Night of Chizuk II - Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

it's almost impossible to follow that video I don't know that there are any words after had' words that Pierce and penetrate our heart it's not lost on me that I'm the only singer or speaker here tonight who does not yet live full-time here in Israel I want to thank Alex Katz and Kat erda and my dear friend R Judah for inviting 750 people for this intervention tonight it's working it's [Applause] a but you still have a lot of brothers and sisters who are not yet here and who are going through their own challenges and feeling the connection the pain of Israel and these losses from afar and I want to share with you a little bit of a perspective from them and for them I can't share anything without first expressing all of our Collective incredible gratitude toad ER to Alex and to the entire team who've put on an amazing amazing evening tonight we come we show up we sing we dance we cry we laugh hopefully we are inspired you can't imagine the work that goes into it we are incredibly dead indebted to them for it so thank you it's also not lost on me the presence of so many heroes in this room Warriors the soldiers literally fighting on the front line and where else but Israel does a star singer come to perform in his uniform having to put the gun next to the microphone where else but Israel does a who's spewing overflowing D Torah in his uniform AER vasif like today is day 111 so dark it's so difficult it's so painful in Israel for those who live here for you our heroes who bear the brunt who bear it all and for those Jews around the world who are suffering from the Jewish condition the rise the spike of anti-Semitism and the increased popularity and ease with which it is to hate a Jew and yet in all the darkness and all the cold and all the reasons to become depressed and despondent there are also glimmers and glimpses of light and that light is so bright the last 111 days we've received a real education there are assumptions that we had beforehand that are gone that are shattered leld beliefs and LGH held positions and leld behaviors that are now part of our past people and practices have changed politically we've shifted religiously people have grown socially there's been an Awakening an Awakening to the enemies that surround Israel an Awakening to the enemies who live among us outside of Israel an Awakening to this anti-Semitism how vile and how viral it is but my dear friends there's also been an enormous Awakening within ourselves and Awakening about ourselves on October 7th Hamas grossly underestimated our people surely in one of their tunnels in one of the headquarters of their evil they read the headlines Israel on the brink of Civil War Jews assimilated and walking away from their Judaism outside of Israel they saw us as fragmented they thought we were divided they thought we were incapable of a response of coming together of unifying of fighting for a shared future and they were grossly wrong they were wrong but here's the thing Hamas were not the only ones who underestimated usra we grossly underestimate ated ourselves we had no idea who we are and what we're made of and what we're capable of and how we feel we had no idea the kind of resolve and tenacity that we have our heroic soldiers who are here and who are everywhere across this land their family members who are holding down the fort organizations like kilad era and all those who are giving and volunteering and coordinating Warriors who are fighting offline Warriors like my dear friend Hof fold who's here tonight fighting online we had no idea what we were made of what we have in us the kind of Courage the kind of Bravery the kind of Faith the kind of family the kind of future we could Forge together we had no idea but now we know and what will we do with it now we know and it's only the beginning our Collective Best Is Yet To Come our par tells us PK describes that when leaving MIT while everybody else was packing up their personal belongings Moshe had one concern you see on his deathbed Yosef had made his children swear that we we wouldn't leave him behind that when we would finally leave Egypt we would collect and gather we would carry his bones for burial in the land of his forefathers and mosha made good on that promise while everyone else was schlepping their luggage weighing it to see if it was overweight Moshe Moshe had only one concern and theel wonders why now why here why Pas B we left in last week's Pasha para's Bo that's when they were preparing to leave that's when Moshe should have gone for those bones why did it wait till now why in references the M that there explain the Egyptian Military and their chariots Dr found in the sea their wealth their gold their silver it washed up on the shore and as the Jews this just now emancipated and freed slave Nation stood on the other Shore they couldn't get enough they bent down they leaned in they were collecting all that gold and silver all those material possessions they had been denied and deprived everyone was gathering and collecting and putting in their pockets and in their shirt and under their arm all that they could everyone was collecting wealth except one Moshe says the had the wisdom and the righteousness to collect what was the greatest wealth he didn't pick up gold and he did pick up silver he took the bones of Y and the CLE notes that it doesn't just say he took the bones of Y there's a word that's Superfluous it's unnecessary and that is the word IMO says the kakar Moshe didn't just make good on a promise he didn't just fulfill that swear he didn't just collect the bones because he had told yose he would he took them emo it shaped and molded who he was he learned from the life of Yosef it became part of moshe's future the Torah encourages us don't read it as Atmos yose the bones of yose but rather as Atmos yose mosha didn't just take the physical bones he took the essence of Yosef yosef's narrative his personal story of courage and heroism the remarkable accomplishment and achievement of rising to Greatness the extraordinary ability to raise a righteous family