Receiving is Easy, Carrying is Holy | Land of Israel Fellowship

I couldn't help but to think about my time in the army during my initial mandatory service. Not the many many months I've served in reserve duty since then. You know, we go in when we're 18 and we serve a year and a half or three years or whatever it is. And so many of you know that I served in the Golani infantry unit in a battalion named Gideon, named for the very judge we read about not long ago in the Prophets of Israel Daily in the infantry. Not just my unit, but in all of the infantry in the Israeli army. There's a thing we did again and again that I will never forget as long as I live. And it's called the Masa. Masa. Masa is I guess it means like a trek or a march. The Hebrew word, listen to this, masa is from the same root as naso, right? To lift, to carry. On a masa, you march for hours through the night with everything on your back, full gear, full weight. And the hardest part, the part that breaks many a man is the stretcher, the al-una. Here's a video of what uh one of those marches look like. That is actually from Shayet at the Navy Seals. They do it through the water on the beach, which made it even harder. But um but that it was pretty much the same across all of the units. You load up you load up the aluma, the stretcher. Sometimes with a soldier on it, sometimes uh with sandbags to simulate the weight of a of a soldier that's wounded. And a small group of you have to carry it together up the hills, through the dark, through the valleys, over the rocks. And the sandbags, they're the worst because they tend to weigh more than most soldiers. And if you're carrying the sandbags, you aren't even consoled that one of your fellow soldiers or eventually you will be the guy on the stretcher, right? Because when you're on the stretcher, at least you get a much needed break. And so we all suffered on those marches. But when the pace picked up, I think I may have suffered more than most. I was always preferring the slower pace with a heavier carry than faster pace without carrying. I was just built for shleing things, which is why this hernia has been so difficult for me. But I'm addding. The bottom line is there was no one that didn't suffer. So here's actually a picture of me finishing my final masakuma to get my beret where we uh earn our, you know, the brown beret in the Golani unit. That's me all the way back then. I actually remember getting so dehydrated and depleted on one of those final marches that the medic in my unit, a guy named Ya, had to give me a saline infusion to rehydrate me numerous times. That's the guy. That's right. That was my medic in my unit who I trusted with my life. Truth is, I really did trust him with my life. Incredible guy. And here's what I learned on those marches. I that I learned that, you know, you don't learn things like that you learn in the army anywhere else. And and when you are carrying that stretcher and you feel like you cannot take one more step when your shoulders are screaming and your legs are gone, the only thing that gets you up that hill is that you're not carrying it alone, right? The soldier beside you takes more of the weight and you start to fade. And when he fades, you take more. Nobody says a word. You just feel the load shift. You know, you can feel your brother lean in and somehow together you carry what no single one of you could carry alone. And I really believe that that's part of the secret of the Levites. That's why they were counted family by family, each carrying their assigned peace. Because the Mishkan, right, the tabernacle, which was the dwelling place of God in the world, when the nation was traveling through the desert, was never meant to be carried by one person. It was meant to be carried by a nation. Each one lifting their share, each one leaning in when their brother beside them was was fading. And I have to I have to bring it back home for a second, my friends. There were just so many things about this fellowship that popped out to me. But that really is what this fellowship is about. You see that, right? We're carrying something really holy together. None of us could carry it alone. But week after week, when one of us fades, the others lean in. I've seen it more times than I can count. So when when when one of us is broken, the others take more of the weight. Maybe we're like the Levites of this generation, right? scattered across the world carrying the dwelling place of God through the wilderness of this age together. Right? And and I'm not just saying this. There's something deeply redemptive about what we are building here. I don't fully understand it yet. There are times I feel like it. I feel it, but I I I don't really understand it. And I think that with time the death the depth of it will be clarified. I'm just not even sure we're supposed to really understand it yet, if you know what I mean. But anyways, let's bring shaveot into this because that's really what what brings this together at least over my experience of the last couple days, right? What are we experiencing on Shàuot? On Shàuot, we celebrate matan torah, the giving of the Torah. And notice the language that we use there. We don't only say that, you know, we that we received the Torah. We say that the Torah was given because the sages teach a very powerful truth which is that receiving and carrying are not the same thing. Right? When you at Sinai the entire nation heard the voice of God as we read in in Deuteronomy chapter 4. Has any nation ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you heard and lived? And my friends, we know that on some level we know this that we were all there, right? Not only those who stood there physically, but the soul of every single one of us, every single person who is really truly connected to the nation of Israel, every single Jew who who would ever be as we see in uh Deuteronomy chapter 29. And not with you alone do I make this covenant, but with whoever is here with us standing today and with whoever is not here with us today. Right? Every single soul that ever would be, we were all there. We all received. But here's the beauty I think within that and here's the challenge of it. Receiving a gift in a moment of fire, that's one thing, right? But carrying it for the rest of your life through the ordinary days and the boring days and the hard days when you may not see that fire or feel the flames, that's something else entirely. That's something else entirely. You know, someone out recently asked me, I think it was on one of the Judeian diet support group or I don't remember where it was about counting the omare and she was saying that she's counting those 49 days but she's not really feeling it. And I was reflecting on said well a lot of the times on my journey with God I don't feel it. I don't it's just true. But I think that's part of what's built into this relationship that it's a real relationship. And sometimes even when you're not feeling it, that is part of the test. That's part of the journey about whether it's real. You know, there's a teaching I love that the entire purpose of the wilderness journey was to transform a nation of people who had received the Torah into a nation capable of carrying it, of bringing it into the land, of planting it, of of living it, of of living it in in the dust and and the fields, of living it in the marketplace, of living it in your home, right? Because the Torah was never meant to stay on a mountain, right? Right? A tour that stays on the mountain is it's just an inspiring memory. The whole point, the entire revolution of what Hashem did at Sinai was to take the holiness of the celestial realms of the heavens and bring it down the mountain and walk it into the world. And that exactly that is the meaning of what Dvash did in the wheat field. She didn't it's she didn't just receive a lesson about the poor and then weigh whether to apply it. Right? And by the way, I'm not giving her even credit for this. This is just part of the journey of the nation of Israel back to the land of Israel, of the Jews back to Judea. When Hashem is giving us a heart of flesh and taking from us a heart of stone, it's just happening. The Torah was so deeply carried in her heart that it came out as instinct, as reflex, as the most natural thing in the world. She wasn't admiring the Torah from a distance. She was carrying it in her body. Right? Right. And I and I think that for each of us at our own levels, that's what Hashem wants for every single one of us. Not just from us, but for us, right? Not not a Torah that we received once in a moment of fire and left up on the mountain. My name is Ari and I live here on the edge of the Judeian frontier. And just as the prophets foretold, the mountains of Judah are coming to life. The in gathering of the exiles is taking place right before our eyes. And the final prophecy is manifesting as the righteous of the nations are coming together with humble hearts here in the land of Israel fellowship. And now I'm inviting you to join us along with hundreds of Jewish and Christian families from all around the world to experience the beauty and the holiness and the magnificence of our fellowship. So click below so you can taste the beauty and the holiness that is happening on this mountain.