Jacob Standing Alone - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

but the dimension i want to discuss with you first right now for the time being also because of personal things that i'm going through and i think that we all are our generation is it's just the simplest level right jacob left his father in bear sheva and he went to kharan he left his mother and father behind and he went to kharan now the sages share a teaching that is really universally accepted because it's deduced from the timeline of jacob's life right the sages have mapped out all of jewish history year for year and just do the math that there are 14 years that transpired between his departure from his father's home to his arrival in kharan and what happened during those years anyone know i'm looking at the comments seeing if anyone knows okay he was studying in the yeshiva in the house of study of shame and ever shaman ever now this is a very well-known institution that which although it was established before the giving of the torah right what are they studying in yeshiva if it was before the giving of the torah they still studied and deeply immersed themselves into understanding and serving the god of israel right there was a tremendous understanding of god before the torah there was malchi zedek right he was the priest of god the most high there were shem and ever they knew ever since you know ever since the beginning of our journey jeremy and i have always spoken about our shared dream of establishing a modern yeshivat shem whether we would call it that or not isn't so relevant but it would be a yeshiva not only for israel and the jewish people but for the enti all of the nations of the world that can study and strengthen themselves in their understanding and in their faith and in their service of the god of israel regardless of where they're coming from it doesn't it doesn't matter where you're coming from what matters is where you're going where your eyes are are looking where you're gazing where your heart's desire is and um and i think this fellowship is a precursor or to that or maybe this fellowship is yeshiva ever just beginning either way really that's the reason the yakov went there because he really needed to strengthen himself and fortify himself now that he was leaving this this cocoon right of being raised on isaac's lap in his tent absorbing the holiness and the light and witnessing and experience the righteousness and hospitality of his mother right imagine that childhood imagine that yes esau was there and he wasn't such a great guy but it's clear that they were really living very different and most of the time very much separate lives but now he was he he had to go into a very different world that as you can imagine the the yeshiva of shemin ever was just the perfect place for him to go he needed to go there why because shem was the son of noah right he was the head of the yeshiva and he lived in the generation of the flood and so he knew evil well and he had experienced levels of evil so intense that the world needed to be destroyed because of it and the other head of the yeshiva the other was ever right and who was ever at least vis-a-vis he was shem's great grandson and ever lived keep in mind in those ages in those days we lived so much longer people have so much longer that they were able to see their children their grandchildren their great-grandchildren their great-great-great-grandchildren and so they had this yeshiva together and ever lived so ever he lived through the building of the tower of babel which uh the world rebelled against hashem in their united desire for evil as well and so what does rav yaakov kaminsky teach was the reason for this like we said he said that that yaakov went there to learn from these spiritual giants in order to be able to fortify himself and strengthen himself for the spiritually dangerous journey that lay ahead and so by the way this is an ongoing debate um in many families within israel i'm sure it's happening in america on different levels and it's happening in the jewish people today and it's actually at the root for example of the kharadi you know khari means ultra-orthodox jews with with their refusal to join the israeli army that's like one of their main political uh policies is that they do not have to join the israeli army and at least that's what i believe is their reason for not wanting to join the army what is it that they're scared that there will be a wide scale spiritual devastation where all or at least most of the many many of the yeshiva students who will join the army will just take off their yamaka take off their kippah take off their teeth seats and leave it all behind you know it's like the famous stories that that i was raised hearing about these european jewish immigrants throwing their twill in their phylacteries off the side of the boat as they approached ellis island in new york they were ready to let it all go and to blend in and i and i must really respectfully disagree with my ultra-orthodox brothers because well rather than disagree i would say that if it does happen that there's this wide scale spiritual devastation that they are failing that if they are even afraid of that happening they're the ones failing because if it is that easy to just pick it all up and throw it all away it means that the faith of these students going into the army is just too weak and it's too brittle to begin with i'm telling you i was in a a hesder yeshiva unit a unit of yeshiva guys that weren't ultra orthodox but the amount of influence that was coming from these uh god-fearing jews in the army was much greater to the secular soldiers than in the reverse and you know there's so there's this debate in the whole country it's ongoing you see that there are some yeshua some settlements or cities that are are religious some are secular and some are mixed and now i put parentheses around these terms because they don't really apply in israel i don't believe in them here things just aren't broken down in the same boxes as they are in other places but i'm using them because it's good enough for the point that i'm trying to make right now so some people think it's good to relate to raise your children if you're a religious family right to raise religious kids in a mixed city in a mixed village and uh you know just to give them the exposure and the opportunity to meet different stripes and different types of jews and while at one point i really agreed with that and on an idealistic level and it sounded beautiful to me throughout my journey i've come to believe that it's a mistake that one needs to harness their child's formative years in a protective cocoon-like environment in which they can be imbued with the wisdom and the truth of their heritage and not really have it challenged too much their kids they're not ready to stand up to that and then once they're built up and educated and taught then if you've done your job right you can send them into the world with confidence right send them into the army send them into these spiritually hostile environments and they will change those places it's not those places that will change them and so if the ultra-orthodox kharadim would indeed flee their faith and their values the minute they're put to the test then i would say respectfully and lovingly that the failure is with them i hope it's good i'm sharing this with you i just know how much so many of you love israel and you want to know the internal dynamics and what's happening so i just wanted to share that with you and by the way if you disagree with me send me a message and let me know i'm not like the end all and be all here i'm just sharing my my own opinion here anyways the proof of this point is that jacob well is in jacob himself right his parents did teach him to be different and to think differently so rabbi arun losheck taught this idea beautifully from the incident of the rock over the well remember that they were trying to water their flocks and they couldn't move the rock so it starts like this we were unable to until all the flocks have been gathered and they will roll the stone off the mouth of the well then we will water the flock so you know when the shepherds told him that it would be impossible to move the rock or to uh in order to water the sheep did yaakov just adopt and embrace their constraints and their limitations no no he knew he was different he was willing to be different and to think differently and start already teaching the world at that point that the limitations that we put on ourselves aren't necessarily real right that thinking differently is a good thing not a bad thing and and i think that the world would actually stand uh it would benefit in revisiting this truth today you know i'm preparing for a trip abroad and just what i'm encountering from speaking to jews abroad it's been a challenging experience and the truth is though that no matter how good a job we may do at raising our children and fortifying them in godly values there really are no guarantees we all have stories we all know there are no there's no guarantees of anything in this world as a matter of fact jeremy shared a new insight that i had actually never heard before chapter 31 it starts by saying that laban's sons were starting to make the same accusations against jacob that have been made against the jewish people time and again throughout the entire exile that jacob was was that jacob was taking all of their riches and that he made all of his wealth off of them right at their expense and uh the fact that of course like with his arrival lavon laban became so many times wealthier by his own admission in the torah than he did before jacob arrived but that wasn't relevant to them they were just too jealous and they didn't understand basic economics as the masks are coming off and much of the world is turning not only against israel but yes against the jewish people if you feel different if your love for israel is growing deeper and stronger if you're thirsting to cleave to the nation of israel and to the god of israel if you're thirsting to learn authentic torah from jews in judea then the land of israel fellowship is for you hundreds of individuals and families from around the world come together on zoom every week in what can only be described as a fellowship of love friendship of learning and praying and belonging a fellowship really unlike any other it's more than just a movement it's a family to learn more about the land of israel fellowship click on www.thelandofisreal.com backslash fellowship or send an email to fellowship at the land of israel.com love and blessings from judea