The Spiritual Danger Hidden Inside Our Cravings | Land of Israel Fellowship

You know, since I'm a kid, I struggled with my weight, and about a year and a half ago we started something that all of you know about called the Judean Diet. And I almost can't believe that I'm able to say this out loud, but it really after like a whole lifetime of struggling since I was a kid really, after years and decades of trying and failing and trying again, I finally finally stumbled onto something that worked. Relatively I mean it worked it's Baruch Hashem, it's still working in the sense that I'm still on it. I definitely have my ups and my downs still, but I find that the journey helps me to properly spiritually harness and channel and understand what those downs are and how to productively deal with them and have resilience. You know, it's um you know, I I actually vacillate I think more of the other participants in the diet, but I'm still on the journey and I've never since returned to my starting weight or even within 20 lb of it. I tell the whole story in the first module of the program and I tend to get sidetracked, so I don't want to repeat it all here. But the bottom line is this, I lost weight, I got healthier, and I think the only reason that it has lasted is because this journey tethered and integrated my physical health with my relationship with Hashem. And through the whole experience, I ended up coming closer to Hashem than I'd ever been before. And on some level I can't help it to think that when I have adversarial situations or challenges, when I'm able to really truly harness it to come closer to Hashem on some level, very often Hashem says, "Okay, so that challenge has served its purpose." I don't know. But anyways, the reason I believe that that's the case is because before this you know, there was a whole dimension of my life, you know, my body, my hungers, my eating, my cravings that I sort of filed away as like not spiritual, like disconnected, like off off in its own corner, sealed off from my avodah. You know, from my true service of Hashem. My service is in prayer and in learning Torah, but not really when it comes to like my diet. I never really integrated those two things. And when I started [clears throat] the Judaean Diet, more than anything else, I sort of took that sealed off, supposedly unspiritual part of me and folded it back into my relationship with God. Nothing was left on the outside at that point, or at least a lot less was left on the outside. And a number of us in this very fellowship have been on the program, and the feedback has been overwhelming. There's so many testimonials, glowing, transformational stories about how the how this program has changed people's lives and their relationship with God. There are friends of [clears throat] mine that sometimes I'm talking to a friend in America, and they say, "Oh, you look really good. What's up?" And I tell them Judaean Diet, and they say, "Send me a link." And I say, "Listen, if you're not really a God person, if your life does not revolve around that relationship, I'm not sure it will speak to you." And sometimes that even sort of sparks their interest even more. But anyways, I'm just grateful to have been part of bringing it to the world. Um it's only, and I mean only thanks to Hashem that this is all happened. So, why am I telling you this? Why am I telling you this right now? Because one of the unexpected blessings that came of the program is the [clears throat] support session. Live on Zoom every other week, and before we open up to my favorite part, which as you know is the connection part, wherein it's even more so in in our support session, it's even longer. It's It's at least half of the whole thing, where we connect with each other, we strengthen each other, we encourage each other. Before that whole connection part, the way it always begins is that I share from my heart. And whatever I happen to be walking through that week, I just share it with everybody. And then other people share what they're going through. And every single time I try to find where the Torah portion is speaking to me right there in the thick of my own journey towards physical and spiritual health. And last week, my friends, one part of our portion of Balak spoke to me louder than I think all the rest. There were a lot of connections, but it was so loud that I couldn't shake it and really stayed with me long after our support session. And I want to bring it to you tonight because I have a feeling it's going to to spark something for you, too. I hope so. So, this week we read Parshat Balak, and the portion opens up with the lighting of the menorah in the Mishkan. Right? In the Tabernacle. Bear el Aaron. Balak el Aaron. Speak [clears throat] to Aaron and say to him, "When you kindle the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light towards the face of the menorah." And notice, the portion is named for that one seemingly strange word, Balak. We usually translate it as when you kindle, but the word doesn't literally mean to kindle or to light. It comes from the root aliyah. Right? Balak, aliyah. To go up, to raise, to elevate. Literally, it means when you