Israel-Islam Holy Wars: Who Will Survive God’s Final Test | Divine Punishment or Love Depends on Us

There are many ways we can get to the end goal that we're trying to reach, which is Msiah Haba, a perfect world, a world full of peace, a world where Hashem is back in his world, where it's his world because we gave it back to him. Right now, we stole most of it from him, but we we give back Hashem his world. And we want to reach that point. And there are two essential general ways we could reach that point. It is through our involvement, doing our part, becoming a better people, becoming a better world. And then there's less Hashem has to do. What what does that mean? So the more Hashem has to do, what really unfortunately turns out in reality is more judgment and more punishment. If there are rockets flying through my sky that I'm underneath, that that is a sign from Hashem. If we only watch the news, we only understand what's happening in the world. But if we read the Bible with that news, we understand that it's all Hashem. And so it's important when you read the Bible, what's the one thing that sticks out when a person reads the Bible? You read a beautiful story, but there's one thing that sticks out that doesn't stick out when you read the news. This is a story about God as creator and and God's involvement in the world. The Bible shows it to you because a prophet is in tune with reality on a much higher level than we are in tune. So what does the prophet tell you? The prophet tells you, you saw a story, you saw the news, right? one of these Iran Israel at war videos right on YouTube which told you a lot of information but it didn't get to the essence of what's happening. So you realize that well the MSAD was unbelievable. They undercover went into Iran and somehow exploded Iran from Iran. That's unbelievable. And Iran is fighting back and and of course we're genocide and they're genocide and everybody's genocide. But you miss one important point. You're seeing the foreground and you're missing the background. The background is Hashem and the prophet in the Bible makes that clear. The Jews strayed from God and they went away from him. They they started doing the wrong things and God sent them a warning. God sent them a message because the Philistines, you know, play on words, Palestine because Hamas attacked them. So when the B when the when the prophet talks in the Bible, we see a different picture. We see the Jews were severing their connection to God. They would distance themselves from from their true purpose and what they were meant to do in this place called Israel. And Hashem sent them a warning through negativity, through punishment and a and a decree ded through judgment that that kamas now all of a sudden throws some missiles or unfortunately the attack of October 7th. If we see behind the scenes, it's all Hashem. It's all Hashem trying to work with us and work with his world. It's it's a give and take. A relationship is a give and take. And that's what's happening right now between us and God as far as we are omnis for all the Jewish people, his hashem's people, the chosen people in Israel, but the greater world also that it's it's all a back and forth between us and Hashem. And when you read the news or a YouTube video, you might miss the real point is what you find in the Bible is that Hashem is a part of this. Not only just a part of it, but the main part of all of this. But he's not all of it. Why? Because half of it is up to us. That's the the big kesh of life is this. God could have made a world all by himself and made it a very perfect world. And he did do that, right? Where did God make a perfect world? Heaven. He made heaven which is perfect. They do what he wants. They listen. They get a straight. They get get a a for effort. They get everything. Heaven is perfect. But it's not a world that's a world that's only God's. Earth here in this world, it's a world that's God's and ours. And that's a contradiction. How can this world be God's who's perfect and all controlling and all able and at the same time be arrows? We're human beings. We're creations. And that's the mystery of of of life and creation. Hashem said, "I want to make a world that's mine and yours." And that's where free will comes in. And that's where it's our job to pay attention to what's happening, to be a part of what's happening, and ultimately to redefine and make what's happening. When we go beyond our selfish selves and we can in get in touch with Hashem and Hashem's communication and Hashem's ultimate divine will, we become a partner with Hashem in what we create together. We are going to connect with Hashem. We're going to dig deeper and find out what we're here for, what we're here to accomplish, and how can we accomplish that. That's what we're here to do. And let's try to kind of tap into that a bit right now. So, first and foremost, we have to understand the Torah is a beautiful thing. Hashem gave us. Torah is God talking to us. We have an opportunity to talk back to Hashem when we pray to Hashem. Praying is talking to Hashem. And now I'm going beyond the textbook of prayer. There is a textbook of prayer that we read. And that is a formal prayer that is has its limited function. What is its limited function? It's not really talking to Hashem from the heart. In my own words, it's it's fulfilling a particular necessity for the spiritual world. And it's it's a function and it's an important function. And that's why we're obligated to pray from