Hi my name is Abba Hurvitz it's my first
time on this broadcast. I want to introduce myself, where I'm
from, who I am... and then also talk about my
relationship with Rav Yisrael Ariel the head of
the Temple Institute. But first let me talk about myself.
I actually was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. For those that don't know that's Canada.
And then I moved to Toronto where i grew up.
I then went to yeshiva in Israel in the 80s in the Gush Etzion
area, very different time then, that's for sure.
From there i went to New York where I attended Yeshiva University, which is in
Manhattan itself. And from Yeshiva University i actually
made my life in New York for a couple years where i met my wife who's from
Australia. And then about 20 years ago we actually
made aliyah to Israel, thank G-d, and we live in actually a
place called Hashmonaim which is sort of in the heart of Israel.
It's close to a place called Modi'in, named after the name of the
Maccabees from the time of Chanukah.
I'd like to also talk about how i met Rabbi Ariel.
It was about 2005 when the expulsion of Jews from Gush
Katif happened, and after that period of time I was very
distraught. I was in a very negative place, we'll call it. I wasn't
happy, and i was searching, like others,
and it was actually that Passover, that Pesach,
where a magazine called Basheva, which is a magazine distributed mainly to
Judea and Samaria and other areas of Israel,
where they interviewed Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, and the interview was fascinating.
It was something that blew my mind. It was all about bringing
the Passover sacrifice, the Korban Pesach on Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) in the area of the Temple.
Even today we have an obligation to
actually bring that sacrifice on Har HaBayit.
I read this article, and having spent my whole life learning Torah
I was just blown away and I said, "Wow I never knew any of this!"
I literally didn't know anything, and I said, "you know what, I have to meet this
rabbi!" Who is this rabbi, and it was actually
subsequent to that following Passover I was actually in the
north that Passover, in an area that was really beautiful... was
on a kibbutz. so it gave me a lot of time to think.
And I actually read that article at least three times.
It was a beautiful interview, so after Passover i went to meet the Rav.
Actually, the Rav ended up coming to my offices in Jerusalem
with another guy who's probably you know, Yehuda Glick,
who at the time was running, or helped running the
Temple Institute. The Rav came to my office
and showed me a Gemara, a tractate of the Talmud, called
masechet Yuma, which is all about the ceremony that had to be done
on Yom Kippur during the time of the Mikdash (Koly Temple).
Now of the eight chapters of this tractate seven of them describe
what the Kohen Gadol (the High Priest), did on those days,
on that day, and until now, until pretty much we came to Israel,
those tractates, those Gemaras had been relegated sort of to the side.
People didn't learn them much in yeshiva. In fact,
I didn't learn them and the reason was because they were all connected to the
Mikdash, to the Temple. But Rav Ariel
what he did was, he brought it alive. The massechet - the tractate -
actually had pictures so we could understand them. Explanations
that had not been there before. He put together everything necessary to really
get a feel of actualization of these...
of these ideas happening on the Temple Mount. It was incredible work. I was blown
away. I'd never seen anything like this in my life,
and I've been in the world of yeshiva my whole life, and i said to the rabbi, I've got
what do you need and I actually told the rabbi I'm willing to fund this.
And so that's where our relationship began and i've actually
merited to actually learn with the rabbi for the last 13 years every, Friday in
the old city, up until now, of course, because of corona.
I can't actually be near him. He's over 80 years old, and it's not
appropriate, unfortunately. But I look towards the day that I'll be
able to once again resume that learning with the rabbi, which is just so
powerful. So i got to know Rav Ariel. I became very involved in the Temple,
everything to do with the Temple, and of course, the Temple Mount.
I have been up many, many, many, many times. I've been beaten
going up to Temple Mount. I've been arrested going up to the Temple Mount,
and I'm proud. I actually look at that as something to be proud
about. I was i was actually arrested for
defending the honor of G-d, which I think is really an important
thing. I'd like to start off today, the first day that we open up, actually
to talk about G-d before we get into the actual Temple and
other aspects of the Temple, and I have many topics to talk about, and
many of the topics are things that you know i've heard from the rabbi
himself. Some great insights that he has shared with me. But we'll get
to that later. Right now I actually want to talk about
G-d Himself, and I actually want to quote a
tractate in the Yerushalmi Talmud. Okay, there are two Talmuds: There's the
Bavli, which is the Babylonian Talmud, and there's actually the Yerushalmi
Talmud, the Talmud from Eretz Yisrael, from Israel.
