Soul Map: Aharon, Hod - Gratitude, Acceptance, Hope - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and i think it's important before we kind of go into this is to just take a step back because we haven't met for two weeks why are we learning this series again and there's two reasons everyone in this fellowship loves the torah loves scripture loves the dimensions and depth and meaning that we can find in this ancient text written thousands of years ago that is just declaring divine wisdom because it's speaking to people that are connecting with the technology all around the world in the most enlightened epoch of human history and this ancient text is still speaking directly to our hearts and in blowing our minds it's just how else can you explain that other than divine wisdom so we love scripture and this is another dimension of understanding how to read the torah and how to understand the bible that the characters of the bible they're not just historic figures or even spiritual guides but they're actually manifesting spiritual ideas their lives manifested virtues and each biblical hero is another aspect of our own soul and there's a spirit that underlies the entire project called the tanakh the hebrew bible and the spirit penetrates all of the laws the rituals the holidays the commandments and the soul map is the guide to the spirit of the law for if you miss the spirit you missed everything and so here is a beautiful paragraph that was written by abraham joshua heschel it's too big to put on the screen but i really want to read it to you because it's so articulate and it points to the heart of the matter here's what he writes it is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats religion declined not because it was refuted but because it became irrelevant dull oppressive insipid when faith is completely replaced by creed worship by discipline love by habit when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than it's the voice of compassion its message becomes meaningless and as i read that i just yes yes organized religion is collapsing in the western world churches are struggling to attract the next generation the intermarriage rate of jews in america has never been so high synagogues across the united states are closing up shop especially after coven jews are literally disappearing at historic rates if they're not connected to the torah it's like they barely stand a chance just to not disappear into the americana of the western world but fundamentally human nature hasn't changed and there's a massive movement of people jews and non-jews that are seeking spirituality seeking meaning seeking a deeper understanding to this world and abraham he's the father of israel the patriarch of the bible he didn't have an organized religion he was promised to be the father of many nations but he wasn't a jew he wasn't a christian and he wasn't a muslim he was called a hebrew and ibri which means someone on the other side he was different he was on the other side of society he was a seeker he was a thinker he was a believer and he had an intuition and he developed an ability to tune into an inner voice that was in harmony and aligned with the will that created the universe and his life's lesson was teaching us that we have that ability to god promised all families of the earth will be blessed through abraham his blessing to us was the spiritual path that he forged he taught every believer a way of being in the world and it wasn't judaism it was a way of living in a relationship with god that is the fundamental claim of abraham's life and the foundation of the bible you can hear god in your life not with your ears but through guidance in your life you can live a guided life as you develop your inner life and so your soul serves as like a spiritual antenna if you cover it up it's not going to work very well so the equation is really simple the more your soul is revealed the better the reception and so like food for the body the purpose of all religions is to nourish the soul to help it grow help it flourish help it shine the bible says we can't understand god but the bible promises that if we develop our inner world we can develop a relationship with him and that's the goal the relationship it it rests upon our ability to hold an inner tension to live in a state of struggle that's why israel is called struggle it's a dynamic living relationship of who we are now and who we could be if we follow that inner quiet voice that emanates from our heart once that relationship with the divine becomes just a religion or just a ritual it's over that's why the sages of israel say the torah can either be an elixir of life or a potion of death either assam or a sabha it's one way or the other once the torah or any religion just becomes a ritual it actually kills you spiritually and so the soul map is an attempt to push back against that religion and remind us of the relationship to help us get in touch with our soul and through getting in touch with our soul we get in touch with god and so this week on the soul map series we're going to reveal our second to last hero aaron the high priest and the goal of this series ultimately the goal of the book that i'm in the middle of writing the goal of all of these sessions is that you'll be able to look at one image one page one formula like uh a e equals m c square just something really simple and it could fit on a magnet it could put on your fridge you could put it on a bumper sticker you could put it on the on the back of a book just one look and it should remind you the entire torah in our mission in the world to reveal our soul and grow into who we were created to be can we look at the soul map for just a second let's just do a quick review so far we have done abraham isaac jacob let's see if i can open this up here for me hold on one moment abraham isaac and jacob moses and joseph and so abraham said love giving and compassion isaac was gevorah that's self-sacrifice restraint and discipline jacob truth the inner spoke that holds everything together moses netzach courage heroic leadership victory joseph we learned as he has sowed its equanimity and self-mastery today we're going to learn about aaron which is hod which is usually translated as glory but that is a really poor translation it's as good as one word could get but there's way too many layers into hebrew and that's what we're going to unpack today what is hood in our soul map if we want to reveal our soul what is that virtue that needs to be expressed and so hold his glory so if you wanted to say let's say for example your royal highness you would say the glory of the king but that word doesn't explain what it means for us in our own life what does it mean about our soul so first i want to explore the hebrew word because hebrew has this amazing ability to encode so many things within one word that reveal a deeper truth about reality and so let's start can we get hold up on the screen there we are so hold glory means to admit like you've committed a crime i'm admitting i admit to the truth of whatever the truth is to admit the same exact word the same exact word is gratitude so let's that's deep already we're getting somewhere in the root of the word there just the two letters head means echo like when your voice goes out and it comes and bounces back at you and so let's go into that a little bit glory admittance thanks echo now they're all interconnected and if we can piece the pieces together we're going to get the full picture and then from then all we'll need is one word hold and that'll tell us the whole story so first let's talk about code as admittance now first the ultimate