Finding Your Inner Strength in the Face of Hamas (Psalm 11) Tehila Gimpel: Land of Israel Fellowship

hi everyone so today I want to return to Psalms I feel that for those of us who can't be physically taking part of the battles in Israel um the most we can do is to really be spiritual Warriors and Davin you know each wherever we are but being together in our intentions and in our prayers and the best place of course to look is in teim and the more we can understand the words and feel how they're speaking to our times in our own particular struggles I think the more cavana intention we can pour into these ancient words and my little uh 8-year-old Noah gave me some inspiration to focus back in on the Psalms because you know it's not easy to be a kid now like instead of playing soccer jump rope and recess our kids have drills for terrorist infiltrations God forbid that last week they learned how to lock themselves in a classroom from the inside and how to stay below the height of the window and our know he's just like this happy go-lucky guy and you know every once in a while he'll get this dark you know Darkness over his face and he'll say EMA can I light a candle and that's like his code that he's thinking of the victims and he needs a hug and every night after his bedtime story I peek in on him he's only eight I find him asleep with his light on and with his Psalms open in his hands because every night he falls asleep saying to H him for the hostages you know so young or old wherever you are in the world King David is the one who taught us how to pray so you know I feel like that's where we need to focus in on and so the last time I put out a video on toim uh on K 140 I got a lot of encouragement for my friends to stay with this so today I want to study Psalm 11 um I was drawn to 11 because it's the first time that we see the word Hamas in the Psalms in previous videos I've discussed the meaning of Kamas in Hebrew as this ultimate Evil and how our Biblical characters dealt with coming up against evil in the world similar to we to the way you know we are facing evil today but I was having trouble like getting up my motivation to delve into this until my birthday rolled along last week and I wasn't in a grand birthday mood as you can imagine but I got a m a message from aigal my sister-in-law who I hope you're following her amazing work during this war and she's my best friend my role model and she's know knows me you know better than anyone anyone else and she said I got you a present for your birthday and I'm thinking I'm not really in a birthday kind of mood and then I get a file onto my phone and I open it up and it's entitled thoughts on Psalm 11 now we hadn't spoken about this at all she had no idea I was even thinking about this Psalm but sometimes like what can you do it's like okay aam I hear you I will get on it so this is a collaborative work and also from a lot of you know I have a lot of thanks for my other dear friends who've been encouraging me to keep on going with these classes so as I'm starting to stud study this Psalm my first go-to book Is Kanan book on Psalms called living the Psalms and I open up to chapter 11 he says I want to share something personal and I practically fell off my chair he said in this in the disengagement of 2005 I was left alone last in the synagogue of n khim which was like the capital of the gush katif Jewish um you know settlements in Gaza and he goes and I was saying Psalm 11 meaning as the last Jew in Gaza before it was given over to the Arabs and facing the pain of that destruction and what he knew was going to be the inevitable outcome of that he found strength in Psalm 11 and I think that we'll see why so let's go to verse one in verse one it says to the conductor of David I took refuge in the Lord how do you say to my soul Wander from your Mountain you bird what does it mean when we start in you know a Psalm that says to the conductor technically it means that the psalm was read with an orchestra with a conductor in the temple and the word appears about you know 50 times maybe in the Psalms R cook points out something really fascinating he points out that the word l it means conductor in Hebrew but it doesn't only mean conductor it also means a winner somebody who's Victorious somebody who's triumphant he says you cannot really absorb the Transcendent songs unless you're able to be victorious in your inner battle in your soul against the dark thoughts that are smothering and crushing your spirit so a song that starts with the word L to the conductor was designed R cook says to help a person discover their true inner self their unique Spirit to open up their Spirit to really absorb you know the the the faith that's embedded in this Psalm so David starts out his Psalm by saying I took refuge in Hashem now what's interesting about this is that unlike most of the Psalms that are just like a prayer either praising Hashem or asking Hashem for something this is not a prayer and the way we usually think about it it's like David's inner struggle and conversation with with himself and essentially with us he's not asking Hashem for anything in particular it's just that he's like sharing his inner dialogue with us asking himself how do we exist with amuna with faith as people who want to find refuge in Hashem in the face of a difficult reality is there a way to straighten ourselves out even if we don't know how to straighten out the external reality to be the way we want it to be so David starts this verse with that kind of introduction and then presents his problem he says how do you say to my soul Wander from your Mountain o bird meaning the problem that he's sharing that he is facing is that everyone keeps telling get off the land get off your mountain right your problems will all be solved if you just give up this mountain this land now the sages tried to figure out at what particular point in David's life this is taking place in thei says that this um that this particular Psalm relates to chapter 23 in sh alif in first Samuel when David and his men go out of hiding from Saul he's hiding from King Saul because they hear that the Philistines are going to attack a small you know Jewish town of Kaila a city bordering near the Philistines now you can't make this stuff up because we know that the Philistines were really mainly in the area that today is the Gaza Strip and so in order to protect this Border City that's about to be infiltrated by Philistines David takes his men out to go and save them and then their