FREE Workshop for Elul: The Art of Realignment - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

if you want to harness the power of this time and really make this time more meaningful this is a highlight from a workshop we did at the land of israel fellowship i hope you enjoyed it to return to repent um i like the language of to realign ourselves so i really want to get straight on that what does it mean to really try to work on teshuva in this year to realign ourselves and i think that the best way to explain that is to really understand the hebrew word for zion and you know the jewish people have prayed towards zion forever 2 000 years but what does the word sion actually mean so first zeon means jerusalem in the bible that's what it's talking about erzie on the city of zion but sion also means just the word itself means like the mark on a target that if you're aiming at something you want to see you want a like a bullseye on a target that's what sione is but then also ceon is also a grade meaning like a grade on a test did you get an 80 you got a 90 you got a 90 an a plus a b minus so imagine what that's teaching us right now it's like you have where you are now and you have where you could be in your life you have who you are now and who you could be that's the path and who you could be and where you could be that's your sion that's what you're praying toward that's though that's like walking on that route you're literally walking in the light of zion and now always throughout the year you know you're going to get off track you're going to like veer to the right you're going to veer to the left in america ah i wasn't eating right i wasn't sleeping right i didn't have time to learn properly you know it's okay it's hell now now it's time to realign to return to that path when you're walking on that route of where you are now and where you're destined to be um you start taking steps in revealing the potential that god created when he created you you know you start to touch on your own destiny and on that path when you're on that path seeking out god trying to be better trying to spread light trying to bring light into your life that's when spice carts arrive that's when hidden blessings manifest um you know most people call the torah the law people keeping the law but in hebrew when you're living by the law when you're living by the torah you say you're guarding literally means to walk not law so the hebrew way of saying i'm keeping the torah is you're living by the torah you're on the walk you are on the path and if you veer from the path you can always do tuva that's exactly what that's what it means to return to realign it's like you have a path that is your destiny to where you are meant to be in the world and if you veer from the path you can always just realign with god's light again that's why teshuva means to return you want to return to the walk you want to return to your god-given path you were created to flourish and when you start living with the process of teshuva your soul begins to flourish and grow you start to experience like a deep joy a sincere happiness that can't be experienced in any other way and on one hand in elul we have this idea of carving out our new commitments our new commandments our new set of ten commandments and it's like okay well i want to set up a new zeon for this year i want to set up a new zion in my own life and at the same time before creation this is when hashem was dreaming what he wanted from creation before creation itself anyway it was at this time that tequila and i had that magical moment where we both somehow realized that our dreams were to move to the farm and god was dreaming with us and this is the time to really get our dreams clarified now this isn't the time to dream but what i want to do now is to give a workshop homework for this upcoming month and this is really work you can do all the way up until the new year really all the way up until rosh hashanah yom kippur maybe even like this is all like one long process and this is the time in elul to dream to imagine what the ultimate good is in your life and so what i have is i have these essential ingredients of life now each person is going to have their own soon everyone has different things that they need to work on and the essentials that i have here i go over these every day it's on the second page of my journal and i have these ingredients to say like how am i doing on that aspect of my life what's going on here i set up this goal here i really wanted it to be this way and the workshop is first to write down these essentials in life and then what's calling you in those essentials to really build up this year because a new year's resolution isn't just a okay i'm gonna do this this year it's a commitment to fully realign yourself to try to manifest who you can be in the world and so i'm gonna give the list now of the essentials of life and i i mean everyone may have their own essentials but as far as i can tell these are essentials that really are relevant for everyone and so i'll start off with the first two that are physical the first chief rabbi of israel literally like an ezra of the prophets of our generation he was a kohen he was the spiritual leadership amongst very secular people at that time a luminaire just you know a man that envisioned the holocaust a man that envisioned the establishment of the state of israel before the holocaust or the state of israel i want us to call him other than a prophet in our in in our in our century but um he says that teshuva begins first with the body you cannot do teshuva if your body is all out of whack if you're not feeling good if you're sick if you're not if you're all out of sorts just first get your body in place so the first two essentials of life are exercise and your diet how are those going think about that dream about that who you could be and some people they need to have the right app and they want to have the right personal trainer and they want to have the right systems in place so they know really just some people just need someone to be like run move your body just go just go don't plan it just do it and oh we met a couple in the fellowship that started waking up early in the morning and they go on walks together now and as they're listening they're listening to to bible teachings