a textbook, from a prayer book. However, the real essence of prayer before that book existed was talking to Hashem. Adam spoke to God. First thing he did, first thing he did when he was created was speak to Hashem. Just a slight side point. Why did God make Adam by himself when it says himself, Hashem says himself in the Torah that it's not good for Adam to be alone? But then he made him alone. So why did he make him alone if it's not good for him to be alone? So obviously the joke answer is God wanted to give him a few moments of peace and quiet before he created his wife. That's that's the that's the unfortunate not so joke joke. Okay. But but why did God really make Adam alone is by by being the only human being in the world. So he was alone with Hashem and being alone with Hashem is unbelievable. It affords you a certain perception and an ability to connect with Hashem. So the first time that Adam used his power of speech which ultimately is an ultimately is an expression of his of his thoughts and his feelings. It's his essence. The essence is comes out when a person speaks. So, Adam used his his his power of speech, which is the ultimate definition of a human being or what separates us from every other creation in existence was to talk to Hashem. And so, after he had those moments with Hashem, then he's ready to start life and and and start life with a life partner and and the idea of building and and growing and and being part of the world. And we also need that right now in these crazy crazy times, scary times. Who are we going to turn to? the the Israeli government, Mossad, uh they're they're only tools. They're only tools. A hammer can't do anything until someone picks it up and uses it. Hashem uses his tools the way he chooses to use his tools. Our source is Hashem. We go to Hashem. We talk to Hashem. We tell Hashem we're afraid because he can do something about it. Ultimately, if we connect strong enough with Hashem, we can rise above above our our fears. Hashem. So, we talked about talking to Hashem. It's important we should take a moment at least every day, starting our day, ending our day, whenever works. Sometimes in the middle of your day, take a break and connect with your source, Hashem. Be like Adam alone in a world with God and and do that. Get that strength in that connection and that and that ability to talk to Hashem and then go back to reality because reality is is a tough squeeze sometimes. And if you don't have a place to turn to for support, so then you're you're stuck. You feel you can feel depressed. You can feel scared. But if you turn to Hashem and realize Hashem is with you always then you can you can strengthen yourself and and do a lot better in your your personal lives. Anyway, that's Hashem and us when we talk to him. What about Hashem when he talks to us? So the truth is this Rabbi Nakman of Breesv, one of the great masters, very famous, he teaches us that in truth a person can connect to Hashem without the Torah. Right? You don't need only Hashem's Torah to connect with Hashem. Why? Because what is Hashem? First and foremost, we call him the creator of the world. Hashem created the world and Hashem is present in the world and he is manifest in the world and and and that's a place to connect with Hashem. That means we can connect to Hashem within our life, within our life experience and within the world without Torah. But then he qualifies that and says, "Yes, it's true that you could connect with Hashem and Hashem sends you communication. He sends you different kinds of hints in your life. And if you're perceptive and you're connected, you can feel that and you can you can see what that is. You can see what Hashem's trying to tell you in the world. Like when rockets are flying over your head, you can try to understand what is Hashem trying to tell you and teach you. However, there are two issues with with trying to find Hashem that way and only that way. Two issues. Number one, we can be ignorant and we can have a false perception of finding Hashem and truth, but it can be all false. Number two, we could take it out of context and really misapply it. But the biggest problem and the biggest setback in trying to find Hashem only in the world is we missed the unbelievable Hashem that we can find in the Torah because the world conceals Hashem. The world hides the the truth of Hashem. The world is is is created in a way and this is interesting in spiritually speaking. Hashem created this world in order to hide in this world. When you try to play hide and seek, so you're going to guess wrong a lot of times. But when Hashem says, "Here I am. This is me." And you and you ignore that. So then it's fool. It's it's shame on you for ignoring that and trying to find Hashem the hard way. Today we have a Torah from the from the point of Mount Si. We have a Torah. Hashem says, "I've watched you. I've been following you all along trying to find me." Well, here I am. And in his Torah, he reveals his true essence to us through his Torah. Now that we have a Torah that we can talk to to to not talk to but that we can learn and then Hashem will reveal himself to us on the level of his essence the full revelation without any concealment. So it's foolish to ignore that and to say no I want to play hide-and-seek in in the world because it's more fun. That's a bit selfish. So now that we have a Torah Rabbi Aman says the real place to go the main place to go for divine communication is the Torah. But in places and times where