A Deal with Death: Are We Trading Lives for Lies? - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hi everybody so um you know we're going through a hard time here in Israel it's not a simple time it's a little bit hard to breathe on the one hand every sister and brother that comes home is a miracle it's a relief it's it's it's you know oh my God but but nearly 2,000 cold-blooded killers are about to be put on the streets you know our dear friends are getting phone calls at their husbands Killers their son's Killers their mother's killers are being let out you know my children looked at me this morning and I had no way to promise them that they were even the tiniest bit safer than they were on October 6th on the contrary it feels that they're actually less safe we woke up to see Israeli flags being folded and soldiers leaving vipers nests of of of Gaza to to the cheers and the jeers of terrorists and knowing that this is just going to bring more death it's just so hard to understand everyone is looking at each other like what is is this real is this happening wasn't the sacrifice of hundreds of our best boys so that we could defeat Kamas not surrender it's hard to find encouragement on a day like this but what choice do we have what choice do we have that but to to to try to look to the Torah to find uh to find a something to be you know something to be a a source of strength for our faith and Hashem for our amuna so you know leading up to this uh current deal a lot of people were pointing out and uh circulating in uh the verses uh famous verses from yesaya from Isaiah 28 now I rarely use the king uh King James translation because it's not a Jewish translation but I actually think here that it's the closest to the Hebrew I was very frustrated when I was reading the the uh some of the translations so I'm going to read this uh to you in verse 14 it says wherefore hear the word of the Lord ye scornful men that rule the people which is in Jerusalem so there's like a cry to the leaders that are just not people of faith in Jerusalem and it says in verse 15 because you have said we made a deal a we made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement when the overflowing Scourge shall pass through it shall not come onto us for we have made lies our refuge and under falsehood have we hidden ourselves so yesah the prophet gives a warning of what is to come he said there are it says an Latson in Hebrew it say those are literally like clowns we have clowns as leaders in Jerusalem and they're going to actually think they can make a treaty with death itself and make a contract with hell could there be anything more closely describing what is happening to us now where our leaders are making a deal with death itself an agreement with hell we are making an agreement with people that could there be any better way to describe them as just are there people in the history of the world that have more glorified and idealized death not only of others but of themselves I mean we don't know what was threatened Behind Closed Doors by our Ally or what pressures were being placed but whatever they were our leaders somehow believe that if they just make this deal with death itself they're going to somehow be able to avoid whatever flood that was threatening them whatever destruction that is to come but of course it's just simply doomed to fail it says in verse 18 and your Covenant with Death Shall be disannulled your agreement with hell shall not stand when the overflowing Scourge shall pass through ye shall be trotten down by it like this agreement will not possibly hold and the people who thought that they were going to take refuge in it they're going to be trotten down you think you're going to escape you're going to make a deal it doesn't work it's interesting to see the language here because the words themselves are of something overflowing washing over like water washing over something reminding us of the original name that Hamas themselves gave to this war the al- AXA flood because the prophet here is describing that there will be a flood and it's going to wash over us from Zion but it's also going to be a sifting process against those who really believe that they could put their faith in some kind of Covenant that they would make with death and then the chapter goes on and finishes by telling us that just like the farmer works with great precision to extract the good from the bad Hashem is always acting in ways that are mysterious to us we just are not going to be able to understand the precise work and the process that Hashem is doing to us now that just seems like such a message for our time and what's kind of crazy is that this was actually almost our ha Torah over this very Shabbat now we know that every week we read a prophecy from the books of the prophets and these these you know select were set down in the tradition hundreds and even thousands of years ago to pertain to that week so this week ashkanazi Jews actually read Isaiah 27 and the first half of Isaiah 28 and our verse is uh in verse um our vers is in verse 14 about the the Covenant with death now wouldn't it be cool if I can come and tell you look how Hashem planned everything out for us right here in the right time but actually we read precisely up until verse 13 we stop exactly this week right before the verse talking about making a covenant the warning against making a covenant with death which of course means that you want to read it and because it's right up to where you read right right after where you read and so the page is right there so that very verse that seems so relevant to our week essentially was chopped out of this week's prophecy it seems it seems like it happened right in the middle of the sentence now maybe you could say well you know they ran out of time they wanted didn't want the ha Torah to be too long people want to go home for their afternoon nap but they didn't just chop out the verses that seem so powerful to us in this very week they actually replaced them with different verses the half Torah skips loudly noticeably over verses that are in the middle of Isaiah's speech and jumps to the end of the next chapter to chapter 29 and says therefore so said the Lord to the house of Jacob who redeemed Abraham now Jacob shall not be ashamed now his face shall not be pale so the prophet jumps sorry the the part that we read from the prophecies jumps to the Future jumps ahead and says you might be feeling all of this shame and feel so pale but Hashem is going to take that away and now listen to this verse for when he meaning Jacob sees his