It's less popular, less learned, but also equally important,
and in many ways even more important than the Bavli Talmud.
So I'd like to quote something about G-d that really resonated with me, and I
think will resonate with everybody, actually.
And let me quote a few words from the actual
Babylonian Talmud, and I'll translate.
But it talks about that G-d, the uniqueness of our relationship with G-d
HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One, blessed be He,
and it says here that when you generally have a patron -
someone who is, you know, the one who supports you or takes care of you... looks
over you, the ruler, if it may be, and he says...
and you want to approach that patron, that's the word that's used here,
actually in the Talmud Yerushalmi, so you can't, you can't actually get
directly to the patron. You can't get to this person who's the
one taking care of the nation, but rather you have to go through steps.
You have to go through his servants, his officers, etc. You can never actually
talk directly to him. The message will eventually get there,
but you can't talk to him. However, the Jewish G-d - not just the
Jewish G-d, the G-d of everybody, He is different. G-d is different.
HaKadosh Barush Huis not like that - aino ken - He's not like that.
If something happens to you that's a tzarah - something terrible - happens in your
life, you need help... corona is a very good
example today. Right, a lot of people are going through rough,
rough times. It's not a good time for us and we're, we need to approach G-d. What
does G-d say? "Don't cry out to Michael, My angel
Michael. Don't cry out to Gavriel, My angel
Gavriel, but hu li ltzvach - you cry out to Me!"
G-d wants you directly to cry to Him. He's available!
And that's the beauty: G-d is always available.
And, in fact, he quotes a pasuk (verse) here from Yoel
From Joel, chapter 3 verse 5.
"Whoever calls out in the name of G-d will be saved."
So our relationship with G-d is very direct,
in fact, it's so direct it's almost like a friendship.
It's almost like a father - avinu malkenu - our Father, our King.
And there's another Yerushalmi, there's another piece over there in that
Talmud, in the tractate of Brachot (Blessings), chapter nine,
in the Yerushalmi, the first halacha, anyone can look this up, and over there
0t quotes Rav Pinchas, who was one of the great tana'im at the
time, and Rav Pinchas says that not only is G-d
available, but we can throw all our problems on G-d.
He's available even to listen to even the most minute of our problems.
And let me quote you... here he quotes another
pasuk, another verse from Tehillim (Psalms) perek noon hey which is chapter 55,
verse 23. I love the pasuk, and it's so powerful
and so meaningful, and it says הַשְׁלֵ֚ךְ עַל־יְהֹוָ֨ה | יְהָֽבְךָ֘ וְה֪וּא יְכַ֫לְכְּלֶ֥ךָ
which, in English means "throw on G-d your burdens,
He will sustain you.... " He will take care of you, HaShem... Notice, it
doesn't say give Him your problems, you can share with HaShem your problems... No,
it says "throw on G-d your problems, your burdens... "
Throw them on Him, literally, throw your problems and burdens on G-d.
That's pretty incredible. And He'll take care of you. He'll help you
resolve them, help you solve those problems. וְה֪וּא יְכַ֫לְכְּלֶ֥ךָ
And I think that was a very, very powerful idea and it talks to the idea
is that we have this direct relationship with G-d. We talk directly to G-d. We
don't need any intermediaries. We don't need anything. We just need to talk to
G-d directly. And, in fact, Rebbi Nachman of Breslov,
one of the great Hasidic rabbis, in fact he was a
grandson, I believe of the Baal Shem Tov, the first
rav who started the Hasidic movement. And he actually told people, always talk
to G-d. Talk to him in your own language. You
don't have to talk to them just in the Hebrew that you find in the Siddur
of davaning, or in Tehillim. Speak to G-d directly, because our relationship is
direct. And that and one of the things that's
also interesting inJudaism. Maimonides, who was one of the great rabbis of the
twelve hundreds in fact he was one of the great poskim who
rendered the laws of Judaism, and is one of the
most widely accepted rabbis. Even until this day everyone
learns Rambam (Maimonides). The Rambam and Hilchot Avelut - the Laws
of Mourning, in perek dalet, halacha dalet, meaning
the fourth chapter and the fourth halacha, he says something that
was really interesting. He said
a person shouldn't go and spend his time visiting the beir kevarot - visiting
cemeteries. There's often a thing that people do. We
see a lot of people go to daven, to pray at the gravesite of
many rabbis. And I'm not one here to judge. But what
I'm saying is that the Rambam over here is saying, don't do that.