you can't go to the Torah, you have to also know that Hashem is there also. And you can find Hashem from within the darkness, from within the world, from within your life experiences. And that's a different dimension and a different communication and relationship with Hashem, which is also important because we're not going to walk around with the book in our hands. That's not how you can live life. We are called the people of a book of the book, but you you don't walk around with a book. I mean actually you see sometimes in the in the yeshiva world you do see people that are so so focused on studying they have the book in their hand and that's good because they're in yeshiva when you're in yeshiva that's time to open the book but when you go out into the world you have to live a life and so what you have to do you have to find a way to take that book with you close it and keep it with you but then you have to look and also find Hashem in the world you're in when you go to work when you certainly go to war today we have to find Hashem on the battlefields we have to find Hashem in those missiles that are flying over our heads we have to find Hashem and understand what is hashem trying to tell us and what can we do about it that's the most important lesson so let's start with a famous saying from the admak the balatanya the founder of kabadidism and we got you one more time we got kabad we'll start off with the balatanya says that we must live with the times and see what we're reading in the Torah and what's happening in the Torah and try to now find it and apply it to my life in the world. And I think we're going to see an unbelievable hints, some unbelievable clues to what to do right now in these crazy times, these times of war that we're in the middle of between multiple enemies between whether it's missiles, whether it's uh guns, and whether it's on social media and whether it's a world full of hate. We're we're facing many many many enemies. So, let's let's look at the parha. what's happening right now in in our parha in the Torah which we live with this week. It's we're we're about to go into Israel. Unbelievable. We are we are about to enter Israel. This is an unbelievable moment. We take 12 of our best men sadikim leaders influencers. We got this. These are the these are our 12 best men to go into Israel. When does this story take place by the way? Who knows when the story takes place? So it takes place a little bit almost right now where we are standing. We are standing right now at the end of the month of Sivan. The next month is Tamuz. So in a few moments from our own timeline, this is when the story happens. The Jews in Tamuz are told it's time to get prepared to go to Israel. It's Hashem's giving you the giving you his promise. It's it's time to receive this promise. and they decide they want to scout out the land and they travel to Israel in the month of Tamuz which is the month coming and they look at the land and their eyes tell them a story. Their eyes tell them a story of what they see and unfortunately eyes might be impartial but a person's heart and mind are not always impartial and their mind and hearts because what do eyes see? The the sight of the eye is really the is ultimately what's in your heart. It's the sight of the mind and heart. What we physically see is interpreted by our heart and mind. And those 12 great leaders, greatest of the men of Israel, looked into the world that Hashem showed them, looked into the land of Israel and saw bad, except for, of course, Yeshua and Khalv, who were righteous and stayed true to Hashem and their and their purpose. But 10, the m overwhelming majority of these men looked at the land of Israel and saw it as a curse. saw it as bad and were afraid to to come into Israel. They sinned with their eyes in the month of Tamuz cabalistically. We connect the month of Tamuz to the eyes through our spies. Our spies were our eyes and our leaders and they went and they sinned with their eyes and they painted a bad picture. Hashem showed them a beautiful picture or tried to show them a beautiful picture and in the end they interpreted it bad and they were depressed and dejected and said we cannot take this land over. We cannot conquer this land and they came back when their troop was over to the the desert to report back to the Jewish people in the month of Av which is the next month coming. Av we know Av. Av is the famous month of Av or infamous month of Av which includes most of the suffering of the Jewish people. Historically most of our tragedies happen in the month of Tamuz and the month of Av. In the month of Tamuz a few points the is when the Egel took place the sin of the golden calf. Now this is an unbelievable tragic catastrophic event which changed the course of history forever because if we look closely at the Torah the the the which took place on betamuz why so let's look back at the story we left Egypt 50 days later we received the Torah on Mount Si and then God tells Moshe come back up on the mounted for 40 days and God goes over the entire Torah with him, gives him the loot, the the the two stone tablets with the ten commandments carved into them and he finally comes back down on yudamus. So again, this is a process. We just finished, right? And Moshe goes up on the mountain and comes back in in a few weeks from now from the mountain on Yud Bamuz finds the Jewish people amidst the sin of the golden calf. One of the most tragic horrific sins of idol worship right at the foot