The Mystery of My Father's Siddur - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

I want to share with you this unbelievable story last Saturday night when we got up from Shiva meaning we my father passed away on Friday and until the following Shabbat we were sitting shiva mourning with our Windows covered sitting on the ground weeping wearing the same ripped clothing and then we went into Shabbat and we finished the Shiva and Saturday night was the first time I was going to lead the services and I was in modim and I walked into this beautiful synagogue filled with seats you know each seat has a little diagonal book holder attached to the back of the seat in front of it um I'm sure you know there's that in different types of prayer you know synagogues or or prayer buildings anyways if I walk into the synagogue with these little prayer and those synagogue is empty there's not one book out someone was very responsible and put all of the books away other than one little small blue sea Doer on the second seat of the fourth row from the back one sitter all alone right here right here and I couldn't believe my eyes because how how could such a thing happen that my father cedor was there I hadn't been there I had even if I went I would never bring hissy door there how such a thing could even be possible to me it was a message that my father was with me that he was there in the synagogue with me that this path that I had in front of me of praying in the synagogue it was with him and through him and through his prayer book and it meant so much to me anyways I was sharing this story last night with my family and uh and one of my cousins gave a potential explanation of that story and how it could have happened and my father you know he's there she said that my father may have left it in my sister's house and then my cousin picked it up and brought it to the synagogue and left it there my cousin has zero recollection of doing that and honestly the whole thing is very highly improbable that it played out that way but could it have been true that that's how it happened and if that explanation was true which I don't believe does that ruin the miracle and the Divine message that I've received and the more I thought about the more I realized that it doesn't really matter if it's true or not true it doesn't make it any less of a miracle of hashtag you know it reminded me of this story that Jeremy told me in the Army and he actually told me the story along with the whole unit and I have the story that I want to share I got the a version of the story that I heard from Chabad and the story you told is a little bit different Jeremy here's the story I'll tell because that's what it is a famous Rabbi uh named Moshe khagis in his book writes that he heard this story that I'm about to tell you from reliable people in spot in the book of staffed who were there when it happened and uh you know I'm taking the story from Chabad directly from so in the mid 16th century um a converso Jew you know one of those Jews that had to act like they were Christian in order to not be tortured they knew nothing about Judaism this Jew from Portugal moved uh to the holy city of spots and he didn't know anything about the religion of his father's him he was overjoyed that he was finally able to participate but he didn't know much and years later he heard a talk by the rabbi of the synagogue and spot about which was the showbread which was offered in the Holy Temple each Shabbat and after discussing the various laws and procedures governing the preparation of this you know the bread and its mystical significance the rabbi sort of bemoaned the fact that because of our sins we no longer have this ready means to to worship Hashem through the show Brit and to give this to Hashem so this Jew that didn't really know much he took these words to heart and when he arrived home he asked his wife to prepare two special halot on Fridays and he told her all the details they'd remembered from the lecture about the showbread and that she should sift the flower 13 times and need it while she was in the state of ritual Purity and baked the dough very well in their own oven but anyways he told me he wanted to present these lobes as an offering to Hashem and hopefully you have shown what to consider them acceptable and you know an acceptable sacrifice to eat them and his wife uh loyally fulfilled this request and early Friday afternoon when no one was going to be in the synagogue the man brought the loaves there under his cloak he snuck them in and he prayed and he cried that God should look upon his offer with favor and eat and enjoy this freshly baked bread and he went on and on and on like a son that's like begging his father for forgiveness and he placed the loaves wrapped in the Holy Ark in the iron POTUS beside the Taurus girls and he left for home now the caretaker of the synagogue who was a poor man that did not have much arrived later that day to complete the preparations of the show for the holy Shabbat and one of his duties that he did to try to make ends meet to put food on the table you know was to check that the Taurus world was rolled to the proper place for the reading the next morning and when he opened the ark this day he was shocked to see that a package had been neatly placed inside and there were two beautiful fine looking kala loaves there and he didn't know where they came from but he was so happy to see them and he was so happy to have them and uh that would be a huge contribution to his Shabbat meal and so he simply decided to take them home and eat them and they just smelled and looked so delicious and they were delicious and he and his wife were so delighted with this unexpected wonderful gift that they knew hadn't had no idea where it came from her head anyways that evening the Jew waited impatiently for the end of the prayers and when everyone had left the synagogue he approached the ark and he swung its doors open and they weren't there and he was so