Joseph's Life Lesson -How to See a Hidden God in Your Life- J. Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

thank you very much um i'm honored to be named a good person i appreciate that but i do want people to know that i was taking care of the same dogs that murdered my chickens that is a high level of friendship okay so um what i want to do today is i just want to share i want to continue our journey through learning about yosef and so it's not a part of the soul map series but it is such a deep lesson we can learn from yosef and it's an important lesson right now because as we discussed last week joseph was the first of the fathers of israel to live in a reality where hashem didn't speak to him directly all the other patriarchs abraham isaac and jacob they had direct revelation from god they had covenants with god he never experienced divine revelation on the level that abraham isaac and jacob did and in that way he's an example for all of us that have never experienced direct prophecy really until moses aaron and miriam there was 200 some odd years where the people of israel lived in a time where god concealed himself and joseph the first savior of israel is the first example in the mirror of the last generation before the final savior comes there's going to be concealment and people will have to learn how to live with a hidden god how to learn how to develop a relationship with the creator of the world through this world and joseph gives us two models one we speak about all the time it's already a part of the dictionary of our fellowship joseph taught us about the spice carts of our life i think we just heard of one right now a car is spinning out of control and then somehow it slows down and even though the car is totally crushed it's just totally out of the out of ordinary like how it's the ability to see hashem's hands right now to see providence in our lives instead of coincidence it's road marks along the way showing us with all the chaos and all the problems watched there's a signature of god here there's a spice card that's being sent to us it's to see god's providence in our life as it happens before our very eyes and to realize when the torah describes god creating the world um in the physical world being created through speech that's teaching us that the universe and the physical world are quite literally speaking to us they are his language speaking to us but there's another way that joseph teaches us to see or to hear how god speaks to us even when he's hidden he speaks to us through our past and joseph is an amazing teacher in this joseph teaches us to see our life as one journey with one driver all throughout our lives we've been guided lessons learned along the way were really lessons taught along the way everything that's happened us are teaching us constantly god has been speaking to us the entire time just sometimes we need to look back at our life and listen to what he was saying the whole time there's a beautiful quote that abraham joshua heschel quotes i think i've mentioned it at least two times on the fellowship but i just want to bring it up one more time because i don't think there's a patriarch that expresses this quote better than joseph and here's what abraham joshua heschel says in our own lives the voice of god speaks slowly a syllable at a time reaching the peak of years dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life experiences backwards some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase so sometimes something happens to us it's just a syllable and i can't really make out what that syllable did in my life but it's there and then a little bit later another syllable and then a few years later another syllable and then a few years later another syllable and god is speaking to us through our past really slowly and at one point in our life we're able to look backwards and we see wow there's a whole phrase god is literally speaking to us what happens to joseph and you really need to pay attention to scripture to really pull this lesson out well he spent some extra time in prison he spent some extra time in prison we mentioned this last week he was missing the mark and he needed to be realigned he didn't realize that all of the dreams that were happening in uh from his cell mates that he was interpreting those were already a set up to get him out of prison and place him at the side of pharaoh to save the entire world well he spent some extra time in prison he was corrected he took the correction he realigned himself with his mission and reminded himself that nothing happens to him everything happens for him and then finally joseph becomes arguably the most powerful man in egypt and how did he get there again it's like we got to go back a little bit he interpreted pharaoh's dreams that was really the kicker that said whoa this man is so wise we got to put him in charge of everything now i learned this idea from a dear friend of mine named rabbi jesse horn who teaches in the old city of jerusalem and ishivatakoto he asked a great question and then he gave an even better answer and he said well pharaoh had dreams about cows and wheat big cows little cows big wheat little wheat he had the wisest men in the world at his table and i think almost anyone could have figured out that the dreams were about food i mean it's cows and wheat those are like the staples of like a good meal like some challah and a steak i don't know that's like that is food like that's not so impressive that joseph could figure that out thin emaciated cows are eating the fat healthy cows it's not beyond reason to believe that the wisest men in all of egypt could have known they were talking about good times and bad times economically i don't know it seems like that's not so you know not so difficult what couldn't they figure out they couldn't figure out seven what was the number seven because pagans hate the number seven and pagans hate the number thirteen uh those until the very day you know you don't see seven in nature it it's a it's a prime number it can't be divided a pagans that are superstitious until today in the far east you'll see buildings they don't have the seventh floor and they don't have the 13th floor they'll skip from the 6th to the 8th and the 12th to the 14th and they like don't like the number 13 and they don't like the number 7. well jesus we love the number 7. 