The Power of Thought - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

shalom my friends when i told you last week at the fellowship to stay in touch and to stay connected i'm so happy that you took me seriously and i encourage you to continue to do so because so many of you you shared your thoughts and ideas and words of support and encouragement and you asked so many questions excellent questions every single question was a good one one of the many questions i received it was almost like a theme was about the part of the fellowship which discussed the entire idea about intentions and whether or not the intentions of nadav and avihu made a difference and if they had noble intentions that why did hashem not let them live or regarding the intentions of lot and his daughters or lots daughters for to perpetuate mankind should that have made a difference now while i believe that the events in the torah confirm my view that these intentions made all the difference in the world whether with nadav and view of who hashem said bikravi akadesh through those closest to me i will be sanctified or through lord's daughters from whom king david and the messiah we are waiting for are descended despite that i want to speak deeper about these intentions because the more i reflected on the issue the more i realized why this week's torah portion of tazria mitsura followed last week's torah portion this week's torah portion speaks about sarat which is defined as leprosy but that is not really an accurate translation because while the leprosy of today which is mostly gone in the world while that is a physical disease the tsarat of the torah is clearly described as a direct physical consequence of a spiritual disease the root of which is the evil tongue now there are two primary categories of the evil tongue the worst being mozi shemra translated as inventing an evil name otherwise known as slander in which these lies are just made up thereby creating an evil name and reputation for another person purely out of one's imagination but a very close second in evil is lashon hara where you speak about evil about someone but that is it's gossip and it's based on the truth it's rooted in truth and you're simply sharing and conveying the truth to others and spreading a bad name about them the best example the torah gives about pure lashon hara is the case of miriam speaking about her brother moshe to her other brother aron aaron and by the way i have a deep appreciation that in hashem's ultimate wisdom he doesn't cover up or whitewash the sins of our greatest sadikim our prophets our leaders but on the contrary their sins and shortcomings are focused upon amplified and studied not only so that we can all learn from these very human shortcomings but so that we can remember that we too can be righteous and holy and close to god despite our own sins and shortcomings okay so the incident with miriam happened in the beginning of the 12th chapter of numbers in bamidbar miriam and miriam and arun spoke against moses because of the kushite woman that he had married for he had married a cruciate woman and they said has the lord indeed spoken only to moshe has he not also spoken by us and hashem heard it now our sages explained that miriam was criticizing moshe for separating from his wife and not being intimate with her we're taught that this is because of his unique and unparalleled level of prophecy that was incompatible at that time with intimacy with his wife but either miriam didn't understand that or it wasn't a good enough reason for her after all she and aron were both great prophets and they didn't separate from their spouses this was the judgment this was the thought that miriam spoke to her brother aron about their brother moshe and hashem heard these words and he defended moshe as the most humble man of all men on earth and he struck miriam with sarat for speaking this lashon hara about moshe and as part of the consequence of getting sarah ut she was banished from the camp for seven days now were these words she spoke not true they were true but in miriam's limited human intelligence she didn't see the entire picture she didn't understand the depth of the situation as only god himself could understand so she projected her partial and limited judgment of the situation and and her guilt in this matter was confirmed by the ultimate judge who struck her with sarat and banished her from the camp now at my shabbat table i was discussing this with my holy and beloved guest and i made a suggestion i brought a kabbalistic source about why i felt like vashon hara is such a foundational and severe sin the mystics divide the world into four categories the highest level is called midaber which means to speak that would be mankind the only living creation gifted with the ability to speak and articulate words then to simplify the other three is which are creatures with the spirit of life animals so meh which are plants that sprout and grow and then domain which are inanimate objects now i suggested that it is our words that make us in the image of god god treated the world with words words have tremendous creative power as i've shared that's where the famous words abracadabra where we've shared this before that's where they come from avrah i will create kedabra as i speak we're able to create realities in the world through our speech this is why i think one of the most underused and overlooked powers that mankind has is the power of blessing we have the power to bless each other and to be conduits through which god blesses and channels and pours out his light upon each other in the world so for me i've been blessed to internalize this truth so much that rarely do i have an interaction with someone in which i don't bless them it's already sort of like habit to me whether it be the cashier at the grocery store or the plumber fixing my sink this element it just adds an entire level of meaning and joy to my day and can transform an otherwise normal and mundane interaction to a holy and transcendent experience we can build people up with our words or we can tear them down but then one of my guests far more learner than i he said that the sages explained that while the highest level of life is indeed mid-aber as i said it is not referring to words or to speaking it's referring to our thoughts it's referring to mankind's ability to have rational intellectual capacity and determine how we see and perceive the world around us and the people around us so at first i was a little displeased with this idea because it didn't exactly fit in with my belief at that very moment that it isn't thoughts that make us the most godly but it is our words themselves but the more i thought about what my friend akiva said the more i realized that what he shared was an even deeper truth because our thoughts are the root of our words our thoughts our ideas our perspectives they give birth to the words that come from our mouths our words are merely a manifestation of our thoughts the deepest fixing we are here to do is to fix the prism through which we see people and see the world we talk about this in our fellowship a lot i've talked about the three words which have been among the most powerful mantras which i repeat throughout the day specifically when something happens that appears to be adverse or unfortunate