A Hybrid Nation - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and that's the mission of israel on a national level that um you know we are to be that testimony in the eyes of the world our very existence is to be that testimony in the eyes of the world which is why smack in the middle of the narrative of the ten plagues of the destruction of egypt and the redemption of of the nation of israel we find this really strange verse in a really strange place so here's the verse exodus chapter 12 verse 1 and 2. god spoke to moses and aaron in the land of egypt saying this month shall be for you the beginning of the months it shall be for you the first months of the year right so think about it in the middle of the most dynamic and suspen suspenseful story of revelation and redemption in world history actually not in the middle more towards the climax of it really god interjects a directive about our calendar right why what is that all about now please hashem help me here this day has been so crazy and i really tried to weave this together in a coherent way i really hope it makes sense but i'm trying now you can you know you can tell a lot of a lot of things about a person and really a nation by their calendar the days that they celebrate and the cycles that they mark for example i don't know if you know this but the stalin-led soviet government sought to integrate their atheism into every facet of society to reimagine right the way things could be did that sound uh familiar to you reimagining everything reimagining everything they they tackled the calendar too to infuse their atheism in the calendar so the solo calendar made sense to them the division of the months within the calendar that made sense but they felt like the the week being seven days was arbitrary and had religious origins and by the way it also left their machines sitting idle and decreasing productivity so they made a five-day work week and everybody was assigned different colors that they took their day off and so it separated families from each other and it wreaked havoc on the country and it lasted 11 years but it was a dismal failure it's quite a story actually but it fell apart and men just couldn't function without a basic seven day work week or seven day week like that hashem laid out in bereshit in genesis but anyways we learned that this month that the jewish people find themselves in during the final plague was the month of nisan and as the verse we just quoted this will be the head of the months right at least it will be the head of the months for the jewish people right are you with me the rebbe explains the difficulty here beautifully we know that the beginning of the year is when right what's the beginning of the year the head of the year literally the translation of those words rosh hashanah the first of tishrei that's when the year became 57-82 the year that we're in now so we know that t-shirt tray is rosh hashanah the head of the year so why in chapter 23 of leviticus does it say speak to the children of israel saying in the 7th month on the 1st of the month it shall be a sabbath for you a remembrance of israel through the shofar blast a holy occasion right so according to that year to the nissan redemptive calendar from our torah portion it says that tishrei which we know the first month is actually the seventh month so what is it is it teacher is it nissan so the rebbe explains that both of these days the first of tishrei and the first of nisan are both called heads right but t-shire is called the head of the year and nissan is called the head of the months and so to the jewish people we actually have two simultaneous heads right tishrei which is the head of the year where we mark the creation of the universe the creation of the material world and the creation of all of mankind the creation of nature that is rosh hashanah that is when we join the rest of humanity right in asking that hashem inscribe us and all of mankind into the book of life so where tishrei is marking the beginning for all of humanity of rosh hashanah nissan is very particular to the jewish people right it's the beginning of jewish time when we became a nation with a mission with a mission that's just tied unbelievably with the very name and essence of hashem himself the rebbe explains that we're like well in my words i guess like we're dual citizens right we share our basic common humanity with all of mankind and we mark the natural world and the laws of nature on rosh hashanah and tishrei but we're also citizens of our own unique history of our own story right a history that rises above the natural world a history which is governed by miracles where our very existence in the world today is a miracle and that is nisan that is our own special particular rosh hashanah passover is i guess you could say passover is the rosh hashanah for the jewish people and that by the way is why hashem revealed himself to us at mount sinai as the god who took us out of egypt from the house of slavery we're standing at mount sinai why not introduce himself as the god who created heaven and earth the answer is because at sinai god was not just speaking to us merely as a people but he was relating to us as his people his supernatural people his supernatural nation that bears his supernatural name but nonetheless we are still first and foremost people we are people we're just human beings and so we have one foot in each world and we go by both calendars together simultaneously we don't only live in both worlds we don't just inhabit both dimensions our mission is to bring them together right to fuse them to transform the natural world by merging it with the holiness and the spirituality and the godliness that's our mission you know uh i don't know if rabbi jacobs did he teaches these teachings from the rebbe and he and he says that god created the jew he just beautifully puts it as a hybrid right as a hybrid of the nisha nissan and tishrei realities to not only mark both calendars but to fully live within them both uh to live in in the teacher and in the natural and in the supernatural and bridge these seemingly opposite worlds of the natural and the holy our mission is to bring the world to a place that's described by the prophet zechariah yes on that day hashem will be not one and his name will be one 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 dot the land of israel.com backslash fellowship or click on the link below to join thank you