The Gift of Anxiety - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

it's become clear to me that this Fellowship is not simply a dry intellectual class we all know that this is It's a relationship it's a relationship with with ourselves a relationship with each other uh ultimately it's a relationship with Hashem on our Journeys through this world you know we strengthen each other we encourage each other we pray for each other we hold each other up and and I think that for me the greatest theme throughout all these years has been the theme of faith in Hashem and uh trust in Hashem and the reason for that is that we all need it we all need it not only what's going on in the world right now but just life itself just the very idea of our souls being incarnated in this world is a trauma and we need faith and we need we need trust it's the oxygen of our souls and it's the lifeblood of our relationship with Hashem and without it I don't know how anyone could survive I really don't uh now just to review as we know by now means faith and means trust and what's the difference between faith and trust at least according to this guy who remembers do we remember so I see people are going to the thing my understanding my understanding my relationship with these two realities is that Faith Anda is primarily in your head um it's through Torah study and reflection and intellectual diagnosis intellectually honest quest to learn and to understand and and be trust is the degree to which that faith has been so internalized that it has become an integrated part of your being so integrated that it results in a fundamental shift in your experience of life it's the it's it's it's that degree of trust which you succeed in a in in acquiring and internalizing that will determine whether you end up a bundle of frazzled anxious nerves or whether you will live a life of Serenity and peace to whatever degree is maximally possible and and I think that most of us find ourselves somewhere in between now the reason I'm saying all of this is because this last week I found myself contending with very significant amounts of anxiety like very significant I I don't I won't go into the details of what what it's all about it's not really it's not really relevant we all have different things that we encounter and experience but I will tell you that I've uh felt waves of anxiety greater than I can remember feeling for many years if ever you know it's affected every facet of my life from my appetite to my sleep even to my ability to be fully present with my family and my children and you know me I wear everything on my sleeve everything that's why I'm telling all of you this right now right it's important for me to share my journey with you particularly the challenges so I found myself thinking of all of you and really asking myself like am I a Hypocrites here I am teaching and preaching about faith and trust in hem about there's nothing other than hm everything is for the good and well you know like how how dare I teach these things if I'm not actually living it I mean look at me now look what I'm going through now how can I do that and I really prayed about this and I talked to Hashem about this and and of course I looked into the Tor for comfort and guidance and understanding and and I started hearing the beginning of my answer from the very first words of this week's Torah portion where we find Isaac praying for Rebecca in her barrenness right and according to the sages it was 20 years that they had been trying to conceive without success 20 years 20 years of prayer so the Torah tells us Isaac intreated Hashem opposite his wife because she was Barren Hashem allowed himself to be intreated by him and his wife Rebecca conceived so the sages teach us that the word vear and Isaac intreated Hashem is from a place of abundance meaning that there were there was abundant prayer involved we're not talking about periodic prayers and passing there was abundant prayers from both of them throughout this long period of time and when the Torah tells us that when he entreated opposite his wife that that Isaac was not only praying that he have children but he was praying that the children would come through his holy wife who stood across from him praying with him alongside of him he didn't want to have the Hagar situation Hagar situation where the children would come through one of Rebecca's handmaidens no he didn't want that he prayed that his children would come solely through his beloved wife Rebecca and no one else and indeed after pouring out abundant prayers from the depths of their hearts their prayers were answered and Rebecca Rifka became pregnant but as I found myself really empathizing with Rebecca's fear and anxiety and all these years of prayer throughout this whole long or you know um uh ordeal I found myself wondering why why did she have to go through these years of pain and childlessness and not only Rebecca but Sarah right Sarah before her she suffered barrenness as well for more more years than that and Rachel after her would struggle with years of infertility as well and Hannah the mother of Samuel same thing barrenness and and others why right why did these righteous women have to go through so many years of struggle and pain and tears and the talud shares the answer that I think that I think many of us already know in our hearts says why were the matriarchs barren because the Holy One B Blessed Be he desires the prayer of the righteous right Hashem wants their prayers hasem wants our prayers it's becoming clear to me me that what's happening to me that's what's been happening to me this week and I think to all of us is that the anxiety that I've been feeling is is really nothing to be ashamed about if we are real with Hashem and we are reaching out to him in truth then I really believe that feeling this way at times is built in to the journey it's simply a pre-ordained