in a foreign culture and land Moshe didn't just take the atmos y his bones he took Atmos the essence of yose and he took it Imo he absorbed it he integrated it it became who he would become what is that that is the short message I want to share tonight as someone grossly inadequate and unqualified to be speaking to you but who feels this in the essence of my being who stands in awe and admiration and endless love to each and every one of you what is the atmus Yosef what is that essence of yosef's life that we can all draw from certainly is how he endured false accusations sitting in prison sitting in a pit sold into slavery transcending his circumstance rising to Greatness we couldn't have endured centuries of enslavement in MIM we couldn't have gotten through those Hard Times without absorbing that Essence that courage that faith of Yosef into our s but I think it's something more Yosef Yosef was violated by his brothers his own family they didn't just criticize him they didn't just neglect him they didn't just marginalize him they literally conspired to kill him and settled on selling him into slavery he had every excuse to hate every excuse to be resentful and bitter if anyone was entitled to a civil war with his brothers if anyone was entitled to revenge and Vengeance it was Yad but he didn't no matter what he went through no matter how entitled he was Yosef was a paradigm of AAS is of Brotherhood of family of loyalty of forgiveness of focusing on what matters most he chose to be a family more than to hold on to pain and hurt more than to feel violent ated or a victim he made the choice to connect and to love to be together and to build a destiny he let go of a divided history so they could have a shared Destiny and that is the atmus Y that is the essence that we all have inside us how did yoseph do it how did he do it we just saw an incred inredible extraordinary example of how he did it he did it by reframing his life he did it by not feeling a victim but seeing himself on a mission as an Orbiter of his own destiny of having a purpose and being put in his role by Hashem not random and not chance nothing coincidental or accidental but all design curated and choreographed by above for a reason and for a purpose and while Yosef didn't have access to understand it and didn't feel entitled to he reframed his life to see himself on a mission with a purpose so he struggled and he suffered but he navigated an unfair world and at the end of it all when he reveals himself to his brothers rather than resentment revenge or bitterness he urges his brothers to join him in seeing all of it as hashem's plan Al don't be distressed don't reproach yourselves don't be sad extraordinary letter ra Pinas read don't be sad be hero Jen and Rob ear were here tonight Jen who told the Gathering the SCH of her son she stopped the music sing with joy and happiness not with sandness ALU we read these words of yoseph and we think that was Millennia ago that's the torah's hyperbole or metaphor it's impossible there are no human beings capable of experiencing such pain and turning to others and saying Al don't be sad there are such human beings some are sitting in this room tonight hadash loone tonight is the schan one of the heroa kados a soldier eim Jackman his father shared with me he woke up early every day in Gaza he woke up early every day in Gaza so he can Davin with extra kavana and learn dafi before going to battle if anyone ever had an excuse to fly through daving if not if Davin at all to skip and miss the da and try to catch up someday certainly would be a soldier in Gaza Heroes absolute extraordinary Angelic role model Heroes who model for us the legacy of the atmos Yosef the essence of Yosef in us to reframe Our Lives Al to be able to see the mission and the purpose that what this moment demands that who we are and what we're capable of and how we can come together to put a new frame around the picture no matter how dark no matter how Bleak no matter how painful that picture is in the middle we can put a frame around it we can see it in a different light says the frame that we could put on every picture is the frame of when we lean into that relationship when we surrender and submit to Hashem that frame just like a picture that grows old a fra picture that evokes negative emotions in us but we get a new frame now we feel differently about the picture and we see the picture differently that picture of our life doesn't change we can't bring those people back we can't change the difficult circumstance we're in but we could put a different frame around it reframing allowed Yosef to live in function without anger or an outrage or a thirst for Revenge reframing the Picture This Way enabled him to forgive his brothers and reframing could enable us to live like yoseph to let go to come together to like yose put Family First to feel Brotherhood no matter what happened in history to forge a shared Destiny today was Tu bishvat the energy of Tu bishvat is still here what's the nature of this day New Year for trees so it's not just about the tuat S eating those fruits making those bras it's beautiful it's gak it's a uplifting it's environmental it's friendly to the to the land but there's a pus there's something much deeper for every one of us if you look at the missish the language is the rash and the singular not the plural because it's a rashash today was a new day a rashash a new year for each of us that are likened to the field it's been a long night and the hour is late so I won't elaborate other than to leave you with this thought tubish is the middle of the winter says it's the exact middle of the winter season I come from a place that doesn't have seasons but here today was wonderful yesterday was a little colder in the dead of winter it feels cold and it gets dark early the trees are bare and the ground is Muddy or covered with some Frost or depending with you are even blanketed with snow and then the special day arrives in the in the middle of that winter the day of Tu and on a special day takes place something happens underneath the ground something happens in that Earth the sap