Tears of Faith - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

but we're entering an energy of renewal and and healing and life and uh and that's where we are right now right now at this very moment i'm right here on the farm and uh you know you could see the sun going down behind me and and right now we are in the last moments of rosh chodesh the new moon of the month of el ul of elul and it's winding down uh it's winding down to a close and we are in it we're in it the training wheels are being taken off right now and we're officially in this powerful time of repentance and that's nothing to be nervous about is something to be excited about um because you know as we now know by now very well there's nothing nothing is a coincidence nothing everything is by design and the more spiritually sensitive and aware you are the more detailed your zoom uh is you know the more refined your focus your eyes become in seeing the divine orchestration and everything and being constantly and perpetually aware of that and so it's not a coincidence that here on the rosh chodesh we are reading the torah portion of this week and the hasidic masters you know they read into things on multiple dimensions all at the same time so take it or leave it okay but they tell us that the letters of the first word of the torah portion the head of elul is today that's where it is because this is when it falls out which is uh you know it's an allusion to the powerful time that the portion is read on because as jeremy will undoubtedly explain elul stands for anila dodiva dodi li i am to my beloved and my beloved is to me from the song of songs it's the time you know as as we'll be talking about more when the king is metaphorically but also maybe even literally in the field the king is in the fields right but what does that even mean that the king is in the field well to me what are we in this fellowship who are we right we are warriors of light we're warriors of light every single one of us and from the deepest place i believe that's what brings us together in this fellowship we're like a support group for spiritual warriors and i just know this from speaking to so many of you and hearing what you're going through and how unusual uh it seems to me that the challenges that are facing really all of us and when you step up to the plate and you want to be that well then then you get what you're praying for you know as shane and i just had over dear friends who stayed with us uh for shabbat and they've been really really best beloved friends for over 25 years and when you have friends that go that far back it's it's a special thing you really get to witness each other's lives the ups and the downs you get to take turns holding each other up during the hard times and celebrating the revealed good the other times and it's just it's been very clear to me from the beginning that hashem has a very unique thing going on with them as a matter of fact you know over throughout this fellowship i think i've talked to them knew about them to you numerous times i don't like going into names and respecting privacy but just a few examples of what they've been through without going too much into it they tried to have children for over 10 years and they tried everything everything but they were reserving the ivf you know ivf is very big here in israel in vitro fertilization it's a technology because for special reasons having to do with her blood platelets doing that would have been a very unique and special risk to her but after 10 years of every other medical intervention every spiritual intervention you could imagine uh i mean people around the world were praying for them she was constantly organizing prayer sessions at her home on main parties where people where all the women would come together and make a blessing and everyone say i'm mean it's it's a whole thing after 10 years she broke down and went to the doctors to do ivf and after all the blood tests uh came out the doctors came out and they said we're not going to do the ivf and she said why she said because they said because you're pregnant right now at this moment you're pregnant i mean what a drama it's like a you can't that's like a hollywood movie right and they had three beautiful boys in rapid succession and then a few years ago and their middle son a little beautiful delicate angel he was diagnosed with this rare and very dangerous cancer and you know he defied the odds after much prayer and tears and prayer and pain and crying and doctors and hospitals and chemo and alternatives and everything he defeated it and baruch hashem he's healthy now uh he didn't even have in you know his um hearing aids for shabbat i think he was able to like his hearing was able to heal itself somehow unbelievably you know kids have an unbelievable power of healing but but here you know you're hearing the punch lines right now hearing the final words in those chapters but having been on the journey with them has been exhausting and so they came over for shabbat and they shared with us an entirely new sort of one-two knockout punch that they are enduring right now and i can't go into all the details but it was crazy these aren't things that you asked for a lot of my big you know trials tribulations pain you could really trace it back to very poor decision making on my part not these are not natural consequences for their actions it was wild and literally right as the dust seemed to settle from their last painful challenge then they were assaulted of this entirely new massive challenge and as they were sharing their story battling off tears i looked at them and in my heart i just felt i felt like what i believe is the truth that this is what you get when you choose when you choose or or when you're chosen better to say when you're chosen to be warriors of lights right having witnessed what they've been through and how beloved they are i mean they're they both could trace their genealogy back way many generations to great mystics and rabbis and very holy dude they're they're clearly from a very special line anyways i just reflected on on on on how much prayer and how much their challenges have generated light in the world in my life how much faith they've faced each and every one of those attacks with and and how their faith grew from one to the other i know i'm going into this a lot but i think that we can all sort of see ourselves on a smaller level in in these journeys because you know their their pain just brought so much light to the world that they didn't ask for it and i'm sure if they were asked they're asked even right now they'd be happy to be queef to someone else their elite warrior of light status you know can someone else be the chosen