ingredient built into life into into built into the life of a true servant of God that we're going to have stretches like this we're going to have periods like this but why why does it need to be that way well I think we can find a hint to that answer in the book of Jeremiah when Hashem reminds us that he formed Us in the womb right Jeremy I know the these verses are very close to you being that you are y meow right he knows us far better than we know ourselves and he knows the Achilles heel in our faith he knows our weak spots even if we don't think we have any weak spots we're good to go there were times I actually really felt that and he knows our weak spots he knows where the doubts and the fears lurk within us he knows the places within us that have yet to be fully and holistically integrated and infused with with and and he he goes for that right he aims for that weak vulnerable spot not out of Cruelty God forbid but out of love out of a desire to give us the opportunity to truly come close to him to serve him with all of our essence when it comes to our relationship with Hashem in this world we never fully arrive we we're never fully there there's always room to grow constantly to grow closer and closer in a forever deeper Bond of love and connection but I can imagine you responding in the same way I did and saying okay so God desires the prayer of the righteous but I wouldn't be so prideful to consider myself the the righteous right definitely not on the level of the p matriarchs and the matriarchs well to that I would say that perhaps that's true and perhaps it's not but I do believe that the idea that I that I want to share with you right now from R Beerman should put that contention to rest by demonstrating that it's not only the prayers of the most righteous that Hashem desires but really all of us never does it say that Hashem only desires the prayer of the most righteous it doesn't say that because I don't believe it's true I believe God desires the prayers and the hearts of all of his children and I'll tell you just one reason I believe that so we read later on in the Torah portion that Esau was very upset even devastated when he finds out that Yakov stole the blessing so upset that he he cried out an exceedingly great and bitter cry and he said to his father bless me too father and what was Isaac's response he said your brother came with great cleverness and took your blessing meaning no there's no there's no blessing left for you and it was left at that no blessing left for Esau it seemed that Esau would be left blessing forever but then we see something interesting the Torah tells us that then right that Esau raised his voice and wept after finding out that his father had no blessing for him the Torah tells us that raised his voice and he wept and then after this weeping we see something very peculiar after he raised his voice and wept his father Isaac seemed to have found a blessing and actually blesses Esau with behold of the fatness of the Earth shall be your dwelling in the D of the heavens from above by your sword you shall live but your brother You Shall Serve yet it shall be when you are grieved you shall cast off his yoke from upon your neck now the sages of Israel teach that what actually happened here was that initially after discovering that Jacob had stolen his Blessing Esau appealed to his father to bless him anyways right the sages teach that his fundamental mistake was that he actually thought that it was up to Isaac about whether or not he would receive a blessing he thought his father could simply bless him at will but when he realized that there was no blessing left for him not because his father didn't want to bless him but because his father couldn't bless him if there was no blessing to give the blessing is not from Isaac it is through Isaac that's how blessings work and so our sages teach that when Esau raised his voice and wept he wasn't weeping to Isaac he was weeping to Hashem that Hashem should have mercy on him and Grant him a blessing and the gates of Tears as we know are never closed and Hashem heard his cry and granted him AEM granted him a blessing meaning that even Esau with all of his flaws and his wickedness Hashem sought Esau's prayers as well Hashem sought Esau's tears and Esau's heart as well and so too at the very least you know I was able to say Hashem seeks our hearts seeks my heart as well he yearns for our prayers as well because the truth is that these seemingly inevitable events in our lives that throw us out of our comfort zones in truth they opportunities for us to identify those places of fear and doubt within ourselves to confront those places and to infuse them with light right the these jarring and disorienting times provide us with the invaluable opportunity to take the faith we've built very much in this Fellowship that Faith we've built in our heads and to internalize it like a localized antibiotic directly to that place within us that's not fully integrated to that place within us that we have yet to shine hashem's light and so I can tell you that while this week has been very painful I can already see how I've grown from the anxiety and from this distress and while from a very human perspective I of course am eager for this lesson to end from an even deeper place I'm really grateful for all of it because it's through this pain and yearning that I'm being given the opportunity to grow ever closer to Hashem and ultimately that's the reason we are here in this world and I bless all of you that whatever pain you're going through and believe me I know that you're going through a lot of pain I'm reading these prayers and I'm praying for you I know what you're experiencing and I pray that you're able to and I see you're able to to take all all this pain and this anxiety and this distress and you're able to harness it to use it to grow closer and closer to the creator of Heaven and Earth