The War to Understand - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and I was really digging into the Torah portion and it was challenging one to hold on to I could not figure out for the life of me where to start just trying to figure out where to take hold of it and in which direction to take it it felt like a war in and of itself right and as the Torah portion begins with the words when you go out to war and I was just sitting outside this settlement of the front and my friend Yosi came up to me and he saw that I was in the Torah portion and he didn't say hello this is he just came up and this is what he said this is what he came out it's not like oh and if you end up going out to war here's what you should do when you go out to you're going out to war it's gonna happen everyone has to you're going out you better have a game plan because it's coming your way I did I just wanted to share that with you just to share with you just to give you a little glimpse into what is really accurately honestly authentically much of the chitter chatter between friends and Judea we just see each other in the street and we share an idea from the Torah we strengthen each other we spiritually Empower each other and then we just go off on our way it's not like empty mindless chitty chat that's like that happens all the time and it spoke to me what he said it spoke to me because here I was struggling in such a a war-like unusual way with the portion and here comes my friend yossi not knowing that and just reminding me that going out to work that is the story of our lives in this world we're in a constant War a war of predominantly a war of perception all of the other Wars I really am coming to believe with their actual physical enemies and with the challenges of our lives and the challenges with our children it is all consequences and outcroppings of the core war of perception of consciousness of awareness of of understanding of seeking to wrap our minds around what Hashem really wants from us in this world that's what we're trying to figure we want to have a relationship with Hashem well that's what we have to what does he want from us and this portion is really a great example of that because this portion contains over 70 meets votes over 70 directives over 70 Commandments I I like using different words than Commandments even though means vote is a conventional um definition of the word uh Commandments midst of a commandment because Mitzvah means essentially to connect with these are um actions or thought these are different things that we do that Hashem tells us you want to connect with me these are the things so it's not like a commandment it's an invitation for connection over and these These are these over 70 expressions of hashem's I want to say individuality right over 70 ways Hashem tells us his love language through which we can express our love to him and the way that he wants to receive that love and that loyalty and and I was realizing and remembering that we can't always you know connect the dots as we naturally wish we could we want to feel like we get it all we understand it all I've spent so much of my life with different mantras and different things and I'm like okay if I have this Mantra this Mantra this Mantra I'll be good I'll understand it I'll understand it all and then right then a new thing comes in and I don't understand anything anymore and I'm confused and disoriented like why is this happening is it a failure I mean no it's not a failure we're a war that is parts of the reality of this life and many of you may have a voice in your head well I don't want to be a war this isn't a god of that I want to be connected with a God of War but I don't know it's it's a war of love it's a war of connection it's it's a struggle it's a battle I don't know how to how to how to how to say it but we can't always make sense of things and and thereby own them you know own them in the way that we want to we want to own things and we want to figure them out and understand we can't ever fully understand the meaning of the depth of these meets vote of these Commandments of these invitations to connect and that's part of a a relationship of true love even with the spouse I was just thinking about even with this mess the moment we think that we really fully understand everything we know about them we haven't figured out this is who they are and we sort of freeze frame we figured it out we know everything there's to know about them that is often when the love dies right we aren't supposed to fully understand our spouse because there's never ending depths if they are created in the image of Hashem and they have a soul of the Living God within them then there's constant growth and outpouring of depth and meaning to them also that we're supposed to always seek to understand deeper and deeper and it's the same thing with the Torah because thinking that we fully understand it it detracts from the purity of the love that we have for Hashem and I think more than any other Torah portion our portion here it displays that Transcendence of hashem's will over our intellect possibly Beyond any other Torah portion because