children the work of my hands in his midst midst who shall H uh hallow my name and they shall hallow the Holy One of Jacob the god of Israel they shall rever meaning we're told that there will be a time that we feel so much shame we feel pale we feel stricken and that's definitely how I feel and then we're going to see children the handiwork of Hashem return to our midst there'll be some kind of sanctification of Hashem that comes through we don't know how and we don't know how this is going to come about we don't know how this makes sense but somehow this is going to be seeing hashem's children return into our midst is somehow going to awaken us to have a sanctification of hashem's name to have a recognition of Hashem so the the Torah is doing something really fascinating to us psychologically it's calling us to do what I think we need to actually be doing emotionally at a time like this because we're drawn to Despair and shame and the Torah says and and the haorah the tradition tells us okay skip over that part because you're already feeling the shame you don't need to about feeling the shame skip over that part and jump to the part that you're going to replace that emotion with faith with amuna to understand that Hashem is molding us and working on us we have to be able to hold those two emotions at the same time it's like the haor is drawing us to look and you see the warning you peek at the warning you're not completely blind to the warning you know you know it internally you don't even need to read it in the prophet that you can't make a deal with death but we have to fight our hardest not to allow that to be and at the same same time not to allow ourselves when we see that it's things that are happening that we don't understand not to allow ourselves to just fall into that pale despairing shame but to remember that just like the farmer is smashing the wheat and the wheat doesn't understand that it's being refined it just feels like it's being ground up and threshed and not understanding what's happening to it that's how we need to be by understanding that somehow look somehow the return of our children home will ultimately lead to a recognition of of hasem we have to hold those two emotions at the same time knowing that this is impossible something that will ultimately fail but also knowing that this is somehow part of hashem's plan a way to that Hashem has a plan to wipe away our shame through this very thing and I want to just remember the verse that Hashem holds up as an alternative to the contract with death because in verse 16 when Hashem says be careful of this contract with death Hashem also gives us an alternative he says therefore so has the Lord of God said before I have laid as a foundation a stone in Zion a foress stone a costly Cornerstone a foundation well founded that Believers shall not hasten meaning in this very costly painful way Hashem is laying down a Cornerstone and I will make Justice the line righteousness the plummet and hail shall sweep away the shelter of lies and water shall flood the hiding places meaning through this very very painful process Hashem is in a way that we can't see laying down the Cornerstone of something that will be Eternal something that will be maintained Hashem is planning his cornerstones and and the verse finishes by saying Believers shall not hasten meaning if you're if you're truly a believer in Hashem you'll understand that this process is going to take time somehow Hashem is building an edifice that will endure as in Zion based on Justice and righteousness somehow this process of the deal the deal with the devil essentially it won't be maintained but Hashem is building something for us now I want to just finish by saying for the mount in verse 21 the prophet concludes by saying for like the mountain of breaches shall the Lord arise The Valley in gibian like the valley in gibian he shall be incensed to perform his deed strange is his deed could there be anything more fitting and to perform his work strange is his work we are promised that hashem's way in this time is going to seem so strange that we're not going to be able to understand it and I was reminded of that verse when I was just talking to my friend mik who is actually filming me at this moment and he said you know if the deal was a bad deal but a reasonable deal like 33 hostages for 200 coldblooded Killers it would be horrible but we'd be like back and forth oh well maybe yes no in Israel right now even people on the other side of the political divide who were holding up signs just last week saying deal at all costs make a deal at all costs they're like well okay we didn't mean to deal that bad no one seems to even understand any logic in this it's so strange but it's so strange that when something is that strange it can really only be from Hashem because you literally cannot find any possible human logic in it and without logic what choice will we ultimately have but to turn to Hashem you know so many of us were so excited well now we have a friend in the leadership of America now everything will be okay yes maybe we haven't you know done shua maybe we haven't done all the right things but it's okay we don't need to because we have a friend in the white house we have a friend we could rely on him but every time the Jewish people think that they can rely on someone else that is when Hashem comes says no the only one you can rely on is me and so by you know we we have this deal that seems to be be you know being forced on us by you know tremendous pressure by the one who we were told is going to be the one who's going to make everything okay and we can just you know we can calm down now and now we have a friend no this is how hashem's name is Sanctified Hashem is saying you will be making this shameful deal but ultimately my name will be Sanctified how perhaps by us realizing through this same lesson that we get again and again that we only can rely on Hashem and indeed in our ha Torah you know we're taught that somehow Hashem in his strange ways will lead us will lead us to that lesson and that understanding so let's just Daven let's pray together that Hashem protect our hostages and lead us to really truly with all of our hearts see how this was ultimately a stone in the wall that will become a fortress of righteousness in youram in Jerusalem hopefully soon in our times bye guys hey this is Jeremy impel if you enjoyed that content then you will enjoy all the content on the landof Israel Network at www.the landof israel.com and you can join the landof Israel Fellowship check it out on the landof israel.com