6 is just nature 7 is shabbat we love that's like god in nature and 13 that's our bar mitzvah that's when we enter into a real relationship with god we love those numbers so the seven threw the pagan idolaters off with all of their wisdom they didn't know what to do with seven and so what do we see here we had seven good seven good things good wheat good cows and then seven bad cows and bad wheat and so joseph is saying hmm seven seven where else have i saw two sevens in my life i just two sevens hmm two sevens well my father he worked seven really good years it says that those seven years they went by like a flash he worked seven years for his first wife and then he worked seven really miserable years for his second for a second that was really his first life but those were seven years of kind of hard times because those were like seven years of trickery well looks like well that's a that's an interesting joseph's thinking about that seven and seven i had this pattern in my life well let's look up at the phrases here from pharaoh's dream really quick can we get them up on the screen please thank you very much so this is pharah's dream as pharaoh tells it to joseph and behold out of the river there emerged seven cows robust of flesh briot and beautiful and they were grazing in the marshland now i like cows i like all animals i've never seen a beautiful cow i don't know cows i mean i wouldn't describe it as beautiful but in hebrew it's not just beautiful it's really a unique word that only appears one other time in the torah in hebrew it's called yephat yafator well that's the only description that we know about his mother rachel she was beautiful she was yaffat all of a sudden joseph is hearing this word from the stories that were recorded by his father says whoa seven years and then we see another um sign about my mother let's look at the emaciated cows let's look up the next verse suddenly seven other cows emerged after them scrawny and emaciated with soft flesh soft flesh like that's just a bizarre uh description also basar rakut like rakkot means soft but that's the only other description that we know about his other mother leia leia had soft eyes a name rakote the same exact word all of a sudden joseph sees not spice carts this time but syllables that were spoken to him he saw without ever seeing god without ever hearing god directly he was able to see that god was speaking to him through the stories of his father his life lessons his life experiences his family history and his family's story was speaking to him and he had the ability and faith to realize that everything comes from the same source it is painting back to my parents to my mothers and that was seven years of work that's what it means it's economy but it's seven it's not seven nations it's not seven days it's seven years and with that joseph became the wisest man in egypt everything in this world is here to guide us to where we're meant to be even the stories of our fathers and you can hear god in the present with spice cards you can hear god speak to us slowly over our lives by putting the syllables together over time but in order to do that joseph teaches us one of the most important lessons he had stars and moons in his dreams that was his closest thing to divine revelation he had a dream that he wasn't really sure was prophecy because his brothers didn't accept it his father was upset but in his heart of hearts he really felt like that was his guiding light and he felt sent all the stars they're all going to come now they're going to bow to me this whole universe is here to support me it's here to help me fulfill my mission in my destiny in the world joseph held on to that belief and no matter what happened to him he was betrayed by his brothers he was sold into slavery he never left that belief alone but everything that's happening to him is actually happening for him you have a dream the world around you will unfold in the most amazing unexpected ways to help you fulfill your dreams when hard things happen it's not the devil acting independently it's not just random acts that are happening in the world it's all for a purpose it's all from the same source and it's all to bring you along your journey to where you were always meant to be and so i want to bless us all that we follow in the footsteps of our father joseph that we can see spice carts in the now and we can hear god's voice in our past and we can see god's dream materialized before our eyes in the future and that will happen if we live with the belief that the stars the universe the world around us is supporting us in creating the life that we want that hashem is literally using everything around us and sometimes it's in the most peculiar unexpected sometimes even hard and challenging ways but all of it is to bring us to where we're meant to be and that is the blessing of joseph so may we all walk in his footsteps hi my name is jeremy gimpel a lot of people want to know exactly what the land of israel fellowship is and what members receive when they join so let me explain the land of israel fellowship is a global online community with hundreds of members from over 40 countries around the world their live sessions and gatherings that create a direct personal connection to the land of israel and the lovers of israel from around the world there's no online gathering that i'm familiar with that is connected to the land of israel that unites and brings together such a diverse group of people backgrounds and nationalities it feels like prophecy it feels like something we need in these times a window in to a better future on the horizon there's a divine unity we experience every week in our fellowship broadcast we heard these amazing teachings from an authentic hebrew and israel perspective and our jaws drop not only because they ring so true and are such a blessing because they are so consistent with what we believe these sunday morning gatherings are nothing less than a house of prayer for all nations cindy low the united states of america the land of israel fellowship is an amazing resource for learning torah the bible and the prophets unfiltered and uncensored directly from the land of israel we've been studying torah for almost 20 years but we feel we are stepping into it more than ever and seeing new depth and dimensions to scripture we're encouraged more and more every week calendar dell usa members receive access to all the archives in the library of teachings on every portion of the torah the biblical feast hebrew prayer prophecy sessions on the ancient wisdom of the prophets of israel to help us navigate through these turbulent times these sessions are so rich i re-listen to each and truly each session is the best one yet tehela is a tremendous asset and the teachings ari shares are so rich i've read the bible so many times and i've known the things you are teaching the hebrew understanding is what christians have missed for centuries sister georgian from germany the land of israel fellowship is truly unique because it's built upon personal relationships with the teachers of the fellowship myself rabbi arya bramwitz and tahila gimpel every member has direct access to the staff 24 6 via email or direct whatsapp to ask questions to comment to connect directly to all the teachers and over the last years we've connected to some of the most beautiful people on the planet so if you want to find out more and join the land of israel fellowship you can click on the link below and if you want to try it out for just a month you can email fellowship at the land of israel.com and we'll hook you up i hope to see you shalom from the mountains of judea