The Secret of Forgiveness - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

shalom my friends it's good to be back together again we missed being with you last week it was a special purim a rare shabbat purim three-day feast and sunday was the purim for jerusalem hebron and all the other walled cities so we all joined together for all the celebrations but this is a good shabbat to come together because this week's torah portion this parsha is ki tisa a portion that is absolutely packed with among the deepest and most profound concepts in the torah and rarely has it been more difficult to choose what to focus on and to share with you so i decided to err on the side of the fundamentals and talk about the golden calf because within this incident lies what i believe is a secret that our generation needs to hear now more than ever before okay now the one hand the incident of the golden calf is one of the darkest and most shameful portions in the entire torah but as is often the case within the greatest darkness emerges the greatest light now there are volumes of text and commentaries and insights which contain a wide array of understandings and perspectives on what the nature of the golden calf was really all about and how it was not the conventional type of evil idolatry that considering the tenuous situation this terrified young nation was in it was an all too human mistake but listen no matter how you cut it it was bad it was really really bad reasons are not excuses and we fell short in the most egregious way it was a betrayal of ourselves and our mission in the world it was a betrayal of moses and above all it was a betrayal of hashem so what is this great light that i'm talking about that emerged from such an incident of deep darkness it was the light of forgiveness we were forgiven now think about it moshe went up to mount sinai to receive directly the word of god on our behalf now there are many prophets in israel but none were like moshe the prophecy of all the other prophets of israel was colored by their own personalities of course their prophecies were true in the deepest sense of the word but their personalities and their egos in some way influenced the flavor and the style that the divine message was conveyed through them but not moses he was what the mystics called an aspachlaria bahira the most transparent of all lenses which makes sense because he was the humblest of all men without ego the torah tells us this and rabbi foreman shares that at that moment when he ascended mount sinai mount sinai was no longer of this world the reason that the torah tells us that anyone who touched the mountain would die was not an arbitrary punishment but because at that moment mount sinai was a heavenly embassy meaning that from a terrestrial earthly perspective the mountain did appear like a mountain yes there was smoke and thunder and lightning it was an awesome and terrifying spectacle but in truth the mountain reached up to heaven which as we know it's not an issue of height or altitude but a matter of a different dimension altogether a dimension that is not subject to time and not subject to space and so what was 40 days on this earth must have seemed like a moment to moshe or perhaps years we don't know we can't really understand it and as this unfathomable spiritually exalted moment in which god was communing with his faithful servant moshe for the explicit purpose of entrusting and empowering his amsagullah his beloved chosen nation as this unimaginable event of divine revelation which would change the course of mankind forever was happening his chosen people the jewish people build a golden calf and proclaim before it in chapter 32 verse 4 ella elohecha is these are your gods o israel who brought you up from the land of egypt what greater sin could there be what greater transgression could anyone imagine yet my friends yet god forgives us god forgives the unforgivable god establishes a truth that endows all of mankind with the greatest gift imaginable hope hope that it is not too late hope that even if in our own minds we have fallen too short too many times that we are unforgivable that we are unworthy if god forgave the nation of israel for the golden calf if chuva repentance in return was still possible for them well then it's certainly possible for us as well because what are we really afraid of when we sin as a jew i can say that i am not afraid of not going to heaven i'm not afraid of what will happen to me in the afterlife as a matter of fact i can say that rarely if ever do i even think about the afterlife i'm afraid of hurting my relationship with hashem right here right now in this world in this life i fear that he will take his divine spirit away from me that he'll stop using me as a vessel to bring light even if a small amount of light bringing that into the world we've all felt it at one time or another sometimes we feel it's stronger sometimes it's faint sometimes we don't feel it at all and that's what i fear it's betraying my most precious relationship in the world my relationship with hashem with my soul with my deepest essence that is my fear king david said in psalm don't cast me away from you and don't take away from me your holy spirit those are the words which i believe best capture the fear that so many of us feel when we sin when we stray from god and that is why this torah portion with all the darkness is really a portion of hope the torah portion that reminds us that it is never too late that we should never give up that is the god of israel said to the prophet isaiah in chapter 55 my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways while a human being while human being may be able to forgive certain things and may not be able to forgive other things may not be able to truly deeply forgive hashem loves us with a love that we can't imagine he's always waiting for us to return he's always yearning for us to return now my friends open your hearts because i want to share with you one of the deepest and most beautiful secrets how did moshe rabbenu secure this divine forgiveness for the nation of israel well as we have established god was understandably furious hashem said to moshe in chapter 32 verse and now leave me and my anger will burn against them and i will consume them and i will make from you a great nation and how did moshe respond to such an offer get ready my friends because if we really allow this to enter our hearts it could change everything how did moshe respond to god's instruction chapter 32 verse 32 and now forgive their sin and if not erase me i beg of you from your book which you've written moshe did not accept the offer he refused he said to god with holy chutzpah if you don't forgive them if you want to erase them then erase me erase me from the book you've written now the secret lies in the hebrew word for erase me mahini the ancient mystical sage the arizal pointed out that if you take the letters of those two words and rearrange them you get the word mei noah right we see here mahini erase me the waters of noah what does this mean well if you look back at the flood hashem told noah build an ark and i will send a flood and we'll start with again with you and what does noah say okay pass the hammer he had 120 years to warn his generation or at least to try 120 years to pray for them to plead for them to repent and to be forgiven but he doesn't and that is what the zohar points out that in isaiah 54 9 the flood in the times of noah is referred to by the words the flood of noah not the flood of noah's evil generation but noah's flood why because in some way he was responsible for it because he never pleaded prayed or advocated on their behalf but here moshe does a tremendous fixing he rectifies noah's shortcoming and he says no don't erase this whole generation if you erase them erase me and within those very words erase me we are told how deep and profound the fixing was all the way back to the flood of noah and god forgives them it's as if perhaps that was what god was waiting to hear the entire time hashem we come before you in a troubled generation in a generation with so much good but also so much evil and we're asking for your forgiveness not only for our shortcomings and for our sins but to please forgive all of mankind you've remained hidden for so long that mankind has gone astray and built idols and sins please forgive us and forgive them and shine your light of redemption on the entire earth we pray hashem not only for the redemption of israel but for the redemption of all of mankind amane thank you my friends thank you jeremy back to you jeremy 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.thelandofisral.com backslash fellowship or click on the link below to join thank you you