3 Spiritual Practices to Create Happiness - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey Shalom everybody thank you tihila that was beautiful I'm in um the guest house in the farm you can see Ari's face kind of coming in and out there he is behind us there he is we're all together now today has been an absolute mad day can everyone hear me is the internet connection here I'm working kind of some thumbs up here yeah okay good excellent thank you so much Eric it's so nice to see you all the way in Colorado I miss you my friend thank you for that thumbs up and so um here's uh what's going on today we've had a a small Torah group from North Carolina a mega church with a hundred thousand members from Dallas Texas we right now have 44 Jewish Mothers from America that are here and I think the idea there is brilliant it's like you strengthen the mothers you strengthen the entire home and it's just been a packed day of intense teaching and touring on the our good Farm I just got here and this is the month of happiness that's what the month of Adar is that's what tihil is talking about and that's what I want to share with you today and I just got this message from one of our fellowship members um Aaron and here's what she wrote To Me good day Jeremy I hope this message finds you well I wanted to send you a follow-up to the prayer request I sent at the beginning of the fellowship I asked you to pray for a husband guess what my husband and I met just about 10 weeks ago and we just got married I wanted you all to sell celebrate in the joy of this answered prayer request he is literally everything I asked Hashem for and so I don't know that just made my Adar happy just really really fun really really awesome and I just want to share like a spirit with you because it's hard to like what does that mean that Adar is a happy money because their spiritual powers that are encoded almost like spiritual potentials auspicious times for certain energies in the world elul is a time for Renewal and self-reflection and kind of getting ready for the new year and Passover is a time of freedom to free ourselves from all of our slaveries Adar is a time of happiness I just want to show you this video that I just got sent from um a Yeshiva to see these young Jewish men Growing Up watch the energy here and see if you can find any other young Jewish men or young men at all anywhere in the world that exude this type of holy masculine happy energy look at this video here I said foreign that's sort of the energy that's just in the air here but it's not enough to just be in the air avoda it's like a it's a service of God it is we have to work on it because there's so many reasons to not be happy there's reasons that we can be concerned we can be nervous we can be upset we can be anxious we can be just you know there's like we can always choose what to think about and we don't always necessarily want to choose about the things that make us happy but Adar is saying Marvin the Simpson were actually told this is the time to crank out the happiness to bring it out within us and one of the things that makes me happiest is just looking at Israel so someone sent me this beautiful picture of Israel about a hundred some odd years ago in Israel today that on the left there at 1909 those people standing on the sand dunes that's Tel Aviv in 1909. and that one right there that's Tel Aviv in 2020. like look at what is happening in the sand dunes of Israel it's just very often you know there's a saying in Psalms um God is good for his love endures forever [Music] now his love endures forever forever isn't necessarily the right word there little love means in eternity so sometimes you need like a little bit of an eternal view to really experience God's love you need the bird's eye view to see the trajectory about where we're going and to see those 20 Jews sitting on the sand dunes in Israel trying to figure out how they're going to build the First new city in the land of Israel and then to see what Israel has built over the last 100 years to me that just makes me happy but that's not it I want to now take it to another level this was a Torah actually that Ari taught me and I think about it all the time uh I've actually it's a little chapter in my book I think it's so important but if you open up the Psalm 100 . look at what it says it says a Psalm of thanks cheer to Hashem all of the Earth keep that up on the screen for just a moment serve Hashem with happiness I always thought that that meant listen there's a lot of ways to serve God take care of the Orphan take care of the Widow feed the poor help those that need help celebrate Shabbat eat kosher food and when you are serving God serve a ship with happiness I thought that's what it's saying and I think that that is a legitimate way of reading that but King David says something so much deeper it's saying sir Hashem how how do we serve God it's like serve Hashem with happiness that is a service God wants us to be happy that is the service it's not the outcome and it's not just a branch the service of God is like if you are living an inspired happy meaningful life and you're filled with happiness that is the service of God God created the world to bestow his good and we see that we're happy that is the service that's all he wants and so I want to make this really practical and I want to give over three methods that I've been learning about in a beautiful book about how to engender happiness according to the ancient Jewish spiritual practices there's three that are really powerful you can do all three of them you can choose to do one of them but as we enter into Adar for Purim this is the service the service is the happiness so how do we like generate that what can we do to actually bring that into our lives so there are three spiritual practices that the a muscle movement kind of gave over and the monster movement was kind of established maybe kind of gave birth in the 1800s and it was a beautiful kind of squashed really by the Nazis and it