the Brahma to attack sheilo so I said don't go for the eggs so sheilo picked up the Egg and I said sheilo I said not to take the egg he oops and he just dropped the eggs the fell and splattered and so um so you know I could have said you know the high high level me actually was present at the moment and I said Sheila you're such a good boy but that wasn't a good thing to do you're supposed to listen to Aba you usually listen to Aba you're such a good boy but remember please listen to Aba but instead I could have screamed the lower level me could have screamed bad boy you're a bad boy now such a declaration from a parent right with such anger and conviction could have quite a negative effect on a young child self-perception for their entire lives and mosha was not only the shepherd for the flock of Israel but he was very much looked to as a father figure for the Jewish people for this you know infant Nation wandering in the desert they were we were born as a nation literally when we walked into the desert when we left Egypt so we were this infant nation and they looked to Moses as their father and by conflating their behavior with their Essence at that very moment mosha may very well have taken the wind out of their sails and confirmed this lurking fear right their deepest insecurity that Hashem indeed didn't love them anymore and then mosha didn't love them anymore now there was a a sage that was famous for his philosophy about the power of speech and empowerment and his name was Rabbi Isaiah harwit and he was known as the schah and he believed in the power of speech and in the power of empowerment and in the power of expectations and he had this novel minating take on these verses from The Book of Proverbs this was shared by Rabbi wiin I don't know if I gave him credit for this he says theah this is the quote it says do not rebuke a scoffer for he will hate you rep reprove a wise man and he will love you instruct a wise man and he will grow wiser teach a righteous man and he will gain learning now how does theah read this his Insight is that these verses should be read do not rebuke someone by calling them a scoffer they're going to hate you for that reprove them instead by calling them A wise man and he'll love you for that instruct each pupil by calling him a wise man and he will be open and receptive to it and when you call him a wise man you need to truly see him as a wise man and it will make him love you and it will make your rebuke land and it will allow your rebuke to be accepted so then Rabbi w goes on to bring the teachings of Rabbi yob klap who explains that this is why Hashem expressed his disapproval of moshe's actions with the fact that he hit The Rock when he was commanded to speak to the Rock he explained that when Hashem commanded mosha to speak to the Rock he was conveying the power of speech and the Power of Positive expectations whereas when mosha hit the rock it conveyed a certain a pessimism which lacked the belief in the higher more Transcendent power of growth and change on behalf of the Israelites it lacked it showed that he sort of at that moment lacked the belief in the understanding that that his words have such a creative power for the entire nation of Israel it's like you know they are who they are that's what he was conveying when he struck the Rock and and his harsh punitive force was the only way he believed that he could get them in line right by striking The Rock in that exact way that did 40 years before he was conveying that you know that he believed that we are who we are that people don't change and that these Israelites haven't changed the slightest in all these years and you know I first learned this idea I think it must have been 20 years ago by um Ellie Moshe was that his name Jeremy Rabbi Ellie Moshe do you it was Ellie Moshe and it was one of those teachings that immediately penetrated to the very core of my being and I don't always succeed in Rising to the highest adherence of this truth but but but living this principle is indeed one of my greatest aspirations not only with my fellow man but even more importantly also with myself you know believing that I myself am my very essence and expression of hashem's light in the world it's not easy to believe that about yourself you can see other people like that but believing that about yourself it's a hard thing but when I believe that my Essence like all of our Essences is a spark from the beautiful light of Hashem himself well that is part of what we can do to bring out the light in all of mankind this is a time when mankind needs the light within us to be brought out and I be bless us that one day we will soon be able to to see messiah's arrival and Messiah will reveal that hidden Divine Light burning in the hearts of all of mankind may we see that very soon and may Hashem continue to reward those who act in truth and faithfulness to his name and punish those who believe that they themselves are God and the truth is of no consequence I made my friend shalom shalom back to you Jeremy