Joseph & Judah Struggling Through History - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

i just want to spend a few min moments now looking at that moment of embrace between joseph and his brothers and his brothers in general but between joseph and yehuda in specific because this is a moment of the deepest recognition and the deepest healing in which we can see how this same conflict will resolve itself in the future right we can see how this moment foreshadows messianic times how this moment sheds light on what we're even going through right now and this is a source of serious discussion among a lot of us a lot of a lot of rabbis here in judea how this is all playing out right now even though i have to admit that personally i don't fully understand it yet i can't see all the parallels i know there are a lot of people who say that they do and maybe they're right but i don't fully get it all yet and and i'm not sure that we're supposed to fully get it yet right we're not supposed to peek behind the mask we're not supposed to know it's joseph before we're supposed to know it's joseph right it's almost like we're in a time where the masks are starting to come off but we can't see the identities yet but the discerning eye i'm sure we can all feel it we can tell that the masks are coming off something is happening now okay so this clash between yosef and yehuda this tension it's not just sibling rivalry it goes so much deeper than that it cuts to the core of of two facets of the jewish mission in the world right jewish nationalism and uh and the the particular the jewish particularism of judah and this sort of cosmopolitan globalism of joseph i hope that makes sense to you i'll try to explain a little bit more but but even beyond those identities it also just does go back to the very beginning in the simplest way to the jealousy and the tension between rachel and leia which carried over to their children and to all of their descendants now we're going to get into a lot of tanakh here so i hope that that you're with me so we can see this tension uh even today by the way in israel playing out between the jews of judea right my kin out here in these mountains who are just so fiercely jewish you've seen them you've met them maybe just virtually um they they speak and act and dress and behave differently than the rest of the world they're just so authentically and indigenously judean they they they highlight those differences between them and the world and they embrace them right with pride and with strength and and that's in contrast to the jews of tel aviv right the joseph jews who engage internationally with technological innovations and startups and and globalism but that's only today how it's manifesting today and some people would agree or disagree with that assessment but one thing that everyone would agree about is that this tension does weave itself throughout all of jewish history and that there's so many examples and manifestations that it's difficult to know where to start but for me i'll share with you the verse that really stands out in my mind that i remember which was um after the destruction of shechem right just a few persons ago by shimon and levy we've discussed it at length in the past and when i read it it really stayed with me so remember dina was raped and the prince wants to marry her and she will be lead them to believe that that if they circumcised themselves and converted that they could become one with the nation of israel but they really just took advantage of their post-circumcision weakness and they destroyed and wiped out the entire city and yaakov was upset about this and feared the response of the surrounding nations to which shimon and lady responded should he treat our sister like a harlot it was an it was an issue of principle for them right and to them the consequences and the practicalities didn't matter but what stood out so strongly is that they did not say should he treat your daughter yaakov should they should he treat your daughter father like a harlot no it was more cutting than that dina was their sister right the daughter of leia and they felt that she was much more of their sister than she was of yaakov's daughter you can feel the pain there they felt they felt second tier their whole lives they felt unloved and this was a deep source of pain throughout the whole journey for them and of course it culminated in the sale of joseph into slavery and you can actually see where it carries over right that moment where it carries over intergenerationally and in a real way with with reuben right the born so after rachel died the children of leia expected jacob to move the default location of his bed to their mother leia's tent but instead he moved it to rachel's maidservant's tent right to bill haas tent ruben in specific the firstborn he was so deeply hurt by what he perceived as this terrible affront to his mother's honor that he went in and he moved his father's bed into his mother leia's tent and this was just such an overstepping of the boundaries that the torah actually phrases it as if he had actually laid with bilhah which he literally did not do all of the rabbinical judaism all of our rabbis agreed that that did not actually happen but that's what it was like into that was the degree of trespass there and uh and and for this act of rash impetuousness he loses his first born status right there's different facets of the first-born status which are transferred to three of the other brothers right the priesthood goes to levy the kingship goes to judah and the birthright in the double portion it entails goes to joseph right in the form of both of his sons menasha and ephraim being considered independent tribes of israel and receiving two territories worth of land the lava churabi goes into this whole thing he actually lays it out in detail which we won't go into because of time constraints but just skip ahead right to the end of the egyptian exile and that tension it continues right there's moshe our own who are like messianic figures moses and aaron right the leaders of israel they're levites the children of leia so they're leading the children of their leading but then joshua who actually conquered the land he was from ephraim right he was a descendant of rachel and it continues to the judges of israel all the way to the first king now saul is the descendant of who right saul ben kish yamini he was the descendant of benjamin the son of rachel and he loses the kingship for his weakness and his disobedience regarding killing the amalekite king agog and his refusal to take ownership and