Opening Keynote Address - Rising From the Ashes by Rabbi Eitiel Goldwicht

we find ourselves on ER just a mere 24 hours until Tish comes and this year is different than any other year it's different because in a certain way we felt from as we speak there are hundreds of families who are inat there are hundreds of families who don't know where their loved ones are and as we sit there are threats onto us from around the world not just the rise in anti-Semitism actual threats that a war is going to start they told us it was going to start this week and then they're telling us it's going to start on Tish because they know our Jewish calendar and they're telling us it's going to start on Thursday because they maybe want to trick us but really they want to start on Tisha and we know this and we felt the and I went to buy water from my mother on Arab sh there was no water in meaning I wasn't the only one who felt the people are buying water it's in their houses they don't know where it's going to be this is real you're brave enough to come to air tonight to come to a night full of Torah in is it because we understand that we need to combat it and we can't be scared in our bomb shelters waiting for them and we need to do what we need to do but it's real we're coming into Tish which is a time period of where our enemies are able to attack us and historically it has been a day of sadness of tragedy and we ourselves don't know how do we come ready what should be our mindset what should I be doing right now how should I be preparing that's what today is about taking a little bit of time to prepare to connect with one another really to connect deeper inside ourselves the teach us the first time Tish appears in the Torah the gar says the a in the Torah they cried that night it doesn't say the date in the Torah I don't understand this gimar the focus is on the crying was our that we cried or was it that we spoke was it or that we believe the to the point that it made us cry and our punishment is it that we're going to cry or is it that you're going to have galut you're going to experience Exile you're going to experience why is the focus on the on the crying we see that be is something that is unique specifically to every holiday has its Mitzvah we take our lul our esrog our matah we know how to celebrate the other we know how to be happy on but it is hard for us to fulfill the Mitzvah of of actually crying how do we do it how does one cry we even know how to feel a or when it comes toer but how do we cry how do we actually feel even this year even this year where we've shed already so many tears how do we cry we get so numb and that's the Mitzvah how do we do it have to understand what the essence of tab is one word that is associated with aute more than any other word if we were to choose one word it is the one word that we read on Shabbat that we read traditionally on and also in the Tor in the same way how how did this happen to us how did we get to this situation how did we get to this situation this situation in am Israel on October 6th the situ the situation of am Israel on October 7th how did we get to the situation that we're in right now asks what does the word mean means how The Zo famous zo says that the word remind us the first time that it appears in the Torah is where after the sin of and in G they eat they hide they're embarrassed they're hiding asks where are you we ask Hashem how did this happen but he asks us where are you where have you been where are you hiding listen to the words of the in that first word that the BD is going to be destroyed and we're going to cry that's what the PK says zor ends with two words a where is the co a a means e where is where is the co what does that mean fascinating capitalistic safer the sh and the Shish says you should know the opening of building a relationship of understanding Hashem is a Mida that is called co co is the place in which we connect what does that mean explains that all of the when they're what is the in when hashem's word is heard and resonated here in this world this is the word of hasem the word Co means that we could be living in the physical world but we could hear a calling a clear calling of what is my role in this life how what how should I be running my family how should I be running my Society but if we want to know that and it's not just the word of Hashem we find that that is the definition of the place in which hashem's voice is heard in this world the first time it appears is when Abraham ainu is Walking with the first time we see in the Torah we're going to go to a place that's called Co because in that place you could hear the coar in that place you could have that relationship and says who are the people the the Servants of hem who serve in that place that's called Co what are their names who serves the people and Hashem in the bikash the [Music] Co the Cain is built of the and the and then the N it's the 25 of the co the mid of Co in this world and the noon is 50 25 and 25 you have theim and theim Mala and that's the place where it comes together that's why when Yu goes and he sleeps by that same place where Abu was says this is the Gate of Heaven there's one on top of the other it's the ultimate connection of love between us and and we do it through the which are what do they say with the of you should be the Jewish people you should give them the with love because this relationship is a relationship of love between us and but when it gets destroyed we say AO where's the co where did it go where's that love where's that relationship and when we heard our relationship says the sa listen to this he brings it down from mosu in saos he comes in front of is you have to know the of if you don't know Co it's gonna turn from a CO into a [Music] Mak if you don't know the co there's going to be a Mak mosu when he sees the he looks is there any any relationship does he have a relationship with with infinity he sees there's nothing here when there is no Co comes the to wake up the co and the Mak brings out it brings out Cry The Cry is not about that we lost the Bas of the physical the the cry is not even about the G that we were in The Cry is that we lost the relationship the relationship is G It's So Gone that it's hard for us to cry we forgot about the relationship it's been so long it's been so long it's a little bit dull but there's always a way to come back through the be through the be met Shel shemtov her son Omar shov is still held in captivity she knows that he's alive she heard regards how he made Kish on the bottle cap if you heard the story from one of his friends who got out that he got a small grape juice bottle that they gave he saved it the bottle cap he made KES he took the salt off the pretzels to dip a little bit of Kala in it because he remembered what chavas is like and she said I have a clear picture in my mind of what it's going to look like when he comes back she's envisioning the Gula her personal G but the relationship is real as the says it doesn't