Reaching Out for the Blessings - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

you know just like Jeremy said as these times are approaching on Rosh Hashanah the high holidays These are times that are really filled with hope and joy and optimism and so I wanted to just share this short message with you about this because if there's anyone that can connect with these emotions in the truest realist way it's really all of you and I'll tell you why I feel this way so this past Shabbat I was at my sister Miriam's house and as you know you see here the I print up the prayer request that Ardell puts together and then I was reading through them like I always do and while I was reading your your requests um and as you know we pray for you regularly this Shabbat I feel like I may have just been in a more vulnerable place a more emotional place maybe a more open place than usual but as I was immersing myself in the messages with so many of you share um really like you share them bravely and generously um and as you know for those of you that read these These are filled with very real very real challenges in pain um you're sharing those places in your life that you really feel like you need the prayers the most as I was reading through it and praying through it it was really entering my heart in a way that felt unique you know and it was beautiful um but it was also quite painful I feel like I was taking on your your pain more than usual and I don't regret that I'm grateful for that you know and I was sharing in your distress more than usual and it was it was um it was difficult but I was happy because I really believe that those prayers the more they come from a place in which we truly share each other's pain we're able to then share each other's joy and when we're able to take on each other's uh emotions in a real way a healthy way well I think those prayers are are the most powerful and so in this week's very beautiful and very intense Torah portion we see that the stakes are hot when you decide to serve Hashem in truth you know when when we do the blessings are very great beyond our wildest dreams but the curses too are very real when we know the right way and we don't take it they're the curses we've seen them I mean as we were reading through it it's like just the highlights or the dark the darkest points throughout Jewish history all were manifesting themselves perfectly described in this week's Torah portion of the part of the curses now to get to the part of the blessings let's focus on that for a moment because Rabbi Shalom Rosner points out a beautiful point in the torah's language when discussing the blessings and it made me think of all of you so chapter 28 uh verse two it tells us and all these blessings will call will come upon you and reach you so he points out that it would have made much more sense for the words to be arranged in a different order right it would have made more sense to say that the blessings will reach you and then when they reach you then they'll come upon you they'll reach you and then come upon but he explains that often people reach out for blessings things that are outside of themselves that they don't have things that they feel like they really need that they don't have and often they see things that um that other people have and they pray for those things but the wording in that verse he explains is that first we should see the blessings that already have come upon us blessings that are often not clearly blessings at all at least when you look at them from the naked eye but when we're approaching life from the perspective of knowing that everything that happens to us is from God and everything is good everything is a blessing particularly those things that are the hardest and most painful when we reach out when we reach out and we prayerfully seek the eyes to see those hidden blessings and all of that pain then they come upon us when we reach out and trust and in faith to see those blessings when we beseech Hashem for the eyes to see the blessings in the things that are the hardest for us to even imagine that there could be blessings within them then they come upon us then we're able to see them and we're able to experience them in the most beautiful way imaginable even while it's playing out and so when when reading through this you know this very powerful holy booklet of broken hearts and prayers that's exactly what I saw everything you know so many of you would be justified in feeling like victims and complaining I know that I have taken that route before but that is not what I experienced in the in the prayers and in the blessings and the messages that you sent and those holy words I saw faith and trust and hope and positivity I saw the sweetest holiest people in the world seeking and seeing the Beauty and the spiritual opportunity in their pains without denying it without putting on a show and acting like that no the pain is real the tears are real the grief is real but the spiritual opportunity and the blessing is still there and I see all of you seeking that and so so I just I want to bless all of you and bless all of us that as we approach Rosh Hashanah we will continue to be able to really coronate Hashem as the king in our lives the kind King the compassionate King the loving King who runs the world better than we ever could and better than we could ever understand and whose orchestration of Our Lives we receive with love and trust and faith may this coming year my friends be a year of sweetness and revealed good revealed good because everything is good but not everything is sweet and not everything is revealed this should be a year of sweetness and reveal good a year where all of our prayers will be answered in the best way possible a year when our tears will be dried up and our tears will be transformed to laughter and joy amen