responsibility for the mistake which is a quality that his successor a descendant of judah king david does possess and here just allow me to open up a parenthesis i just had to share this with you because here we see this brief moment of healing and a heartwarming beauty and what is otherwise this ongoing rivalry throughout all of jewish history that at this moment this beautiful moment takes place between jonathan saul's son who is next in line for the kingship and david who is going to be the next king and who is threatening to take his place and his power and his position and his authority now rabbi david foreman i don't know if you know if you know but he teaches on this in in great detail and how this how this whole relationship played out and he points out the connection between judah's recognition that his father's soul was casual right intertwined with the soul of benjamin and the same words right were with jonathan and david it's right why was that so difficult for judah to say that his father jacob was intertwined with the soul of benjamin because implicitly he was admitting that he was less loved than benjamin that his father was more afraid of benjamin not returning than he not returning but now he man's up right he selflessly comes to terms with that truth and he offers to take benjamin's place of lifelong of lifelong servitude regardless of that jealousy and so just as judah selflessly offered himself up in some ways even more beautifully king saul's son jonathan descendant of rachel loves david so selflessly with all of his heart and he offers to willingly sacrifice everything for him and it's almost as if like hashem didn't want to make sure we wouldn't miss this reference the whole incident is encapsulated when jonathan removes his cloak and gives it to david that's right now think about it generations before judah violently ripped the cloak from joseph and in blood and in tears and in jealousy and now joseph's descendant is voluntarily and lovingly removing his own cloak and giving it to the descendant of judah then it was right it was taken with force and jealousy then and now it's given with love and selflessness it was just such a beautiful healing but then it goes right back in only two generations later this rift opens up again when solomon's son rehab foolishly takes the advice of his friends over his father's advisors and he raises taxes and the northern tribes break off to their own kingdom that's led by eurovom ben nevad who is that's right what tribe is he from a descendant of joseph i really wanted to go throughout all of joe's history but we'd be here all night this division leads ultimately to exile and to the destruction of the temple that is how devastating the consequences of this sibling rivalry can be how horrible are the fruits of the jealousy over yaakov's love really it's it's enough to make you just want to marry one woman and avoid this whole thing but uh but anyways as destructive as the rivalry is between the children of leia and the children of rachel it is their reconciliation that will bring about peace not only for israel but for the entire world as we see in the prophecy in the book of yahushua which is the hop tour of this portion which with uh with your blessing i sort of want to read in its entirety even though it's going to take us over time is that okay give me a yes if that's okay it's just such a powerful half torah okay the word of hashem came to me saying this is what yes saying now you son of man take yourself one wooden tablet and ride upon it for judah and the children of israel his comrades and take another wooden tablet and write upon it for joseph the wooden tablet of ephraim and all the children of israel his comrades and bring close to yourself one to the other like a single wooden tablet and they shall become one in your hand now when the children of your people say to you will you not tell us what these are to you speak to them thus says hashem the lord hashem elaine behold i will i take the wooden tablet of joseph which is in the crime's end and the tribes of israel his comrades and shall place them with it together with the wooden tablet of judah and i will make them one wooden tablet and they shall become one in my hand and the wooden tablets upon which you write shall be in your hand in their sight they shall be one then speak to them thus says the lord hashem elohim behold i take the children of israel from among the nations to which they went and i shall gather them from around and i shall bring them to their soil i shall make them into a single nation in the land upon israel's hills and a single king shall be for them as king and they shall no longer be two nations no longer divided into two kingdoms again they will no longer be contaminated with their idols and there are porn things with their rebellious sins and i shall save them from their habitations in which they sinned and i shall purify them and they shall be for a people unto me and i will be for a god unto them my servant david will be king over them and there will be a single shepherd for all of them they will go in my ordinances and they will observe my decrees and perform them they will dwell on the land that i gave my servant jacob within which your forefathers dwelt and they shall dwell upon it they their children and their children's children forever and my servant david will be a prince and a sea for them i shall seal a covenant of peace with them and eternal covenant shall be with them and i shall emplace them and i shall increase them and i shall place my sanctuary among them forever my dwelling place shall be upon them and i shall be for a god unto them and they shall be for people unto me then the nation shall know that i am hashem who sanctifies israel when my sanctuary is among them forever you see why i had to read that i just feel like in the times that we're living right now we need to read that we need to see how this is all going to play out the beauty and the light and the love and the spirituality and the godliness that's going to come to the world and as we see the prophet say it's only when both judah and joseph are brought together that the exiles will be in gathered and redemption will come and he actually takes two sticks and act in the physical world and brings them together to ensure that his prophecy will manifest itself in the physical realm that's why he does it in the physical world joseph and judah will come together and the the exiles will be gathered and redemption will come 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 thelandof.com love and blessings from judea