say you you are seeing it and we know famously he was he refused to get a because his son was still alive when do we forget the gar says that g we forget about someone who's deceased but if someone is alive then we're still crying we're still mourning the fact that the mother is still crying and still standing on the corners and still wearing the shirt with her son on it still going to Washington and they're crying and they're not giving up they're saying my son is alive I'm not giving up by crying we're saying the relationship is still there I'm not giving up you know when there's aan if we stop to cry if we are and we take this as our reality that means that we accepted that the relationship is over that it's dead the fact that you're here tonight and that you want to be brought to tears that we want to awaken our heart up to cry again to that means that the relationship is alive and by the way when you know the relationship is alive you're willing to stand up and fight for it and we saw this with the in the they came and they ripped out the entire relationship withes but they got up and they fought for it and what day were they able to restore the honor of the B mikdash onu and they saw we could restore our relationship and if we and if we're in a AO so then comes the Maka and the Mak brings to the and the explained to us that comes from the word we're confused everything it blocks our vision we can't see things straight but sometimes when our vision is blocked we look deep inside when our vision is blocked we look up to and we realize that it's not I can't do this like a child who's crying I'm crying I don't know where I'm gonna go AB ABA I don't know I'm lost and the ability to be vulnerable and to be lost is our ability for our Yeshua you know when kids cry when do kids cry do they cry when they fall have you ever seen a kid like seven years old six he falls when his mother's around or he falls when his mother's not around what's the difference his mother's not around he gets up and he shakes off his knees his mother is around he cries he looks up he sees his mother he starts to cry what what happened remember we had somebody over by our by shabas meal one time an older gentleman Russian Jew he grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain and he said I grew up in Soviet Russia as a child he came here only as like a an older as a teenager so we told him you grew up in Soviet Russia what was it like he grew up in an orphanage he didn't have a father he didn't have a mother so he said he must have been crying all the time it's terrible so he starts laughing he says crying I didn't know how to cry said the first time I cried was after I was married for 10 years when I was 40 years old I cried in front of my wife that was the first time I ever cried you know why kids cry because there's someone to be them there's somebody to give them a hug if we feel that there's no one that's going to give us a hug we don't cry we don't allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough because who will be who will give us the hug the ability to cry is the understanding that that Hashem gives us our to realize that we lost our relationship but by crying we're saying we still value it we still believe in it and we want it we want it more than ever we feel that it's going to come and when we're able to cry something amazing could happen they think that they're going to hurt us on Tish but listen to this they think but we were in this story before picture this after benel come into AR Israel 40 years in the desert their great leader Moser raenu the greatest leader that ever lived is nifter every single year when the month of ader comes in it's a month of tragedy for the Jewish people every shavit for close to 1,000 years there is no holiday in the month of there is no was a month in which we remembered our great leader who took us Adam and and died and we no longer have those Miracles we no longer have this great savior Who's Gonna Save Us and that's why we have all the tars here and if only he were to come into Israel we wouldn't have these tars but we have tarus because he died on ad and then comes a Persian emperor in our first SCH after English is destroyed 70 years later and he says I'm going to destroy the Jewish people in one day he rolls his Dice and he comes to the lot and it falls out on other and he's he's he's happy oh this is a month that is traditionally this is a month of Sorrow y but he didn't know that on the day that mosu died is the day that what mosha was born and therefore it turned into yes traditionally this is not a good month for us these are not good three weeks for us but this year what we saw in our own eyes that rot FEA the biggest enemies of the Jewish people who are chasing after us we were able to find them wherever they're hiding we were able to destroy them we wereing them and they think they're going to attack us on the day which is a day ofus it might be muus but you know what else it might be destined to be who is born on tishia our Yeshua is born on Tish if we know how to cry on Tish our Yeshua is born on Tish so they want to attack us on this but if we are ready if we're ready to be vulnerable we're ready to allow ourselves to cry because we feel like we cried so much we cried so much in the beginning of the year it's hard for us to say that to heal him until the end can we just say one shal to we have to say to are we No SI oh could gives us these days it's hard to be no every day it's hard to go on with your life and feel the pain we were frozen the first week the first two weeks some of us the first month we were frozen we know what tragedy feels like when it hits us really hard in the gut for am we remember it it happened this year yeah we can't live our life life like that unfortunately there are families who are living with that same gut frozenness feeling every single day but as a nation we can't we have to fight we have to keep on going we have to be strong and we are strong but Hashem gives us Tish that if we're not Z to see the Yeshua yet we're Z to put everything aside and to be vulnerable and to allow ourselves to feel that pain and to break down to break down and cry and not to be like that Russian Jew wasn't able to cry because there is no one who's going to be them you are allow yourself to break down and feel the pain of another Jew to feel the pain of what a feels to feel the pain and if we can really break down because we're vulnerable because we have everything is confused will be and if is then we're promis that that's our aod and that's what tonight is about we took out the evening to connect to yourself to connect to one another to break out into smaller groups to sing to feel you can only get to that level if you come prepared but if we come prepared and we're at that level of real genuine crying like a kid who knows that there's going to be a father who's so that will be our Merit it will be our here amen amen 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