Belief through Analysis vs. Belief Through Revelation - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and so today what I want to do is I want to talk about arguably the most impactful event in world history the national Revelation at Sinai it is the moment that shifted human history forever and if we learn it right it has the power to shift our lives forever and at least set us in the Direction Where We need to go to kind of build us up to be ready for when the time comes that we need to be ready and so let's just go back in time a little bit 3 000 plus years ago there's a people wandering through the desert desert nomadic people Israel surrounded in a pagan World an illiterate world where hieroglyphics they couldn't even write yet sacrificing their children Savages and then out of that world we were given a revelation an Enlightenment they were the Israel was like elevated above the barbaric world and given a new vision of reality a new vision of morality truth compassion goodness Justice the way to be in the world it's like where did that Revelation come from when I was in Manchester so I was asked to speak in the Jewish High School there on their Sunday school and so Sunday morning I went there and I spoke to the Jewish high school and I asked the kids there I'm like you know what in the last hundred years it's the best human Innovation that we've come up with and someone said oh it's the internet internet's unbelievable internet the biology and Medicine the advances there it's incredible smartphones video games artificial intelligence everyone had like their own ideas the Rockets space travel and with all this progress that humans have made in the last 100 years and it really is remarkable when you think about it no one has come close to the literature comparable to the Torah why did that happen I mean 3 000 years ago the world was illiterate sacrificing their children Savages in a Nomadic Desert people surrounded in that culture all of a sudden somehow like we're able to Channel A wisdom written that nothing comes close to what happened in the Sinai desert I mean people can take it for granted if they want to but if you're going to be honest something Supernatural happened there it was not the natural course of history something different happened to Israel in the desert a light was brought into the world and it absolutely shifted the course of human history as we know it brought human civilization to where we are today and that National Revelation is a blueprint for God's revelation in our own life and so that's what I want to talk about there's two ways to see belief um and there's like almost two schools of thought within Judaism and one of them by maimonides in particular says the best way to come to belief is through analysis look at the world study the world and in studying the Marvel of the world you are going to realize that there is a wisdom in this creation that couldn't be any other way it's like if you're walking in the desert and all you see is sand dunes sand dunes sand dunes for Miles all around you just nothing but sand dunes and all of a sudden you find a watch with cogs in its wheels and it's spinning and turning you assume that like that didn't just come out of the desert that someone had to have made that so so too how could it be that this world is so unbelievable that it's just was just a I just manifested out of nothing and the more you study it the more amazing it becomes I'm the analogy that the sages of Israel bring is like imagine someone spilled ink and then out of just so you pour a bottle of ink and it spills onto a paper and it exactly Falls not only into the letters but into the exact letters sentences paragraphs of Romeo and Juliet written by Shakespeare be like you want me to believe that that just splattered onto paper from pouring ink and it out came Romeo and Juliet that's really what if you think about the world and a peacock's feather and the killer whale and the DNA strand it's like that's just oh no there's a Divine wisdom the more and the more wondrous and the more amazing the more you study the human eye then the more amazing the world becomes and the more wisdom that you see and the way to reel come to Faith and love of God just study the world study science and you will fall in love with the creator of this amazing world there's a second thought and that is belief through Revelation and it's really two different tracks that'll bring you to the same place perhaps but it's a totally different it's not in your mind you're not studying anything you're experiencing something I mean you can study investigate research read books read poetry uh sing uh listen to country music about love you can study love all you want but then you can be in love and once you are in love there's no need to study it anymore you know what you know and you feel what you feel and you experience what you experience this Shabbat morning Noam who's my cutest of all of my boys he is just the cutest thing on the planet and Eden my bat mitzvah girl now went out to pasture with the Sheep Shabbat morning and after two weeks one week I was sick one week I was in Manchester finally the third week I haven't been out with the sheep in so long I take my children and we go out into the pasture in the mountains of Israel I know what love is because I am in love with my children Head Over Heels I just it's not up for a debate it's just what I know it's the truth of my life and that is it's an experience that I live with and that is how we're meant to come to Faith it's an encounter with God in our life living in a dynamic relationship it's not so much about what we think and what we analyze it's just the experience and the Sinai experience is the ultimate claim of belief through Revelation that's it how do we experience that Revelation in our own life to live a guided life that we see the orchestration and the Providence to live with that spirit that guides us in our life