i think actually just the bible being read and that's such a high level because you're getting so much done at the same time but just move your body get it going walk jog elliptical get your body strong in your diet just try to eat clean food obviously it should be biblically clean should be kosher obviously but on the other hand it should also be like stay away from stuff if you can't pronounce it on the labels that's probably better to stay away from just living food normal food the way that the profits ate the way that our ancestors ate eat healthy good food exercise and diet those are two basics that really need to be strong and especially in this time i mean people are getting sick there's vaccines and not vaccines i'm not even talking about that either way the stronger and healthier your body is the cleaner your body is now the better it will be for you absolutely so this is really a time to get hold of that so exercise and diet those are the first two essentials then what are you reading what are you listening to those are two almost the same thing because the information is going in so to listen to good things to read good things what what are you studying now what torah are you learning now what's helping you in your life now what do you want to stop what's the book you want to start going into this new year with a torah book in a life book to help make your life better more enriched more knowledge smarter better how do we get that what are we reading what are we learning that's second third excuse me fourth your prayers time in meditation in silence how's that going in life are you spending time in prayer and silence that's so important now the next your marriage your intimate relationships that's the core if you don't have shalom in your home oi it's hard to have almost anything else what about your children dedicating time to them you're building your family strong your marriage your children that's your arc build your base strong what do you want that to look like envision what you want this year to be with your family where you want to be with them what you want to do with them what you want to learn with them what you want to experience with them together dream about it think about it then you have your original family maybe your parents are still alive maybe you have siblings you've lost touch with what's get in touch with your original family that you grew up with so important those are our those are our souls that god interconnected into us from the day we were born the loved ones around you your community your friends our fellowship the next that's like an another circle what do you want to be with your friends your fellowship the people that are around you are you journaling in life are you keeping a journal that's so important are you setting time for reflection for planning for nephesh for thinking about your life planning your life making sure that you're on the right path that you're doing teshuva setting out time in the week a special time just for nephesh for soul reflection for soul accounting eretz israel for spending time in nature especially if you live in the city if you live in the suburbs be out in the garden work in the land spend time in nature that's where god is you know it's like the city is one step removed it's like man created cities god created nature closer to nature closer to god what are you creating in the world everyone has gifts hobbies that they're having maybe it's music maybe it's writing maybe it's painting maybe it's endless hobbies fix it things doing things gardening what is that what is your dream for this year what are you expressing in the world what are you creating in the world write that down think about that your home are you moving to a new home are you moving out to a place closer to nature are you staying where you are this year what do you want your home to look like what is actually your actual physical surroundings jordan peterson has such a beautiful rule he says make one room in your house really really beautiful just one so think about how do you want to make your home more godly more welcoming to guests more beautiful than when people come they get inspired what is how are you building your home and then the last thing which is essential for me is my mornings what are my mornings what do they look like am i waking up on time because if you wake up on time you can do exercise learning prayer journaling you can get off so many of those critical things that make life so rich if you wake up early and so the process of this elu is to go through that essential list and i'll send this essential list out to the email in case you didn't have time to write them all down and then the ones that are calling to you spend time and literally dream about them and there's two ways i think that are the best way to dream because just to sit in to dream i can't do that so sometimes on a walk sometimes while listening to music sometimes while doing something else even driving while your mind is started like doing something else all of a sudden ideas kind of come down but set an intention you know like i really want to think about my home i really want to think about my marriage what do i want to accomplish with my marriage this year you know we talked about manifesting the best versions of ourself that's a rule in marriage that's a rule with children what do i want out of my marriage i want to help my wife manifest the best version of herself i want my children to become the best versions of themselves how do i help them how do i bring more light into their lives and so each one of those essentials each one of those has an address and so some people will be one some people will be another some people will be multiple but this is the time of the year that is auspicious for dreaming because god is quite literally dreaming with you as you're carving out your way god is inscribing them on the tablets with you that's what elul is that is the power of elul and this is the most auspicious time to dream up your new year as we approach it that is the ultimate chuva i hope you enjoyed that workshop at the land of israel fellowship the essential ingredients for life are written in the description below and if you enjoyed that session please share with your friends and family for the new year shanato valmikovsky [Music]