the saf begins to make its way up through the trees to give it new life Bud the blossoms the flowers eventually that luscious fruit will come out from these seemingly dead trees from this darkness and this cold from this dead of winter there's something brewing there's something that's happening there's an energy and a life that is about to burst forth says in fact that tuat you should DAV that this coming year you'll have a beautiful esrog esrog what tree is producing the esrog right now because tuat that sap is beginning to move the ISA it's coming up those branches and it will determine what kind of estra you're going to have sometimes it feels dark and damp or depressed and disp respondent moments like this it feels like a cold winter and we don't know when it will end but we need to know with every fiber of our being that there's something happening not only beneath the ground and beneath the surface but we're starting to see it rise it's the indestructible spark of each of our individual and our Collective National salum Elohim that for way too long before October 7th was lying dormant it was still it was buried it was barely discernable we didn't know it was there but it is ready to surface it's ready to Blossom it is bursting bursting forth it's dark outside not just the weather the pain and I want to tell you what I said two and a half months ago when we gathered in the same place extraordinarily put together that magnificent event then as someone who does not yet live here full-time I hope you know and I hope I'm only telling you something that you do know but you need to know with everything that you are that wherever Jews are we are together and we are united and we are with you and we love you these are all of our children and all of our nephews all of our grandchildren all of our brothers that all of you are on our minds always and constantly you're always we think about you're all we Daven for you're the center of our Lives we're with you in every way that we can that we love you and we have endless and boundless gratitude to you and that we long for and can't wait for the day when there won't be a theater big enough for the night of that we come together to celebrate when that which has been dormant for too long has fully blossomed in flowers Lord as we're seeing it is beginning to do the stories that even on this short trip that we are here that you see each and every day and I don't need to tell you are unbelievable Story I Heard yesterday from my sister about a friend of her son a lone soldier here who told his unit in Gaza even though when people are going home he said I'm the last one to leave because I don't have parents who are waiting for me here I don't have a wife or children are waiting for me at home so I'm the last one only when we're ready to turn the L out in Gaza that's when I will leave I'll be the last out everybody has to go home before me my nephew Z Mee who in a battle was shot in the back and is paralyzed from the wayist down and while we focus tragically on the number of casualties that is too high one is way too high more than 200 is unimaginable those who are injured whose lives are changed for every never have to be the continued focus of ouros of our energy and of our efforts he's in the hospital paralyzed his wife needs to be home with children so his unit on their break from Gaza has been alternating nights to sleep in the hospital to be able to help them until they're going back in next week Hashem ymore should keep them safe Soldier I met yesterday who in his tank was hit by a missile and others were injured he too was in the hospital for several days and when he got out though he was entitled to retire he went right back to the war right back in a tank and right back to Gaza and when I asked him why and how he said how could I not we're not yet done fighting the spiritual awakening and the awareness the blossoming that we're all experiencing and feeling in our own ways but in the moment in bees a few days ago person walking working behind the cash register covered in tattoos no keepa pus were flying and when I couldn't help it but asked what's the story he told me I've always wanted to do the Mitzvah of wearing tiitus but I felt silly I don't wear aipa and even though aipa started the DAR is just a minog tiitus is a Mitzvah but because I didn't wear a keep I felt silly so I didn't wear tius either but he said October 7th I lost many friends at the Nova festival and I decided I no longer care what anyone thinks about me I've put on sitas since October 7th I haven't missed a day and I won't the amazing part about the story when I gave him a hug he said to me said I can't thank you enough for looking at me with an eye in TOA people look at me like I'm strange noipa tattoos and situs thank you for giving me that hug because Jews just need to look at at each other with an i in TOA don't see what's missing see what's there don't see differences see what we have in common don't see a bitter history see that share of Destiny the extraordinary H being coordinated all over by volunteers the last event at the last event two and a half months ago great yonathan razelle played anim and we stood arm in arm and we were swaying and singing there was someone who happened to be in Israel who's from Florida a little secret about the Rabin it when you're a community leader when you take positions not everybody loves you this was an individual who would let just say does not agree with Arya lightstone in his title he gave me that only my mother believes and he's made his opinion of me public in many ways which I won't share with you now he was here that night to the point even I was a little concerned but when we stood and locked arms and began to sing animam he marched down he walked across the front he looked at me and he said is there room for me in there we gave each other a big hug he locked arms with us and we've been in touch and connected since then what's been dormant beneath the surface way too long is the atmus Y that each of us carry within ourselves the capacity for that Awakening the education to learn that not only did Hamas