of the mountain of God. And that was horrible. Again, I want to just deflate some of the attention on me because I don't like being blamed. No one likes being blamed. It was really the Arav's initial fault. The Arav is a mixed multitude of Jews that left with the Jewish people from Egypt. They cabalistically speaking are a little bit of a their souls were slightly connected with the Jewish people, slightly disconnected and they had a lot of things to fix and unfortunately the mixture of the Jewish people and this Arav in their beginning stages where everything was so unsettled they were able to unfortunately influence the Jewish people into a direction where we're all blamed for the sin of the golden calf and God said I can no longer take you to Israel. I can no longer bring you to the promised land. And what was uh what would have been three or 11 days in about 3 or 11 days after Moshe comes down from the mountain, it depends on whether we would have had a thing called uh not time travel that I don't see a source in Torah for time travel, but we do have in Torah space travel. If that sounds interesting to you, you can travel in in space so to speak. It's called and so if God wanted to do with the entire B is we would have on betamos left the area of the mountain with the Torah and with a mission to go to Israel and for Msiah to come and to have live happily ever after. This was what was the final goal. But because of the we no longer could go. So we see initially from when Jews just the Jews just left Egypt there was the potential to go to Israel and have Messiah right away within the month of Tamuz if not Tamuz then a which was the next the coming month and that could have been our story already thousands of years ago with Msiah forever but we failed and we got stuck in the desert for another year and now we're another year rolls around and we're now past the month of Tamuz we're past the month of Nissan we're We're past all those months. It's a whole year later and more. And we're in the month of Av. And again, the spies went out in Tamuz and they came back in Av. And in Av, Hashem says, "Okay, I'm ready to bring you to Israel." All it needed was was for the spies to come back and tell this wonderful story. We went and saw the land of Israel that God is going to give us. God can do anything. We have nothing to fear. Hashem is with us and it's time to go to Israel. Yes, we don't know tomorrow what's going to be. Yes, we don't know how we're going to beat these these enemies. They're stronger than us. They're more numerous than us. They have weapons greater than us. We don't know, but we know we have that Hashem's with us and that's all we need to know. And let's all go. And if they would have said that and the Jews would have listened to that, we would have all been inspired and we would have miraculously went into Israel and conquered then in the month of Av. And that would have been the time of our gula. Our second chance at gula would have been in the month of Av. But we failed and we tried to do chuva right away. The Jews said the next day when they realized they failed they they took the bad report from the spies and they believed it and they did not have faith in their god and they cried and said how can hashem do this to us and they cried for nothing and the next day said you cried for nothing so now you're not going to Israel and they said what do you mean we're sorry and they tried right away to go run and fight and hashem wasn't with them and they were they were they were not successful they they were some people died and they realized we can't do it on our own. We can only do what Hashem and they were stuck in the desert for 40 years. 40 years. And only 40 years later they do they get to go back into Israel to conquer it. But we have this unbelievable thing right now in the in the storyline of our lives right now is right now we're standing at a point where we had a chance to go to Israel once, we failed. We had a chance to go twice and we failed. And this happened in the month of Av and the month of Tamuz. So now let's learn a little bit about these months. So in Apikabala we're taught that there are the two harshest months in our calendar year are tamuz and a which are the summer months. Now originally of course if we would not have sinned then those would have been amazing months. They would have been what the whole calendar was full of just goodness. But once we sinned so the the the evil the negative forces that we're competing against that we're fighting against. So they took hold of the months of tamuz of a and of el. Okay, three months they they were taken by the spiritual forces of Asov and that means adom and that means everything that's happening today with our enemies and all those that hate us. So they took those three months spiritually. The spiritual power of those three months belong to to to the nations of the world. What does that mean? That means their times of judgment because because they have the power to to accuse us of all of our mistakes. And that's what anti-semitism really is. We know we're the bad guys. We're genocide. We're this. We're that. It's really looking at us with horrible eyes and finding the worst possible story you could create for Hashem's people. And unfortunately, there's a power there, a real power there when mida sadin also God's stricter attribute of harsh judgment joins that perspective of looking for our faults instead of our pluses, instead of our for our positive traits. And