people right but the things aren't up to us and this is really why i believe that we seek to dissuade converts because you don't opt into a nation with this exact job description unless you're really sure you're up for it and this is you and this is what you want to do and um and we talked into the night you know brainstorming about how to fill all those cracks with light and all the brokenness with godliness and then it hit me you know i was doing with them very similar work that we do with each other one-on-one i think in the fellowship we talk about generalities we talk about greater rules that happen but then the personal connections come and we work through things with each other i know many of you i've been working through things with and you've been helping me also and we help each other and that's really so much of what this fellowship is about and um and i was like wow really hashem i was thinking about so many of you and i was like this is how you're rewarding the people in this fellowship that have turned to me lately with their pain and the suffering and i'm like these people are just so filled with love and loyalty and fidelity to your word hashem and this is what they have to go through just on a basic human level it hurts but with these you know extreme challenges and and severe pain while it's hard to understand i have moments where it just seems simple at least on one level so i'll try to share with you what i mean looking back at the first verse of this torah portion the first verse behold i set before you to this day a blessing and a curse now read correctly this should actually really provide a tremendous amount of comfort right the first word see like behold understand for yourself with your own eyes he's giving the address me hashem i am the address i am the source of all of this and i'm placing before you blessing and curse hashem is saying it's all from me right your king your abba who loves you it's all from me the blessing and the curse and of course this takes us back to our ongoing discussion of heaven and hell and the role of satan of satan and hashem's making it very clear here it's not the blessings that are for me and the curses are from a rebellious fallen angel that i'm locked in a battle with there's really no such thing the blessings are from hashem and the curses are from hashem no differently and i really hope it's okay by the way that i share that with you and that i refer back to these things that some of us may see and feel differently about but i think that those are the sometimes relevant things to focus on and reach out to me if you disagree if you want to talk about those things but anyways what's the difference between a blessing and a curse one is revealed goodness and one is hidden goodness that needs to be revealed that has yet to be revealed and god is telling us that when we enter the land if we obey his commandments and we're kind and we're compassionate to the helpless and to the widows and to the orphans to not only his word his meets vote but also the spirit of his word then we will be blessed and then the good will be revealed why because our relationship with hashem our actions they keep the spiritual channels into this world flowing smoothly and unobstructed but when we don't follow hashem's ways the light comes into the world in ways that we can't understand or identify or make sense out of most of the time right the channels of flow are obstructed and confused and convoluted and i know maybe this is abstract and too mystical but all that aside blessings come when we heed hashem's word and follow him in his ways and darkness and curses and confusion come when we don't that's what all of the torah portions we've been reading have been about repeating again and again that message and that's very much the world we're living in right now there's a lot of revealed good but and a lot of revealed blessings but there's no question about it there's tremendous pain and darkness and the people in this fellowship you know we're both chosen by hashem and we choose hashem and it's it's a little bit like a dance anila dodivado dili elul i am to my beloved and my belovedest to me it's a dance of choosing each other we choose hashem and he chooses us and it's not always easy but i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world it's a it's a true relationship and that's what the first verse of the torah portion is teaching us the blessings and the curses it's all from hashem robiderman points out that during our shabbat prayers there's a prominent verse that we say that i never really thoroughly considered i always just said it it says what does it mean when you recognize and know that everything is from hashem that is your comfort there you will find your menuha any semblance of rest that we have in this world you'll find it right in there in the knowledge that everything is from hashem and it's with that internalized knowledge that true happiness emerges it's from that knowledge that everything is from hashem it's from that knowledge that that everything is from hashem that unconditional happiness emerges unconditional happiness because when we're blessed with revealed blessings well it's easy to be happy then but when we face the hidden blessings the yet to be revealed blessings that is the true surface service right to be happy then our ability to be happy then that is the true gauge of our faith and and that happiness is a foundational happiness we can be weeping at uh at the funeral of a loved one but those tears are shed upon a deep transcendent foundation of happiness that's it's hard to explain if you've been blessed to experience it you know what i'm talking about i guess you could call them tears of faith not tears of sadness but tears of faith raise your hands if you felt something like that before i'm looking wow that doesn't shock me that literally everybody i see on my screen is is is raising their hand you know i felt i i remember feeling it for my friend ari fold his memory for be for a blessing i've shared with you about him he was uh he was murdered uh here in gushitsion and you know at the same time of being broken or shattered i remember at the same time feeling it upon this like deep happiness i was i was happy for him you know i was happy for him having lived a truly well lived life well done he lived his life well and he left his life well you know sacrificing his life to save others a life of kindness and compassion and charity and just legendary courage i knew he was in a you know i knew he was in a very good place and that his passing was furthering redemption along and bringing unimaginable light to the world but at the same time i was so sad for me and i was weeping for