The Tree of Life - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and to end the taurus cycle right and to start us off on the right foot i want to invite ari uh just to share some torah with us from judea and so ari this is the last parsha get us ready take it away hello my friends every year on simchat torah i choose where i will celebrate very carefully where will there be the most joyous and invigorated dancing the best songs and the most heartfelt prayer this due to the lockdown we stayed home like most of the country but what actually ended up happening was quite beautiful along with my wife shayna my beautiful daughter dwash and my precious tanakh after starting our prayers at home we danced our way over to jeremy's house right here behind me usually we dance holding a real tourist scroll but this year we had to go for the printed version due to not having a tourist roll here at the farm yet so we sing and dance pass the baitfila and we bust into jeremy's living room dancing circles around him and and his family and they're amused and disoriented but we refused to stop so pretty soon they joined us and we all danced our way to the house of prayer here on the peak of the mountain now for those of you who know me well it's been a long journey for me and i had a little bit of an out of body experience seeing myself from above holding my daughter in one hand my tanakh on the other hand my wife at my side and my best friend and his family dancing together celebrating the torah on the farm we're building here on the judean frontier all the challenges and the concerns that face us out here just disappeared as we danced and danced it was a moment that i will have forever and we sang and we sing and so there's a general playlist of songs that most jews around the world sing as they dance on simchat torah but we spent most of our time singing one song and that's what i want to start sharing with you on this message the song goes like this torah torah torah torah torah torah torah siva la numa forgive my voice that's how god made it it was from my heart so without all the repetitions the words mean moshe charged us with the torah the inheritance of the congregation of jacob and we sang these words again and again as we circled the torah sitting there on the table right in the middle but what does this really mean well the word siva comes from the word mitzvah which many people define as commandment but in truth the word mitzvah comes from the word to connect because the mitzvot in particular and the torah in general serve a primary function which is to connect us to god and moshe goes on to say in the in the verse that the torah is a heritage for the congregation of jacob for the 12 tribes it does not belong to the priest or the levites or any sort of elite group but it belongs to the entire nation of israel this is why for millennia the jewish people have had the highest rate of literacy and valued education above all else not only to learn the torah not only to live the torah but to keep the flame of torah alive for that day when the torah would come forth from zion and the word of god from jerusalem for that day when we would finally share the torah with the entire world manifesting our greatest mission and purpose of being a life a light unto the nations and so the torah ends with the death of moses verse 5 in the last chapter of the torah says moses the servant of god died there in the land of moab at the command of hashem he buried him in the valley in the land of moab near beiper and no one knows his burial place until this day so while we don't know exactly where moses is buried we know the general area right there right there over those mountains in the land of moab opposite jericho can you believe it we came to live in the heart of judea dwelling on the very mountains upon which moses longingly gazed as he yearned and prayed to be able to enter the promised land and there he's buried and the torah ends now rabbi jonathan sachs points out a beautiful parallel between the torah's ending which we're celebrating on simchat torah and its beginning which we start on the very same day at the beginning he breathes life into the first man and now at the end the breath of life departs from the greatest of men adam and adam and eve had been prevented from eating from the it's tree of life and moshe came and gave the torah to the jewish people and to the world the torah which proverbs tell us in chapter three is the eight sachim the tree of life to those that hold fast to it now what does it mean that the torah is the tree of life well i can only tell you what it means to me now at this point in my life because by its very nature the torah is vibrant and dynamic it changes with us our experience of it changes that's why the word bible isn't an accurate definition because bible means book whereas torah means teaching it's living it's not just a book it's a living divine wisdom that guides us on our journey through this world bonding us and binding us to the living god of israel and that's why it's the treat of life that's why it's the tree of life adam was in the garden walking with god in this unimaginable prophetic bliss our sages tell us that the physical nature of his body was minimal that his body had the consistency of a fingernail and he was glowing and emanating a beautiful divine light he was a divine being with a bare minimum of physicality necessary to be called a physical being and then he ate from the tree and his perception of the world changed matter itself congealed and evil was infused within him as he looked down and saw a physical body he became confused is he a body with uh that has a soul or is he a soul within a body what is the truth of his existence he hides from god in his confusion and god says adam where are you did god not know where adam was of course he did he was talking to adam where he was in his confused and disoriented state and so we're banished from the garden banished to a life that's destined to death but then god in his unimaginable kindness gives us the torah the tree of life the path back into the garden while we're still living in this world the path to internalize the realization and the truth that we don't have a soul that we are a soul the torah fundamentally changes the essence of life the goal of life to those who believe that we are a body that this world is all that there is well they have goals in this world to win the game to acquire as much as they can to amass wealth to be a success but for those walking with god the goals couldn't be more different the torah paves the way back to the garden there's a midrash that tells us that the gar in the garden the fruit of the tree tasted the same as the bark of the tree and i believe this means that in the garden the journey is the destination we're not judged by outcomes for the outcomes are not in our hands we're judged by the truth the honesty the integrity with which we traverse the journey of this life in the world of eden in the world of truth the outcomes should not be the focus at all rabbi abraham torski he illustrates this by telling a story about two doctors who needed to perform a surgery one doctor didn't really care about the patient and cared more about the money he took a shot at whiskey didn't prepare much or give it much thought and he performed the surgery and the person lived the other doctor cared very much he planned he prepared he prayed and the person died in the eyes of god rabbi torski explains the doctor the first doctor he was a negligent killer and the second doctor he saved a life the outcome is not that by which we're judged the outcome is in god's hands whether we walked our journey with god that is our only decision that's the true goal of this world true life vibrant life means being deeply connected to god who is the source of all life and that is what we're celebrating on simchat torah we're celebrating the tree of life which liberates us from living momentary lives and decaying in aging bodies to developing an eternal relationship with god as everlasting souls now to wind it down moses as he prepares to leave the world he comforts the nation of israel by blessing them and the portion begins with the words this is the blessing with which moshe the man of god blessed the israelites before his death the midrash points out that moses was not called a man of god until he blessed the israelites to be because to truly be godly is to bless so allow me to bless all of you my holy friends that as we swim the beautiful waters of torah together that we should come together in unity and humility with hearts of truth and hearts of love and together we can partake from the eight heim from the tree of life shalom my friends back to you jeremy you