when Hashem is looking to punish, he finds what to punish. And so whenever we're punished, it's mostly in these two months because of the of the moragim in a the of the egul in in in Tamuz. And here we see these two months. And if you look historically, they connect a lot of things to it. Today we were kicked out of Spain and many people died and suffered. An entire country of Jews were kicked out. They were kidnapped, taken as slaves. We don't we know what they do with women. Women slaves. It was this horrific story. A horrific story. It was in on tishab tamuz also is the the two beta mikdash. They were destroyed ultimately in in av but they started being destroyed in tamuz. These months are horrible months for the Jewish people. Horrible months for the Jewish people. It's the source of much of our sorrow. So what do we do about it? What do we do about it right now? Look, that's what we're looking at. We're looking at harsh months ahead of us. Months of strict judgment of of of unfortunate potential punishment. And we know the prophecies. The prophecies are horrific. Even the rabbis of the Talmud said, "I don't want to be around. I'd rather not be alive right now." They didn't want to be alive right now, but we're here. So, how did we get here? How do we compete with these these rabbis of the Talmud that didn't want to be here and we're here? So, I'll tell you, either it's because we had no choice, or maybe Hashem had a choice and said, you know, I'm going to save my most special Jews for the for the for the last for the last act. He needs something special right now that that nobody gave him for 2,000 plus years of gul. No one was able to give him what he wanted to bring Msiah. And we have to not only say perhaps, but definitely right now we are in a unique place. We're not greater than our predecessors, but we're in a unique place that they were never standing in. And that is a place and time where we can possibly hopefully do something that can bring Msiah. That's the mitzvah to to to await Mashiach. But an even bigger mitzvah is to bring him. And so we have to ask ourselves, what can we do right now to turn this black night of future? This this this dark future with prophecies of the world destroying by an atomic bomb, a nuclear bomb. And so how do we face this scary future? So the way I think we need to face it is this. Look at the story. The Jews sinned with their eyes and with their ears and of course with their mouth speaking bad. It's it's up to us how to define what we see and how we react to it. And we have to know two important fundamental things. It's true that it it's we're told that that gula the redemption has to come through suffering, through a war, through destruction. But it doesn't only have to come that way. Any negative prophecy by any of the prophets, even anything written in the Torah, it's all on condition. Meaning it doesn't have to happen. The way to test a false prophet is not to test him if something bad doesn't happen. It's to test him if something good doesn't happen because a good promise from God always happens for the most part. But a bad prophecy from God never has to happen. And so we have to understand one thing right now. There are two ways we can reach the the happy ending that we want. It can come through struggle, through suffering, through war, through murder, through through through things we don't want to imagine. or it can come through loving kindness from Hashem and that's what depends on us. That's what we can do about it. If we stop reading the news and stop becoming afraid and start reading the Bible and start understanding Hashem is with us and for us then we can summon the courage to do what he wants us to do and that is to turn back to him to realize that it's without him we're nothing to do what he wants us to do to turn this world into a world where Hashem is invited instead of kicked out. And if we do that, if we turn this world into Hashem and our own personal lives into a life where Hashem is invited, then if Hashem is here, then we have nothing to fear. Because once he's with us, then not only does he protect us, but he will surely surely protect us and save us. We want to see miracles, we have to become a catalyst to those miracles. We have to have a faith that is so deep and so strong that Hashem says, "I have to make a miracle. How can I not make a miracle for my children that are holding on so tightly to me?" and I'm going to let them down. Never. If we hold on to Hashem, Hashem will hold on to us and pick us up and save us. That's how it works. And so, the only way to avoid the harsh tomorrow that we're facing, the scary tomorrow with all these bombs that are pointed at us, is to go beyond and above those bombs and look at Hashem and hold on to him. If we hold on to Hashem, not just with a with a devoted heart and a trust, but also an obedience to say, "Yes, Hashem, I was wrong. It was wrong to turn away from you. It was wrong to think we can have a world without you. The right way is with you. Only with you. We want you back. We're sorry. And we want you back. Hashem will come back and he will take us back and we can have Msiah and Gula with pure love and miracles that make the miracles of Mitsim look like nothing. It says about the miracles of Egypt. We'll see miracles that make the miracles of Egypt look ordinary. And so we just have to hold on to that hope. a hope of a good tomorrow, a better tomorrow, a better us and a better tomorrow. And we'll have Msiah Bu. Amen. Amen.