Prayer and Perspective - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

just want to call an re Abramowitz to share some Torah with us the Book of Proverbs has it he's a tree of life and we want to spread it out and maybe take this torah and make it into our prayer and so thank God we have re on the job to inject us with some Torah from Judea hello my friends welcome to our second fellowship meeting this is indeed very exciting to see the divine favor hush I'm a showered upon this mission and to be a part of it well it's a great honor now the Jewish people around the world for thousands of years have been gleaning strength and guidance and insights from the Torah portion of the week which we believe is a blueprint of sorts for our personal or national lives and so I'd like to share with you from this week's Torah portion of belukha now one of the great themes of this week's Torah portion is the power of speech and the power of prayer so the partial estar twith a series of events which proves to be among the lowest points in our history and it starts with complaining the portion begins by saying via he hum can meet on a neem rabe that was nation and the nation complained in the ears of Hashem Hashem heard and became angry a fire burned amongst them and consumed the perimeters of the camp now the great rabbi known as the khatam so fair says that their sin was that was nation in the ears of Hashem it's about Hashem hearing that deep in their hearts the nation didn't really believe that Hashem hears them they didn't believe that Hashem actually listens to their prayers he explains that the nation was lacking in Emunah lacking faith that a Shem can actually hear their words perhaps they believe that Hashem sees everything and even that Hashem runs the world but at that time they were lacking the faith that Hashem actually hears them hears their discussions with each other here's their complaints or that he even hears their prayers so Revilla Kovan again every Shabbat OTL he came he shares a beautiful perspective on the inner motivation of these complaints and why complaining is so destructive and toxic he even explains at that at the beginning the Torah doesn't even explain what the complaining was about but it was the complaining itself that infuriated Hashem the fact that what they were complaining about wasn't even mentioned exposes the truth that the complaints were a pretext and that most always when people complain even if they received the desire of their hearts about which they were complaining it wouldn't really make them happy or satisfy them because the complaint itself is coming from a fundamentally negative outlook on life they view life through a negative prism which colors their entire view of reality and blinds them to the wonderful opportunities for growth love and joy which surrounds them because their entire point of view is consumed with what they feel is lacking so they spend their lives whining and misery so here's where the tour gets into detail about the complaint Bamidbar numbers eleven verses four through six and the mixed multitude that was among them there fella lusting and the children of Israel wept on their part and said if only we were given meat to eat we remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free the cucumber's the melons the leeks the onions the garlic but now our soul is dried away there's nothing at all we have nothing other than this manna to look at it's painful to read these words let alone to recite them it sounds crazy they were waxing nostalgic for the slavery in Egypt when their sons were genocide aliy murdered and they were enslaved with back-breaking labor they had the audacity to yearn for that are they crazy and to say that the food was free they received food for free the way a farm animal receives food for free because they were property and to get the most work out of them the Egyptians needed to feed them so they have the strength to work there perspectives were all off it happens to all of us they looked at their dark past as good and they viewed their present lives with all of their heavenly blessings as negative God is leading them with the formation of clouds by day and a pillar of fire by night they're eating divine manna falling from the sky with God Himself preparing it and about this unbelievable reality they're complaining the problem here isn't the complaints it's the warped and distorted world view of the people which put the negativity front and center no matter how beautiful things truly are King David eloquently articulates this in Psalm 34 he says it in a verse but I want to sing it even though my voice is terrible he says me ha ha ha ha Oh have ya mean Oh have ya mean lera Tov who is the man who Cleaves to life he who loves his days and sees good within them so while we should not judge this generation of the Exodus negatively we can definitely learn from them for they took us as far as they could but a new generation needed to be born that could walk upright with eyes of positivity and faith into the Promised Land a generation that was able to perceive and internalize God's love for us to experience the world through a prism of love and abundance rather through them through a lens of fear and scarcity so I want to bless all of us and these monumental and prophetic times that we should remember every moment that God hears our words and listens to our prayers that he yearns for our prayers that perhaps one of the reasons that he created the world was to hear the sweet yearnings of our to feel out of our prayers of our hearts and I bless us that we should never fall into the trap of complaining but that we have the faith and the strength to replace every complaint with an expression of gratitude my Rebbe said that when God hears our complaints he says you think that's bad I'll show you bad and when he hears our gratitude he says you think that's good I'll show you good I bless us that even in the truly difficult and painful times we remember that although we may not understand why everything happens everything is from God and finally I bless us that we should be the generation that merits not only entering the Holy Land physically in geographically but emotionally and spiritually as well so Jeremy my friend back to you may you go from strength to strength and continue to be granted the strength to spearhead this holy mission Salome Thank You Ari that was really absolutely beautiful