response is so ungrateful because then they after he saves them they essentially give him over to Saul and that's what this this Psalm is talking about now it's such a painful thing to imagine because David is essentially protecting people from horrible enemies and then they turn him over and he has to run away and become a fugitive again and now imagine reading this when you're Hanan parat as the last person practically in katif in the settlements in Gaza that were there to protect the cities around the Gaza Strip by creating a Jewish presence that wouldn't allow Terror organizations to take hold now imagine the self-sacrifice of people who went to live in this most dangerous area in order to protect Israel and then were treated so horribly and thrown out of their homes and turned into fugitives vilified so wrongly as if they were the ones endangering peace but turned out to be the only ones who actually identified the real danger of these terrorists and now instead of saying oh you know we told you so those are the same people that are running forward the most courageously and giving their lives to save people once again and the world and even people in Israel still talk about turning these very Heroes who live in Judea and Samaria now you know from their homes and now what's interesting is that the Hebrew word here that he uses um you know that David uses to describe being told to leave his land is n it's in the singular like leave in the singular but it's also written in the Hebrew is nudu meaning in the in the in the plural it's like David is saying this happened to me in my personal life but this is going to happen again and again to all of us and he's comparing himself to a bird think why he's comparing himself to a bird like birds when it's cold they go south the winter and then by the time they settle there they're going north and that's so much like the Jewish experience because when we're in Exile people say oh why don't you guys have your own place get your own land why are you always trying to go into other people's countries you're strangers you don't belong here and then we finally have our place to be Jews in actual Judea and they say why are you here in Judea go back to Europe you colonizers go back to Brooklyn and you're like a bird it's constantly being shuffled off of wherever you are telling you that there's some other place that you're actually supposed to be and now the next verse David says for Behold The Wicked tread the bow they set their arrow on the bow string to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart and then in verse three he says for the foundations were destroyed what does the righteous man do now it's so you know it so speaks to how I'm experiencing this and I imagine that you are too it says they're shooting in the dark at the upright of heart and the foundations are destroyed there's this feeling that the foundations of the world just aren't making sense anymore that what is obvious good is being seen as bad and what is obviously bad is being seen as good we're living in a world where Iran is the head of the Human Rights Council in the UN and in a world where the president of Syria who just killed half a million of his own citizens is condemning Israel for not being Humane enough and Israel at the same time is l offering humanitarian Aid to evacuate babies from the people from the you know from the hospital that's a headquarters of Hamas that's holding our babies hostage like and dav's asking what can a righteous man do in a situation like that he says the arrows are being shot at the upright in the dark you know most of the battles in Gaza are taking place at night and every morning we wake up and we don't even want to open our phones to see the counts of our dead and it's so obvious that Hashem is taking the most upright of people sometimes the people that were reading about now that are giving their lives over to save Israel they don't even seem like real people at some point I'm like I'm a good person I try my best give some Seda you know I try to make people meals when they have babies try to be good and like maybe every once in a while I'll meet like a really awesome person like you know one in every hundred are like insanely unbelievable unreal people and literally every day it's like we're being told of soldiers that are falling and we're hearing about who they were and you say these are not normal people they're people of Mythic proportions yet like yesterday we heard that you know the terrible passing of yusi htz his son is a counselor in our children's youth group he's a 44-year-old educator a school principal so he's a Torah teacher an unbelievable military Warrior and also a gifted musician who would play violin for the sick people in the hospitals you're like are you kidding me are you King David incarnate like a a Torah scholar musician Warrior this is not a normal distribution of sacrifice it's like the terrorists are shooting in the dark but somehow their arrows hit the most upright of heart exactly as the verse says and then what's David's question in the face of that it's not really a philosophical question of just why do bad things happen to people you know uh why do good things happen to bad people excuse me but he's saying is there any point of being righteous what is the righteous to do you know when you feel so hopeless hopeless it's like what do you do that you want to be good and he says the Lord is in his holy Sanctuary his throne is in heaven his eyes see his pupils try the son of men vers verse four David tries to understand how can we exist in auna in faith in the face of this feeling that Hashem is you know in his Heavenly throne in the sky seems like he's so far away he David reminds us like he's seeing this he's watching everything that's going on but where does that go how does that Express itself look carefully at the verse you know we kind of hope that David's bottom line is going to be like oh you know don't worry everything's going to be great good stuff going to come for the good guys bad stuff to the bad guys but then we look at verse five and six and he's he's telling us something that's really just true he says the Lord tries the righteous Hashem tries the righteous but his soul hates the wicked and the ones who love violence right it says the word here for evil for violence is Hamas it says that Hashem loves the righteous excuse me Hashem tests the righteous but those who love Kamas God hates and then it says he shall reain upon the wicked charcoal fire Brimstone