happy and he hurried home and he told his wife and he said yashem had accepted their offering and accepted their Loaves and that he ate them while they were still warm and and he said we can't we have to do this this is the thing we're doing we have no other way of really honoring him and we see that he loves arkhala so every week we have to try to give him pleasure with the same care and devotion that we did the first time and his wife was in and she wholeheartedly accepted this and cooperated on everything and every Friday morning she Faithfully prepared the two loaves praying at every step of the way and paying detail every detail and he and his wife earnestly prayed to Hashem that he that Hashem would accept their their halot and every Friday the caretaker would come along and eat the delicious kalas and every Friday night you know that Jew right after Services went there and they were gone every week and he was so happy and grateful that Hashem was eating the sun this went on for months and months and one Friday the rabbi of the synagogue stayed later than usual until the afternoon and it was the same Rabbi who had given the speech at the very beginning about the showbread that inspired this Jew that knew nothing you know that to do to make these colors and he was standing on the beam of reviewing the sermon that he planned to give the next day when did his surprise he saw one of his congregants enter carrying two loaves of bread walk up to the ark and put them inside and he realized that the man was unaware of his presence and he heard him offering these these prayers to Hashem that Hashem except and enjoy the Khaled and the rabbi listened in astonishment then at first he was silence but then he began to understand what was going on and he got angry and he was unable to restrain himself and he burst out in Fury stop you fool how can you think that our God eats and drinks it's a terrible sin to ascribe human physical qualities to Hashem you actually believe it's Hashem that takes your silly loaves of khala it's probably the shamish the the caretaker who's eating them and at that moment the caretaker entered the synagogue who went to get his halot and he was startled to see the rabbi and the man standing there and the rabbi confronted him and said tell this man why you came here and who's been taking the college that he's been bringing every week and the kid the characters in me I've been taking it I love them he wasn't even embarrassed about it he couldn't understand why the rabbi was so agitated when he was yelling at this other man and he looked so unhappy uh who he knew this man was a a unlearned but a very sincere Jew and the rabbi continued his rebuke and the men this converso he burst into tears and he was crushed not only had he not done a Mitzvah as he thought he was doing but he'd been guilty of a great sin and he apologized to the rabbi and and he wept and begged a rabbi to forgive him and he left the show of Shame and shame and despair how could he even so wrong anyways here's the story so shortly thereafter a messenger from the holy Ari not talking about me we're talking Rabbi gitsak luria from spots he strode into the synagogue and he approached the rabbi and uh in the name of the master our rewrite this is his uh his messenger he told the rabbi to go home to say goodbye to his family and prepare himself and by the designated time for a sermon the next morning his soul would have already departed to its Eternal rest and that was the decree from Heaven and the rabbi couldn't believe what he'd heard and he couldn't he nobody the servant couldn't explain it to him so the rabbi went directly to the Ari who confronted and who who he confronted and I reconfirmed the message and added as gently as possible I heard that it's because you halted God's pleasure the likes of which he hasn't enjoyed since the day the Holy Temple was destroyed that's what he felt when this innocent Jew would bring his two precious loaves to your soul every week Faithfully offering them to Hashem from the depths of his heart with joy and awe and believing that Hashem had taken them until you irrevocably destroyed his innocence for this the decree was sealed against you and there's no possible way to change it and the rabbi went home and he told his family all that it transpired him by the time of the sermon the next morning his soul had already departed to hear the Torah in the Heavenly Academy which is exactly what the Irish said and uh he heard that you know he heard this from a reliable source in spot who heard that when it happened and uh you know so the bottom line to me when I think of that story I think to myself it doesn't really matter it doesn't matter if Hashem had had you know did a blatant outright miracle and put my father's side door there or whether it was my cousin that did it either way it's a miracle of Hashem either way it's a message from my father that Hashem is sending me that my father is with me on this journey to me and it doesn't really matter how it happened you know Albert Einstein said there are only two ways to live your life one is as though nothing is a miracle the other is as though everything is a miracle and so I wanted to share that with you my friends because you know we're in difficult times right now and sometimes it's hard to see how light is going to come from so much Darkness so much darkness is happening but uh you know even this thing that Jeremy's talking about we both went to this Supreme Court reform thing and like how could light be brought from these totalitarian authoritarian secular leftist oligarchs commandeering the entire country and imposing their will on the nation of Israel because of lighting up a spark in our soul that's from Hashem as well everything is from Hashem and sometimes it's the darkness and sometimes it's the light which is all of you my friends in this Fellowship you're a tremendous source of life to me and to us and uh and may Hashem bless you and protect you and