cause them to ascend. And our sages asked, "Why this word? You You You light a lamp. You don't raise it." And one of the most beautiful answers is that you must hold the flame to the wick until the fire rises on its own. Achei she shall have it a lot male. You don't just light it and walk away. You stay with it patiently until the the little flame stands up by itself and burns upward on its own strength. Okay, so that's sort of Keep that image in your head for a second. So, a flame that you have to tend until it learns to rise upward on its own. I don't know if you've had that experience with lighting fires, but I think maybe that puts words to what we do when we're trying to light a thing, right? Because the whole portion, I want to suggest is about which direction our fire is pointed. Up or down. In some ways, not only the whole portion, but the entire Torah is about that. But, we can talk about that later. This is Jeremy's fellowship, and I'm not going to hijack it. But, anyways, nowhere does that come into sharper focus than in the story that just sort of grabbed me last week and stayed with me. Because just a couple chapters later, the very same nation that has the menorah burning upwards in in in its midst starts burning in the opposite direction. Right? The Torah tells us chapter 11, verse 4. Asaf Suf, asher bekirvo, the riffraff, the erev rav, the asaf suf, whatever however you want to call it. But, this is what it says in the text, asaf suf. This riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving. And the Israelites too wept again and said, "If only we had meat." Right? The the asaf suf, the the rabble, the the hangers-on at the edge of the camp, the um the delinquents, I don't know. I feel like probably throughout most of my childhood I would have been put into that group. But, the text says, um hitavu ta'avah, their craving was kindled. Right? Their ta'avah, that raw base physical hunger, was lit like a match and it caught. And now, I'm not here to take the responsibility off the rest of the nation and say it's the rabble-rousers, because they followed it, and we're all responsible for what we do. But, the text is precise about how it started. A desire was kindled, and it spread. And what did they crave? Listen, there's there they were not starving. They had the manna, the bread from heaven, falling at their feet every single morning. And yet, verse 5, uh verses 5 and 6, they say this. Chapter 11. Zacharnu et hadagah asher nochal bemitsrayim. We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for for The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic. But now our throats are dried up. There is nothing at all, nothing but this manna to look at. I mean, did you hear those words? It's painful for me even to say. First of all, for free, for free, they paid with their lives. There was genocide against babies thrown into the river. They were worked to death for free. But on top of that, the part that even the words that are even more cutting in some ways than that sort of delusional psychosis is is nothing but this manna? They were eating bread from heaven. Divine food. The closest thing to the food of angels that this world has ever known, and they call it nothing. And in the same breath they go misty-eyed and nostalgic for the cucumbers and the garlic of Egypt. For the slop of the house of bondage. They had heaven on their tongues and they were weeping for the the meals of their slavery. Now, Hashem's answer is one of those declarations that you just you don't forget it. It always makes me feel a little bit like I'm hearing my dad. Um he he would often speak in terms like this. But what does Hashem do? He tells Moshe that the people the people will get their meat. You know, oh they'll get it. Chapter 11, verse 19. Lo yo me hat to chum. You shall eat it not one day, not two, not five, not 10, not 20, but a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. And friends, I've told you this before, but like any good repetitive Jewish father, I have to tell you again and again how that verse takes me back to basic training. Some of you know I served in Golani, the the Gideon battalion of the Golani infantry unit. And one day a bunch of us got into our heads that if we very politely and respectfully complained about the food to one of the head officers, then something good would come of that. And we had the audacity, picture this, a bunch of exhausted recruits to make this request very specifically about chicken rings. I don't know if you guys remember this story. I remember telling it to I think even more than once. These are You know the chicken rings that looks like an onion ring, but it's filled with chicken, like the processed, glorious, beloved army chicken rings that we apparently could not live without. And so we asked our rasab, the sergeant who ran the supplies in the kitchen, and he looked at us and he didn't argue, and he smiled and said, "No problem." And then we ate chicken rings, and we ate chicken rings, and we ate chicken rings until the very sight of a chicken ring made us sick. Until it literally came out of our nostrils, you might say. I've never in my life wanted to see, you