burn burning wind will be the portion of their cup so David isn't selling us a bill of goods here he says yes bad fire and brimstone are going to come onto the evil ones but it's not going to be an easy road for the righteous because the righteous are going to be tested Hashem tests the righteous Hashem sadik means don't be surprised that the hardest challenges are going to come to the most righteous people it's like it's built into the system it's not going to be easy for the righteous when Hamas rears its head when evil rears its head Hashem hates that wickedness and you know he hates the ones who love Kamas is going to rain fire on them there's not really any better way to describe what we're seeing now happening to humas and fire being hailed down on evil but the price that's being paid is just an unbelievably painful price for the very very most righteous people of Israel that are giving their lives and as I'm reading this I'm asking myself is David even comforting himself not really comforting me yet I'm haven't gotten to the part where I'm feeling a lot better cuz it sounds like there's not really much difference in the outcomes like the good people are going to go through really rough times and tests for the sake of righteousness and the bad people are going to go through really rough times with all this fire and brimstone but like what's the difference we're all going through hard times right I think the answer comes only in the last verse what does David say in verse 7 he says for the Lord is righteous he loves righteousness or doers of righteousness workers of righteousness whose faces approve the straight way that's how it appeared in the in the kabad translation but it's not actually what it says it says um you know it sayik Hashem Hashem is righteous he loves righteousness which I think means those who are upright will see hashem's face so it's like Hashem is saying that those who follow the straight path they choose righteousness they're not necessarily going to have an easy time but if they would have had an easy time they would have just chosen righteousness for the sake of the you know people just everyone would choose goodness for the sake of the rewards that come but here he says the reward is going to they'll see hashem's face what does that mean means you're going to have a relationship with Hashem you're going to actually have a love connection with Hashem if it was all clear in the world that good things happen to the good guys and bad things happen to the bad people there wouldn't be a love relationship it would just be self-interest just doing good for getting the prizes you know but but in a world where the reward is not apparent the outcome of being good is to actually be able to have an honest real relationship with Hashem to feel Hashem in your life to have uh to feel hashem's aah to feel hashem's love I think it's something that we're seeing so much now you know as well in the nature of things you would imagine that people would want to connect with Torah and with the mitote when things are going with the Commandments when things are going well for us like in the Book of Esther when the Jews finally win it says a lot of people wanted to become Jewish when the Jews were on top a lot of people are like yeah you know let's hop on that bandwagon but we're on the bottom that's the real test that's the real question and you know you didn't see a great wave of people saying yeah you know we want to join the Jews when hamon was about to kill us but among the Jews themselves that was actually their greatest chuva it was in those days when it was worse to be a Jew and when Esther was in the most danger that everyone was fasting and praying and connecting with Hashem they could have been using that time to run away to hide their Jewish identity but the true lovers ofm of Hashem come out of the woodwork specifically when things are actually the worst for us and I think it's fair to say at least in my lifetime I've never seen so many people coming back to Israel coming back back to Torah people wanting to we for the first time people wanting to doin for the first time and you say really now the time you would think that you would want to like be wanting to run away from being Jewish when things are so bad like now is the time that you want to be the most Jewish like in Israel now one of the most um famous writers and filmmakers Omar Barack he's a best-selling author so secular that he refused to even call himself Jewish he you know only would call himself Israeli he wrote the most moving post he said these days the only thing that comes to my mind are I am a Jew for the first time in my life I realized it doesn't matter how hard I try I cannot run away for the first time in my life I realized I don't want to run away I might not wear a keepa or go to synagogue but I'm going to search for God and I'm going to search for the identity that for so many years people tried to destroy and I mistakenly tried to destroy myself with my own hands for the first time I lit Shabbat candles with my kids I didn't even know how to say the blessing he wrote he goes so I said the blessing for the Kaneka candles because that's the only blessing I knew and I prayed and I prayed for the hostages and I prayed for the soldiers and I prayed for us and I was just a moving pose and there it's like a wave of stories like this of people waking up for the first time in the face of all of this suffering and wanting to connect to Hashem and connect to Torah when it's the least worth it on a seeming you know material physical level and that's really our secret power and that's what David is revealing to us in this in this Psalm while our enemies dream of you know a heaven that's filled with all of the Earthly Pleasures 72 virgins in heaven we're not driven by what's in it for us our deepest yearning in our soul what we dream of when everything else gets stripped away from us is feeling hashem's love and having a relationship with him and that is the secret power that awakens in these moments when Hashem tests us the hardest it awakens something in us that calls us back to the right path so may we Merit that even in these times we'll choose to feel hashem's love no matter how hard the tests that we endure you know along the way and perhaps from the Merit of those who are fighting and those those who have given their lives we can pray this Psalm together and find strength and courage from it wherever we are in the world now so with that I wish everybody a good week bye guys