Psalm 27 in Elul: How to Build a Real Relationship with Hashem - Tehila Gimpel: Land of Israel

So, hey guys. So nice to see everybody. Um, so here we are in LOL again. I feel very blessed to be together with you guys for another LOL, another process. But I have to be honest, this year lol did not arrive for me with, let's say, bells and whistles. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you're just like, "Okay, LOL is coming." Yeah. And some years it just shows up and you're somewhere between exhausted, survival mode, day-to-day struggles, trying to keep it together. Maybe you're exhausted, maybe you're distracted. Um, not necessarily where you should be according to the LOL playbook. Um, so and you know, sometimes I try to, you know, strengthen myself. I'm going to listen to inspiring lectures. But then sometimes it has actually it it makes me even more nervous like I'm supposed everyone everyone seems to be in this super holy mindset and and and you know you I don't do any of you guys have like where you can't sleep at night and then yeah so I'm not alone. We should all talk. We should start a fellowship connect at like 3:00 in the morning. Um, so you know that feeling where you can't fall asleep, but then you start stressing about how tired you're going to be tomorrow, which makes you stay awake longer, right? That's like my trap, right? Because I'm just like, and I'm getting into more padding. So the more I'm hearing about people doing chuva and I'm learning about chuva, I'm like, "Oh my god, but I'm not there. I'm not catching up. Oh my gosh." So it's like that for me. So, uh, so I was, you know, looking to to find myself some encouragement and I found myself drawn to Psalm 27, which is the psalm that's traditionally read twice a day in the month of El straight through till the end um of the holidays of Tish. And I love this psalm because uh you know when I moved to Israel in 1997, it was the beginning of El and I found this psalm just gave me so much strength. I clung on to it. So it's like very dear to my heart. It always brings me back to that kind of challenging time in my life where I was, you know, a young teenage girl coming to this new place and and I found so much strength. And so when when I'm feeling like I need some encouragement, I I often find myself going back to Psalm 27. And in verse four, David says, "I want one thing. One thing I ask of the Lord that I seek." So he's saying, "I I'm seeking this one thing that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to see the pleasantness of the Lord and to visit his this is translated sometimes his temple." I think it reads actually his in the Hebrew it's his sanctuary. Um and you know this verse sort of reminds me of when my kids are going to bed and they say, "Can I just have one more thing? Can I just have one more glass of water? Can I just have one more hug?" Cuz it's not one thing. It's never one thing, right? It's never one thing. And so what's going on here? That's not one thing. One thing I ask of the Lord, to dwell in his house all of the days of my life, to see the pleasantness of the Lord, and to visit his sanctuary. Wait, that's isn't that three things? Like, I'm not I'm not losing it, right? So, so what I think is, but David's not he's not misleading us. Like, he's not he's not my kids at bedtime. He's telling us the truth, obviously. So, this must actually be one thing. So, how do we how do we make that how do you make that work? So, I think it's not a list of three separate goals, but a road map and a process of one goal that has three stages. So, I think that we're having here a goal that sounds to me like building a relationship with Hashem. And then there's an order to it. There's stages to it. One, the first stage is to dwell in his house. Then it's to see God's pleasantness and then to visit his sanctuary. So what does that mean? What does that what does that translate to in actual life? So I think David is teaching us something really really profound about being in a relationship with Hashem and being in a relationship in general. Where does a relationship with Hashem actually start? Starts like anything. It starts at the door by showing up. That's the foundation. It's not dramatic. It's not exciting. It's not high. It's being there, living there, being in the house. What does it mean to be in the house? It's to be there day in and day out. Regular days, good days, hard times, not so hard times, when you don't feel anything, when you do feel something. To dwell is like a commitment. It's to be present. even when things are not perfect. And it's true as a spouse, you know, when Jeremy had his accident and he wasn't, you know, he had a terrible concussion and he wasn't quite himself. I often would say, you know, marriage is so beautiful because it's so much more than of course it includes love, but it also just includes the commitment to be there every day, just to dwell there every day. Whether you're fun to be with, whether you're not well, whether you're not at your best, I don't know if you're ever going to be your best, but I'm committing to dwelling in that place with you to be committed. And it's true as a spouse. It's true as a parent when you say to your child, I am going to be here. You might not really enjoy me very much. You might not like me, dear teenager, but I am here. I am going to dwell here and be present for you. I'm going to dwell in this house and be here for you whenever you need. In the context of the psalm, I think what David is saying is, I am choosing to dwell in the house of God to live a life committed to God. I might not feel everything, but every morning I will wake up and I will show up ready for you, Hashem, to call on me. You might not call on me today, so I'm going to come back tomorrow. You might not call on me tomorrow, but I'm going to come back every day. And if you call on me, you call on me. And if you don't, you don't. But I am here. And what happens when you live in that consciousness in a relationship with God or in a relationship with anybody? The next step is something that wouldn't happen if you didn't do the first step. After dwelling and choosing to be committed, even when there is no obvious reward, the beauty and the pleasantness starts to show itself very slowly, very subtly. And it's a choice. It's a choice to see the pleasantness, to see the good. I'm going to see the good in your providence, Hashem, even when I'm in pain and even when it's difficult. I've decided to live in this house and my day today is going to be looking for your pleasantness. It's the same thing with a person. I've committed to you. I am going to seek out what is good and beautiful in you today. Because I made that commitment to live in the house and then to see the beauty. And then I think the last step is to visit the sanctuary. To visit the sanctuary that's like finally those are those peak moments the elation the intensity the moments of prayer that suddenly you have tears and you feel so connected or you know when you're when you're in a holy place and your whole soul is just like humming. There are visits to the sanctuary but David is so cautious in his words. You live in the house of God, but you visit in the sanctuary. It's like within the house, there's that one room that's the sanctuary. There's like that one place that's even more holy. You're in the house all the time. But if you're in the house, sometimes you're going to get a chance to visit the sanctuary. If you didn't make the commitment to live in the house, you'd never find your way to the sanctuary, but you visit there. It's rare. It's precious. It's not predictable. But it only happens when you've built your life on this foundation of dwelling in the house cuz you've shown up day after day. You can't live in the sanctuary. It's too intense. It's too much. But it's a place that you can visit. And that's okay. And I think that's really the idea of Elol. Sometimes I don't feel this massive elation of like, yay, I'm in. I'm in the sanctuary. It's about moving back into the house. Sasha, maybe I've like wandered out of the house somewhere into the backyard and like over the fence and I've gone a little bit far away from the house. I'm coming back to the house. I might have been outside all year long. I might have been distant, but the house is there. The door is open and I might not see the beauty yet, but I'm going to come in. That's l I'm going to come in. And then we hope to get to the high holidays in Tishray and have a moment where we could just visit in the sanctuary. But it's a sanctuary we only get to because in L we made the commitment to live in the house. So you know David is saying he David could have asked for anything. He's saying I'm only going to ask for one thing. I want miracles. I want bells and whistles. He's saying I want my relationship. I'm not asking for any shortcuts. I'm asking for you, Hashem, to be to open the door for me and I'll do the work. I'll do the process. He could have asked for a miracle or asked for spiritual ecstasy, but he's saying just let me in and I will commit to slowly doing that work to just dwelling in the house and looking for that beauty in your providence in the world so that maybe you'll let me visit the sanctuary. So with that, I bless you guys all with a beautiful month of El. May we all dwell in the house of Hashem. [Music]