And the reason the rabbi is saying don't do that is very simple: our
relationship with G-d is direct. We talk to G-d. We pray to G-d, speak to
G-d. And that allows me to have this segue:
In the Mikdash itself, the Mikdash, what did HaShem do? The
passage, the beautiful passage that every Har Habayit (Temple Mount) every temple person
quotes is,
"make for Me a Mikdash - a Temple and I will
allow My Shechinah to rest amongst you. I will allow
My spiritual holiness that is allowed to come to this planet, allowed
to come to this earth - that will rest within the Jewish people,
will rest on Har HaShem (the Mountain of G-d), and it's an incredible idea.
In other words all we have to do is build G-d a house
and He's going to come to us. So it's not that we even have to chase after G-d.
He's coming to us, and when we're on that mountain
HaShem says, come visit Me three times a year,
three of the chagim (festivals) of the Jewish holidays, Sukkot,
Pesach and Shavuot, HaShem wants us to come visit Him. He doesn't want us to come visit Him
through intermediaries, through other people, to go to our
kohanim... No! He wants us to come visit Him directly.
Speak to G-d directly. And it's interesting, for those that follow the Bible
the Tanach: Yonah had never been a navi (prophet) and then
Yonah, of the famous story of Yonah and the dag
(the fish), where he got swallowed up by a big fish... Yonah had never been a navi,
he had never been a prophet. But his experience on Har HaBayit,
his experience of the Simchat Beit HaShoeva during Sukkot when they celebrate the
the spirituality that is seeping through the place of the Mikdash,
they would celebrate every night of sukhoi it was called the
Simchat Beit HaShoeva, and during that experience Yonah hanavi -
Yonah the prophet - received the nivua, he received the
prophecy by being close to G-d we are almost infused with this
incredible spirituality of G-d, and so I think the takeaway that we want
to have from this is is to always feel that G-d is around us,
G-d is there to talk to, especially in these times. I think a lot of people
are looking for, you know, something. There are people losing their
jobs. There are people going through rough times.
And the idea is you always have to understand is G-d is there!
And let me quote a passage from Hallel, from Tehillim,
that I don't have written down here exactly where it is, but I'll tell
you it's in Hallel. It's the end of Psalms, the end of Tehillim, and it says
"HaShem li, lo ira. Ma ya'ase li adam - HaShem is for
me, I have no one to fear. What is man going
to do?" When you put G-d in your life, and you
connect with G-d, and you're you're making G-d a part of
you, you have nothing to fear.
And the only way to do that is to understand
you have to have a relationship with G-d, and that relationship only gets enhanced
when you go to Har HaBayit, when you're, when you're going to the Mikdash,
when you're going to elevate yourself by surrounding yourself with the
spirituality of G-d. And if I may just make a point here,
a side point: I've been up to the Temple Mount many, many many times.
With Rav Ariel, without Rav Ariel. With many people. I have brought many many people up to
Har HaBayit with me, and, you know, there's always sort of this
confluence of events going on. On the one hand you get very upset
because you understand that so many
people there are defiling the place of G-d, the
holiest place of G-d is being defiled. You see we're treated very poorly often
by the police of Israel, ironically, and it can be very
frustrating. And if you focus on that certainly it
will be very frustrating. But I think one of the great things that
I've been able to do is to turn my thoughts away from that
and really focus... where am I... and let me bring in that spirituality of
G-d into me when i'm walking around the Temple Mount.
Let me feel it. And we all can feel it because we all
have the Elokim inside of us, we have that spirit of G-d inside of us.
G-d created us,
actually blew into us this ruach, the spirit of G-d was blown into
us. So we have this ultimate connection with G-d and that's brought out
certainly when we go up to Har Habayit. I think i'll finish here today with
these thoughts: During this time let G-d be part of
your life, let G-d enter your life. Talk to G-d,
realize there's no boundaries. You talk to G-d...
"Ani ldodi vedodi li - with i am to my loved one and my loved
one is to me." That's in Shir HeShirim - the Song of Songs.
Our G-d is our loved one, and we are to Him
His beloved people. G-d loves every person,
every creation, and let that be part of your life today.
Thank you.