know, a vegetable patty so badly. You know, he gave us exactly what we craved, and that was the punishment. You know, so looking back at the whole chapter, I feel like like I was a kid in the desert learning the lesson that the whole nation learned 3,000 years earlier. Sometimes getting precisely what your taiva, that's what it's called. It's called ta'avah, but in modern vernacular Hebrew, we call it like a taiva. A taiva. What your taiva, your your lust is screaming for, what your cravings are so adamantly demanding, getting that thing is the worst thing that can happen to you. And here's where the story turns, and when it reached into you know, it just it affected me very powerfully, and it continues to do so, because Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses, he hears that God is going to feed millions of people meat for a solid month, and even he, Moses himself, cannot wrap his mind around it. Chapter 11, verses 21 and 22. Moses said to the people, "I am among the I am among number 600,000 on foot and you say, "I will give them meat to eat for a whole month. Could enough flocks and herds be slaughtered for them? Could all the fish of the sea be gathered to suffice for them?" Right? Even Mosha, the man who through him Hashem split the sea, who brought down the plagues, who spoke to God face to face, even he stands there and says in effect, "I can't picture this. I can't imagine how this could possibly happen." And then comes the answer. And that verse, my friends, is one that really grabbed me on Shabbat and I want to share it with you tonight. Right? So, listen. It says, "Vayomer Hashem Mosha, Hayad Hashem tiktsar?" And the Lord said to Moses, "Is the Is the hand of the Lord too short? Now you shall see whether my word comes true for you or not. Hayad Hashem tiktsar? Is the hand of God too short? Is there any limit? Is there any boundary, any edge to what God can do?" Right? And then it happens. A wind goes out from heaven and drives the quail in from the sea and the meat is everywhere, more than they could eat. But this is where the joy sort of turns into horror. Because the craving was never really about food. Right? I think we know that. Chapter 11, verse 33. "The meat was still beneath between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of the Lord blazed against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague." Right? And they buried the dead right there. And the Torah gives that place a name that is so powerful. Verse 34, "And he named that place Kivrot HaTa'avah." The graves of craving. Because there they buried the people who had been craving. Kivrot HaTa'avah. The graves of craving. Friends, I've stood at the edge of my own Kivrot HaTa'avah more times than I can count. And if I'm honest, I'm It's a gift from God that I'm probably not dead yet right now already concerning the Abramowitz genetics and how hard you really need to try to take care of yourself. Anyway, but it doesn't matter, you know, I suspect many of you have also. Because here's the terrible secret that my spiritual and physical journey with food have taught me there other cravings as well. You know, they forced me to look at squarely. Our cravings feel so real. They feel so urgent, so compelling, so much like it's like the life itself, like it's the life force itself, the ta'avah, the desire whispers that you cannot survive without it. That this, this food, this thing, this comfort, this love, whatever it is, this is what living is. And and my friends, this verse teaches us the truth. And the truth is that that voice, the voice of that lust, the voice of that craving is lying to you. Because the very thing that screams, "This is life." is if we follow it to its final destination, it's leading us by the hand very often straight to the grave. The graves of craving. They were exactly what their bodies demanded and it killed them. This is the whole secret, I think, about lutzah, of the flame that must be raised upwards. Because desire itself is not the enemy. That's not what the Torah is about. Trying to squelch desires and create a perversion of the desire. No, it's about harnessing the desire within the guidelines with which Hashem shows us it can be harnessed to bring light. Right, the same fire that burns down into the graves of craving is the fire that, if it's turned upward and channeled to Hashem, becomes the menorah. Right, the ta'avah, the hunger, the appetite, God put it in us on purpose. The question, the only question, is which direction we kindle it. Down towards the cucumbers of Egypt and the chicken rings of slavery, or up until the flames learn to rise on its own. Right? And and our very eating, our very bodies, our most physical hungers and cravings and desires become an aliya, an ascent, a service of the living God. Right? That, more than I can express, is what this journey, which I call the Judean diet, has been for me and so many others. Not It's not a diet, but it's really a a a turning of the flame, an ascension of the flame, harnessing and channeling the flame to God. But here, my friends, is the part that I really also wanted to share with you. It's like two ideas here together, because I keep