How Do You SEE The Blessing? - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

says in the Torah portion behold I have set before you the blessing of the curse behold sort of misses the Hebrew there because in Hebrew literally means look see with your eyes behold can sort of be like a general behold Israel no no it's saying look with your eyes Israel you can see it I've placed before you the blessing and curse and you're like what's he really saying there it's a confusing language hero Israel I get that listen understand what is he telling us to see and so the answer is that the book of Deuteronomy is actually um a recap of the last 40 years in the desert it's Moses's final speech and he's saying look in the last 40 years pay attention it's something that you don't need to believe in it's not some sort of theology or something you need to sort of I don't know have faith in look every single time you veered from the path there was blessing up curse every time you walked with God there was blessing you don't need to you don't need to look far you can see it with your own eyes the last 40 years has been that so listen you're about to go into the land of Israel You're about to continue on this journey but remember just hold on to this 40-year journey tight because it is the living testimony for you and your children when you go into the land of Israel and you know the the tour proportion continues and then it says I'm giving you no 10 is in the present tense so all the Hasidic Masters say you know Moses is telling every single generation right now that he is giving us that Vision right now so the Torah is saying don't just look at the 40 years in the desert look at every civilization that has come and gone in the last 3 000 years look when Empires lose the moral Foundation the whole structure comes down every society that loses the moral fabric when it starts to sort of unravel forget about it the whole thing comes apart and here's what it's saying look you can see it with your own eyes you don't need to believe in anything that's beyond your own eyes Vision you can see it yourself know that that will be a living testimony throughout all time and it's amazing that I see the most secular Godless cities everywhere in western civilization Western Civilization had this amazing foundation of the Ten Commandments of biblical values it had the Torah at its foundation whether it liked it or not whether it knew about it or not that's what was keeping Western Civilization western civilization and every single place that starts to Veer from that path that starts to unravel that foundational structure San Francisco Detroit Seattle I mean it's like one by one you can sort of point at them and you see them all falling apart Europe has no more children being invaded by third world countries who knows what's going to be in Europe and so that's the first part of your Aid look the blessing is right before you you don't need to look far but then there's another idea the sages of Israel's teach a beautiful thing it says look before you I'm placing the blessing and the curse and so the sage is miserable based on this idea and we've shared about this before but today I'm going to take it a little bit deeper they still listen you should walk around with two notes in your pocket wherever you go all the time one in your right pocket and one in your left pocket one note says I am just dusted ashes and the other note says the entire world was only Built just for me and you see those are two totally opposite ideas one is absolute humility I am nothing I'm dust and Ashes and the other is that spice cards will appear in the the whole universe will organize itself in the most unbelievable Way by this intelligent reality that's guiding me personally in my life everything that's happening is happening only for me in my own faith journey and it's like you have to hold on to both of those notes at one time over Shabbat we had an amazing guest he was an elite soldier still serves in reserve duty in kind of the fauda unit of Israel and if you've ever seen the show fauda those are just the heroes of Israel that go deep into enemy territory have to dress up sometimes as the enemy themselves to kidnap the chief terrorists in the most dangerous scenarios and he actually gave over the devartora in our house of prayer Friday night and he said you know it tells us to look and there'll be blessing and curse I said look at these two notes place them in your pockets and where is that and how is that actually the blessing and the curse of our lives and it says well we have these two notes but most people pick out the wrong note at the wrong time they don't know which one to think when someone says to you you know you should start your own Torah study you should start giving over classes in your community nothing I don't know that's okay I'm going to take on such a responsibility bump in traffic notes that's the secret that's where the blessing and the curse actually exists in our lives when do we pull out one note and when do we pull out the other note and here's the deal anytime you are called to do good anytime you feel an opportunity to rise up and bring light into the world that's the note that you pull out that says this whole world was created just for me in this moment in time right now is perfectly designed for me to accomplish my mission in the world and it's time for me to rise up but anytime your egos hurt anytime something bad is happening like that and that's when you say it's okay it's all just Dustin measures what am I taking myself so seriously for and that's the balance and the dance that we have to live through in life but then there's a second idea that really relates beautifully with this and Ari just touched on it right now and all right I didn't coordinate exactly what we were going to say but he really got to like the core of it like are we here to experience Serenity are we here to experience pleasure and I was listening to this interview with a recovering addict and he said his whole life he thought his purpose was to be happy his whole life is thought as purpose neighbors to get Serenity and happy feel pleasure and you know what was he gonna do and he said something that I thought was absolutely profound he said he no longer thinks life is about how he can be happy he said he thinks his life is about how he can be useful and I found that to be absolutely touching that is the path how can we be useful to our wives how can we be useful to our husbands how can it be useful to our community and here's the trick we were designed to serve and that's why you see these people slip into the Tower of Babel Humanity will actually enslave itself quite freely if they need to they'll enslave themselves to vaccine mandates and masks that don't make any sense and because they feel like we are here to serve a higher purpose and the higher purpose that you serve actually the more meaning and good feelings in happiness you'll generate so if you believe in your marriage and you're serving that purpose you believe in your family you believe in your children you believe in your community you believe in your fellowship You Believe in Your Country you believe in God you believe in building the kingdom the bigger you can go the more useful you are to that purpose actually that's where the blessing resides and so we have before us the blessing and the curse to pick out those two notes and to know that when we are called to bring that light into the world to actually be useful to think about that how can we be used for the goodness of the world how can we be used to bring light into the world and that actually is the blessing that God laid before us so I want to bless everyone in the fellowship that you follow that path how can we be useful how can we serve the highest good in our life and when we commit to that and we work toward that what we'll see as that blessing resides happiness grows and we begin to flourish