Purchasing the Cave of Machpela - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey guys so I stumbled across a very interesting idea this past about it's a teeny bit edgy and got me thinking about this past tour portion in a new light so I'm I'm like thinking this is something very important to share but you have to buckle up because it's a little bit controversial I hope nobody falls off their seats now in Hayes Sarah we hear about avraham purchasing the cave of machpela from Ephron now in all of the interpretations and all of the midrash on this this is widely praised as this foothold in the land of Israel scores of people go to Chevron on this Shabbat to celebrate the purchase of the land and in the midrash and barishi Rabbi it goes so far as to say that this purchase and the other purchases of land are the greatest anchoring of our rights in the land of Israel the midrash says there were three places that were purchased in the Bible for money here when avraham buys the king of and then in breishi Genesis 23 when nablish is bought by yaakov and then the third place is Mount Moriah the place of the temple which in first Chronicles uh number one chapter 21 it says that David purchased for money the midrash says that these are the three places in the land that the nations of the world will never be able to say that you've stolen them because you've bought them and the purchases are clearly written in the Bible so no one will ever contest the Jewish ownership of this land and you're thinking to yourself yay no one's ever gonna contest that except for then you start scratching your head and saying wait a minute and I'm saying this with caution and deference to the Mirage because it does seem to make intuitive sense at first like yes when you purchase something that really would give you a stronghold but when we look at the actual reality like the modern reality that is before our eyes are there any three places more contested for Jews to be the Temple Mount like these are the three places that everyone says you're not supposed to be there like Chevron you can go to but under heavy protection and threat of terrorism the tomb of Joseph and you can go there sometimes if you get special permission from the idea of the Temple Mount you can't even you almost can't even pray at all because it's controlled by the Jordanian walk so with great respect for The Madras you have to ask yourself maybe just maybe do we need a different Outlook meaning maybe the approach here is actually weakening our claim to the land when you see the verses it's so interesting and I wouldn't have the courage to say this if I hadn't heard it from a rabbi over Shabbat but he said that if you read the verses carefully you see something so interesting that happens when Abraham approaches and asks for a burial plot he says hey guys you know I'm a guervato shav I'm a stranger and a resident among you but then their response is so interesting they don't say okay they say no no no you're not a stranger you're not just a resident here you are an aciolog Prince of God in our midst chapter 23 verse 6. like explains what they were trying to say he says that what they were saying is you are not in our eyes as just a stranger and a resident you're a king to us because God appointed you over us and we are in our lands our servants unto you please take any burial plot you want forever for all future Generations how amazing what they're saying now bear in mind some decades ago Hashem promised the whole land of avraham to avraham and his children so like I'm nervous to even say this because how can we critique Abraham but on the other hand we know that every story that happens to our Patriarchs and matriarchs in the Torah is to teach us about the kind of challenge that we're going to have to deal with one day in the future so I wonder if perhaps there's a lesson here because the story could have just said yes you know avram went Sarah died avram went he bought the land why did they tell us this whole story there must be a lesson here there must be a reason that the Torah takes the time to tell us about the whole negotiation where they first offered it for free and why did they offer it for free and why did he not want to take it for free and then it tells us the price meaning that they and we see that the price is so high they didn't just not give it to him for free and then they gouged him for 400 shekels which was a huge amount of money and isn't that exactly what happens to us like when we have confidence in hashem's promise to us people respond accordingly when we act and present ourselves as strangers and visitors in the land we're not here based on hashem's promise we're just sort of like trying to find our little piece that we can be on then the whole world calls us thieves and takes advantages of you know takes advantage of us in every negotiation perhaps when we read this story we can imagine another way it could have unfolded and maybe why watching the outcome of the way it did indeed unfold there's a deep lesson for us like imagine in an alternative Universe where avraham would have said listen folks thank you I appreciate you recognizing that I am here because Hashem promised me this land and you will be blessed for blessing me with this burial spot you are accepting hashem's kingship over you and your entire lives will now be meaningful and blessed in the service of the one true creator good for you imagine how that would have played out you know you'll see our partner at the farm told us a story on Shabbat about when he first came out here to this land that would eventually become the farm there was this Muslim shepherdist and every time he would drive by kept on screaming curses at him and usually he would just ignore her but one day he said I'm not gonna ignore her he stepped out of his car and he started to talk to her and he said why are you cursing me and she said why do you keep coming out here and he said well this is the land that Hashem that God promised us and then she said don't you know that this is land that's just dead nothing grossier but Thorns anyway and he said you'll see the land only gives fruits to her children and now that same village where that shepherdist came from they constantly come here to bless us and say their trees have never given as much fruit as they have in recent years it was with that kind of standing and saying yes this is hashem's promise that that relationship was able to switch from curse to blessing you know and I think maybe there's like a lesson here in life like any time you're willing to purchase something it's like it's like you're saying it's not really mine to begin with and how are you really going to convince the world that way the only way to convince people that you are the rightful owner to a place is to explain your actual ownership that is rooted in hashem's promise and it's got me thinking that maybe this idea transcends just the political israeli-palestinian land grab maybe this is a lesson for so many things in life like who more than us in these recent years has seen how tyranny will take away rights that we were given by God himself like our freedom over our comings and goings our freedom over our bodies and take those freedoms and then tell us oh yeah yeah hey you can buy them you can buy them you'll be able to leave your house you can travel you can work oh yeah if you just pay the price and by praying the price what are you saying you're essentially saying that those freedoms were never really your god-given freedoms to begin with so maybe there's this hidden message that in every sphere of life in our fight for the land of Israel and our fight for every single right that Hashem gave us as human beings if something is yours you mustn't be willing to pay for it and certainly not outrageous price for it because when you do that it's not really yours you're admitting that it wasn't yours to begin with and it's just a matter of time before someone starts to say that that freedom isn't yours and oh you purchased it and it was never really yours to begin with now we want even more and even more for you to be allowed to have access to that freedom or that right or that land so maybe there's sort of an ironic lesson here that we can learn from avraham's interaction and say to ourselves how are we going to stand proudly and present to everyone around us that we truly believe in all of hashem's promises to us and that everything we have is ours because of that promise so with that I wish you guys a beautiful and blessed week