coming back to that one verse. I kept thinking about it over Shabbat. Hayad Hashem tiktsar? Is the hand of God too short? Because look what it really means. The people are craving meat, and and and they Eventually, this hunger, this craving they had for meat, is eventually what buried them. But that same limitless hand of Hashem, the hand that can do what even Mosha could not imagine, is the hand we reach for when we're standing somewhere where we cannot see our way out of. Right? I think of I think I've shared this with you many times before, but this to me is the prototype, the paradigm, of the idea I'm trying to express, of our ancestors at the edge of the sea as they were fleeing the Egyptians. The waters is in front of them, the chariots of Egypt are thundering down behind them, and I am I I really believe that not one of them, not a single soul standing on that beach, could have imagined how they would possibly get out of that situation. There's no way. The math did not work. The exits were sealed. And then, well, we know what happened. The hand of Hashem was not too short. And here's what made me think lovingly about so many of you and of course of myself. You know, I read your prayer requests and I read them slowly and there are times many times when I I'm going to be honest when I sit with one of them and even I sitting here in these transcendent hills of Judea not trapped inside the darkness and the pain of the way the person who wrote it tends to be trapped inside of it. You know, when we're going through our thing very often we could feel just absorbed by it inside trapped and I'm not trapped in it like that and even I can't picture the way out. I sometimes read your prayer requests and my heart sinks and I think I really don't know how this one is going to end well. You know, and I'll go further right now in my own life. There's a specific thing. I'm not going to go into it, but I'm carrying it and it's very real and it's very painful and I cannot for the life of me imagine how it's going to resolve well. You know, I look at it from every angle and I see only sealed exits. You know, I see only the sea in front of me and the chariots behind. And so this message is for me and it's for those of you who know that feeling and maybe you're going through it right now. And this is for you who are standing at your own sea tonight. I'm not going to stand here and pretend that I can hand you the solution because often like right now I can't even find my own. But I can hand you the verse "Hayadna Shem Tiktsar" That's the question. Is the hand of God too short? And maybe that's why we learn in Ethics of Our Fathers chapter 4 verse 21 Rabbi Elazar Kappa Kappa Omer "Akinah v'ta'avah v'kavod" Jealousy, lustful cravings, and honor remove a person from the world. They don't just make life harder. They pull us out of reality. They pull us out of our mission. They pull us out of the world Hashem created us to live in. And Balak comes to teach us that the answer is not to extinguish the fire inside us, but to raise it, to take the very hunger that could drag us down to Kivrot Hata'avah, the grave of cravings, and turn it upwards until it becomes a flame like the menorah. And I think that is my final message to all of you. Whatever sea you're standing at before tonight, whatever cravings, fear, pain, or impossible situation is telling you there's no way forward, hold on to this verse. Hayad Hashem tiktsar? Is the hand of God too short? It was not too short at the sea. It was not too short in the desert. It was not too short for us right now. I can I've I'm I'm confident because I've been here before and I've seen that there is a solution that I never fathomed or imagined, and Hashem knows it. And he doesn't let us know it while we're in it because it's the greatest opportunity for us to really put our faith in him. Whatever challenge we're facing, whether with our health, our family, our finances, our relationships, or our cravings, or our weight, whatever it is, let us turn our hearts to God and put our faith in his ability to see solutions that we cannot even fathom. When we put our hopes and our our pain and our lives in his hand, anything is possible. So uh so thank you, my friends, for always praying for me and encouraging me. And please know that my prayers and love are with all of you always in your moments of darkness and confusion at the edge of your sea where you don't know the way out. I'm praying for Hashem and you together to be able to emerge to great salvation. My name is Ari, and I live here on the edge of the Judean frontier. And just as the prophets foretold, the mountains of Judah are coming to life. The ingathering of the exiles is taking place right before our eyes. And the final prophecy is manifesting as the righteous of the nations are coming together with humble hearts here in the land of Israel fellowship. And now I'm inviting you to join us along with hundreds of Jewish and Christian families from all around the world to experience the beauty and the holiness and the magnificence of our fellowship. So click below so you can taste the beauty and the holiness that is happening on this mountain. >> [music]