me i would miss him i was sad for his children and for his family and for the jewish people that lost such a warrior and advocate at least in this earthly dimension right but those human tears of grief and loss were shed upon a foundation of of happiness and faith and that the torah actually points to this very truth and no and jeremy i'm sorry i'm going a little over time maybe i haven't acclimated to being like the wing man again forgive me but but let's just go to this uh to this verse um i think it's verse 15 chapter 16 i didn't put the the number there it says seven days shall you keep a solemn feast of the lord your god and the place that the lord your god shall choose now here's the relevant part of the positive i want to focus on because the lord your god shall bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands therefore you shall surely rejoice and that's sort of how it's read you know but when you read the hebrew book you know read differently but just as truly hashem your god will bless your produce and the work of your hands when you are truly happy when you truly rejoice and we rejoice in the knowledge that everything is from hashem and therefore everything is good because true happiness is a reflection of successfully internalized faith it's the greatest aspiration that we can possibly have in this world because remember a curse is a hidden blessing a blessing that needs to be illuminated with light and stirring so during the remainder of the year right there are times when we are just trying so hard to connect with hashem we're struggling to pierce through the callouses around our own hearts and break through the barriers that are separating us from hashem by force there are times that you know it sometimes feel like we have to storm the castle to find the king we have to take out the guards and we have to fight our way in but in elul we can just put down our swords and put down our spears we don't need to fight we don't need to storm the castle and elul the king hashem hashem comes out to the field right he's unusually open and available to us for our petitions and our prayers and for us to share our hearts and i know i should wind it down here but something happened to me this week that i really want to share with you because you know i'm taking on myself an increased level of prayer during elohim i take different things on at different times but i don't know how that's supposed to look but i know i'm pretty sure it has something to do with going out to the fields literally going out to the fields to talk to hashem and we have fields out here in judea and uh and so i want to share with you what happened because as you all know you know we're building this diamond in judea to bring jews and non-jews to bring everyone seeking a deeper relationship with hashem to these holy mountains but you got to be careful when you pray because sometimes hashem says yes and this summer it's been overwhelming and it's been constant and you know a very special demographic of jews has been coming out in waves well and they didn't come out for years and now they're coming in huge waves and while i don't like labels if i had to put one on this group it would be hardy or hasidic or ultra orthodox you know many of them only speak yiddish this is the family by the way that i spent the afternoon with just today today this is 12 seconds the father was translating my english into yiddish for his children from williamsburg brooklyn we could talk about that all another time but i'm getting calls from these people all the time they're falling in love with the mountain and constantly requesting to use our house of prayer for their torah classes and their feasts and everything and you know when they can't afford to pay which is often we ask for nothing and i'll admit that sometimes my phone rings off the hook on all hours because they don't have whatsapp and they don't have smartphones which i do respect a lot but at the same time it can be constant and very bold and tenacious with their requests in a serious way and the other night my phone rang and it was late at night and it was one of their community leaders and i was bracing myself for him to request again for us to host a tourist session feast here you know it's called the fabrangan it's sort of hard to describe there's torah and food and singing and fellowship but it always ends up being a lot of real work for me and we're not charging anything it's an internal service it's a service from hashem so i'm working on dealing with those inner voices how i feel about it but anyways this guy called me and he wanted to arrange another one but he said this is how he started he said first i just want to tell you how grateful we are your mountain is such a blessing your synagogue your hospitality it's such a blessing we're so in love with it our experience there is really changing our hearts thank you so much thank you thank you and even though i knew he was going to follow those words with his next request which he absolutely did it still really meant a lot to me i mean i really appreciated it it put me in a much better mood to do what i was going to do anyways and say yes but the gratitude and the recognition for how much we've done for him here at the farm it really made a tremendous difference and when i hung up i realized how many times have i launched right into prayer with hashem with requests just please this please that with my fears with my questions without a moment of gratitude and recognition for the countless blessings hashem showers upon me every day and so i want to bless all of us my friends that we take advantage of this special opportunity to come closer to hashem and we start to seize this opportunity by showering our gratitude and our thanks for all the blessings hashem pours upon us every day and for me one of the greatest blessings in my life that i will be thanking hashem for is all of you for this holy fellowship and how much light and blessing is already shining from one end of the world to the other because of our holy work here so i love you very much my friends hashem should bless you and protect you may this will be one of healing and love and repentance and renewed closeness and loving relationship with hashem and with each other this highlight was taken from the land of israel fellowship every week hundreds of families from literally around the world come together on our live zoom sessions to strengthen each other to inspire each other and to learn torah from the land of israel in which we connect the dots between the bible the hebrew language and the confusing events of our times go to www.thelandvisual.com backslash fellowship or click on the link below to join thank you you