as you all know we could probably say them together these words are gam zu letova this too is for the good that while something may appear to the human eye as negative or unfortunate everything is from god and everything is for our benefit and then i realized that this doesn't only apply to the events of our lives but to the people in our lives as well but seeing all the people in our lives as good people everyone we interact with is a good person judging them with the benefit of the doubt well i can speak for myself that can be much more difficult than judging the difficult events in our lives as good and i think the reason is that we look at people and we say well they have free will they have agency they decided to do or say this evil thing so they're evil but an external event well that's from god i can wrap my mind around that well i remember one of my rabbis his name is rabbi mordechai machlis and he is a very special brand of sadiq i could spend the whole fellowship just talking about him but i want to share a story that left an imprint on my 18 year old mind we were walking from his house to the western wall for the prayers on shabbat and all of a sudden a whole group of cars drove by now keep in mind this was on shabbat when one is not supposed to drive and rav machla screamed out marveltov and i turned to him and said why are you screaming muzzled over these cars that are clearly violating shabbat and he said these people must be driving to the hospital on the way to give birth so we should wish them a mazel tov because as you may know you're not only permitted to violate the sabbath to save a life but you're commanded to do so and i remember thinking to myself that he must be fooling himself maybe one car is on the way to the hospital but all of them no way not a chance and the more i got to know rav machlis and the more i experienced humanity and the world as a whole i realized that rav marcus was teaching us a way of thinking and this has stayed with me and grown and grown throughout the years rav machas experiences the world through a prism of i don't know of recognizing that he doesn't see the whole picture that we simply can't possibly know why people do what they do but if we did know if we truly knew the whole story if we truly knew the pains and traumas of their journey if we understood what they've learned and what they haven't then we would see that they are indeed at their very essence they're good but because we aren't omniscient because we aren't god it helps to make up an excuse for them to hold on to and and for the time being for our purposes this excuse will stand in place of the real reason that if we knew we could judge them with love and compassion the sacrifice that the torah prescribes in this week's partial fruit sarat is that when the cohen the priest diagnoses the person as having sarah they're cast out of the camp for seven days and rabbi sachs points out that this is indeed a punishment which fits the crime of lashon hara it's attribute for attribute because by spreading a harsh judgment about someone by infecting others with our negative perspectives of that person we're dividing up the community we're turning the camp against each other and therefore in turn we ourselves must be cast out from the camp to consider and reflect on the sin of gossip or slander that we've committed and then after seven days the kohen examines the tsarat and if he deems that the person is healed then chapter 14 verses four through seven chapter four fourteen verse four then shall the priest command to take for him who is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean and cedarwood and scarlet and hyssop and the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen utensil over running water as for the living bird he shall take it and the cedarwood and the scarlet and the hyssop and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water and he shall sprinkle upon him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times and shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird loose free the living bird in the open field now here's the question out of all the animals to sacrifice to cleanse oneself of speaking lashon hara why birds well rashi explains that sarat comes from lashon hara an act of chattering birds are needed for the purification because birds are always chattering and whistling so they remind us rashi says of our unnecessary and destructive chattering but then yeshua of bells asks a deeper question that he himself answers he asks why are two birds needed for this atonement now open your hearts my friends ravioshow of bells explains that just as one is punished for speaking lashon hara so is one punished for the good words that came to his mind that he could have said but he refrained he explains that one bird atones for lashon hara and the other bird atones for the kind and loving words he could have said but that he refrained from saying he explains that the fact that the bird that is slaughtered and thereby silenced it alludes to the atonement that he needs for speaking that that you know as they say silence can be a virtue it's better than slander and gossip but the other bird the one that's dipped into the water blood mixture and then used to sprinkle on the mitsura well that bird is set free to continue chirping and singing to remind us that we should continue to speak the many kind and empowering and loving and compassionate words that we have to say about our fellow man but in order to say good things about people we need to think good things about people and in order to think good things about people we need to judge them favorably in our hearts and in our minds because friends it's easy for us here in the fellowship to love each other for me loving all of you requires no effort you're all a revealed blessing in my life but loving people who have caused us pain seeing the good in people who have been a source of darkness in our lives well that is a lifetime of work but it's worth every moment of effort that we invest in it because as we all know the beta mikdash was destroyed due to sinat khinam baseless hatred and therefore the temple will be rebuilt and hashem's presence will return to the world due to ahavatrinam baseless love hashem please give us the eyes to judge our fellow human being favorably to give them the benefit of the doubt allow us to love them and to be charitable with our judgments of them and therefore hashem please be generous in your judgments of us because we all know that we fall short in our deeds and we stray in our actions allow us to be generous and compassionate in seeing the deepest goodness in the motivation of others and through this goodness and love bring mashiach and rebuild the temple so your goodness the ultimate goodness and your love the ultimate love will fill the earth flood throughout the entire world and may this love bring all of mankind to know you and to love you and therefore to love each other and cherish each other so that we will finally beat our swords into plowshares and never learn war again amane may hashem bless you all my friends and protect you stay in touch stay connected i love hearing from you 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.thelandvisual.com backslash fellowship or click on the link below to join thank you