almost kind of disappeared and forgotten about but it was a beautiful kind of Bud that came out of Europe saying you know the Torah is really trying to mold Us in to the people we were meant to be and so how do we really focus on that side of our service of God and I said these three practices are amazing tools if you want to engender them so let's work on it with happiness can we get them up on the screen please so the first of practice is called heat boninut heat bone and nude I translated it as meditation but really the word is laid bonan is to look and what they're saying there is take one verse from the Bible one verse from the sages of Israel one verse that something meaningful in your life and look at it think about it chant it sing it you know sometimes my little kids they say Abba you know your music isn't so modern it doesn't have enough words your music is usually just like two or three verses from the Bible that repeat each other and I'm like well I'm not really because singing popular music I'm I'm singing Jewish music I'm teaching people he'd own a nude I'm teaching them how to take one verse of prayer and to really sing it over and over again as you think about it and you look at it and you study that verse and if you're focusing on happiness choose the ones that bring joy to your life think about the things that you're grateful for you know sometimes I walk outside in the mountains here and I just say the words thank you over and over and over again in English by the way not in Hebrew say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for my wife thank you for my life thank you for my children thank you for my form thank you for my fellowship thank you for my friends thank you thank you thank you just over and it's so natural it's so natural to say thank you and I it inspires me then it's just so obviously wired that we were created to give thanks and who is this you that I'm so naturally saying thank you to it's just so natural to live in a state of gratitude and then what did Psalm 100 say a Psalm of thanks and then serve Hashem of Joy so heat the bone and Newt meditation on verses of gratitude that's going to bring out join because we can think about the things that we don't have or we can really focus on the Gratitude on the things that we do the next one can we get the screen back up please the next one is called heat bodh dude and heat buddy literally comes from the Hebrew word the dead which means alone and what that's saying is you need to have time alone you need to have time away from your house you need to have time away from your children you need to have time away from your husband away from your wife away from the TV away from your phone away from people away from distractions find a place that you can be alone maybe you can even do it in the car maybe you can do it in a forest behind your house or a field or on a trail around a lake or for us in the mountains it's kind of easy I just like walk outside because and just like walk out a little bit into the mountains I'm already all alone but being alone is so important because the thoughts that are inside instead of constantly having stimulus that you are listening to what the media is telling you pinging on your phones notifications on your phones apparently the stuff that's on the inside is able to come to thought the stuff that's inside you is able to come to like the Forefront of your Consciousness and in those places when you're alone that's when you can practice the heat upon a new practice that's how all of my music album came from me just being alone with my guitar in the mountains and The Melodies came just more gratitude and more gratefulness and that is the second arguably the most important spiritual practice every Prophet every single one they were alone when they were receiving their live they're just in their own thoughts in their own minds connecting to God in their own way and the world is so distracting now the world has never been more distracting 100 years ago compared to where we are today it's like we are literally aliens to compare to the people like our great grandparents they don't where they can't even imagine the amount of things that are throwing at us every day Billboards and signs and magazines and phones and TVs and computers alone detach alone seclusion he devoted to the third practice can we get it up on the screen please the third practice is called is it up here I don't see it there we go Soul surgeon but this particular is in journaling actually taking a journal taking your thoughts and then bringing it into words journaling the things that you're grateful for now I told you that I try to practice this every day seven things that I'm grateful for with tequila I don't always able to do its 70s because I have ADHD and I'm always doing other things but I've never lost a goal of every day thanking tequila for seven things that she does and it just the days that I do that are days that I remember oh those are the best days they only generate happiness in me I become happier with her because I'm noticing the wonderful things that she's doing for me that she didn't have to do I'm just grateful for and then it makes her happy because she's hearing that I'm being grateful and I'm recognizing and seeing the things that she's doing that may have just been taken for granted or may have just been ignored and so actually writing down writing down the things that we're grateful for are the things that is like the engine to trigger our happiness and so this is the time of year to take the thoughts to take the ideas but then the sages of Israel the wisdom is so beautiful this is the month to like crank out the joy same dance to be happy and so I want to bless everyone in the fellowship that they take those three practices at least one in this month and then be blessed with happiness be blessed with Torah be blessed with Adar as we celebrate the last in the Bible it's the last Redemption may that be a sign that we come to the last in our times amen