acceptance is recognizing that life is a gift and at our core we should be grateful for every moment we're alive that is giving glory to god but justice is an act of giving if we look at that map gemvura is an act of restraining so there's two sides there to the spectrum one is to give to go out and one is to hold back so so too nets is to be courageous to be a leader to act hard is different it's to accept reality as it is it's to admit this is the case i got it i'm surrendering now it's an act of submission and recognition the things are out of our control now let's say interpersonally netza would be um to to win hode is to accept um nissan would be like you want to win an argument a debate with a friend that's nexa but hold would be to listen to empathize listening to the other person objectively without judgment without your own narrative just listening even being able to echo exactly where that person is being with them fully i mean i have a funny story there was um a couple's therapy that we discovered years ago in our early 20s it was called imago and when teal and i were in our early 20s we always went to different couples weekends working on our relationship and figuring things out i had a lot of things that i needed to figure out and work on and um we were introduced to this exercise and this uh really therapy called imago and the exercise was seemingly really simple you just had to repeat what your partner said tehila was supposed to say a few sentences and then my job was to listen to what she said and then just mirror back what i heard and say what she said and i thought to myself well that's just ridiculous just to repeat what she says any monkey could just repeat something i was so bad at imago i don't know what to do with myself and of course tehila and i were chosen to demonstrate in front of the entire room and i was by far the worst person in the room it was comical how bad i was i just could not just act as an echo i couldn't i was like i'm the worst listener i couldn't listen i'm just constantly saying whatever i want to say it was i just kept on getting in the way it was just disastrous i just i don't really get embarrassed it's hard to embarrass me but making me do imago in my early 20s was about as embarrassing as it gets for me and then thank god there was like some guy in the crowd that saved the little pride that i had left and he said this joke he's like you know saying that jihadist terrorists when they go to heaven they get 70 virgins what do women jihadist terrorists get 70 men that will actually listen to them and so that sort of like broke the ice and then the woman's like okay this couple's not really getting this does this okay new couple up in front of the room and they'll teach you how to do it so that sort of saved me from myself but that's what it means i'm a pretty good talker not very good listener so hode is rooted in the word echo because that's what it's saying it means to be an absolute objective reality and an echo not only interpersonally represents empathy but it also represents reality a voice goes out into the world it's going to hit a wall and then it's going to bounce back reality is unmoving we think we can manipulate it we think we can change things reality is the way reality is in it's entirely out of our control albert einstein famously said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results that's the famous albert einstein quote yet i know in my personal life sometimes i like bang my head bang my head into the same wall over and over again i i sense it mostly with my teenagers where i'm just like banging my head into the wall here and just not working when i should just admit the truth that i already know in my heart that some things are out of my control and i just need to accept reality as it is right now and aaron the high priest represented hode he represented this attribute um in the highest order the entire book of genesis is a contrast to aaron the entire book of genesis has brothers fighting over their position ishmael wanted to be then asap wanted to be and then jacob and then the brothers and joseph and they're jealous and they're fighting fighting fighting fighting fighting the whole book of genesis our brothers fighting and then here we enter into the book of exodus and aaron the older brother the more respected brother is passed over and moses is chosen to lead the people of israel aaron's response when he sees moses when he sees moses return his heart is filled with joy look at exodus chapter 4 verse 14. can we get that up on the screen is not aaron the levite your brother i know that he can speak well and look he is also coming out to meet you when he sees you he will be glad in his heart just it was just unconditional love that aaron showed to moses he accepted reality exactly what it was he just let it be and then he was able to love and in fact that love captivated king david's imagination centuries later when he wrote one of the most well-known psalms in the world today but people don't always really dig deep enough because they only read the first two sentences they don't really get what king david was trying to give over and in that we can really understand aaron's greatness and then moses greatness in turn so let's put up on the screen psalm 133 for a second i love this song behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity it's like precious oil upon the head running down on the beard the beard of aaron running down on the edge of his garment it's like the dew of carmon descending upon the mountains of zion for there the lord commanded the blessing life forevermore now if you don't know the story of exodus properly you can't possibly understand this song what's happening here there's beer oil running down the beard of aaron like what's that about the image here are two brothers moses and aaron standing before the entire nation as they prepare to inaugurate the tabernacle aaron who is the older brother was passed over but so happy for his brother moses to become the leader in redeem israel and now moses was passed over and his older brother and his children forever were chosen to become the high priests and priests of israel and moses is standing and his brother is there to take his leadership position before the people so proud of his big brother moses takes the oil and anoints his big brother it's like the ultimate picture of sibling togetherness brothers together loving each other no jealousy just love king david says it's like the duke of german that's the dew of the northern kingdoms of israel the northern tribes are from ghana it's like them coming upon the mountains of zion in judea that's the love where god commanded the blessing to rest life forevermore when finally all the tribes can come together one solid unity one family unit one nation and aaron he was the one that prepared the vessels for that love to exist he lived with hood by accepting reality that moses was chosen to be the leader he was just truly able to be happy for his brother and when almost every other sibling relationship ended with sibling rivalry theirs ended in the psalms of king david showing the whole world what brotherly love is in fact we also know that aaron so much lived with empathy in submission that he surrendered to the will of the people that assisted them to build the golden calf i mean aaron wasn't punished for that not in scripture not at all he still became the high priest of israel so in scriptures eyes he assisted the nation of israel to build a golden calf and he did nothing wrong there he was living out his virtue that he was meant to manifest his own truth and he did what he thought was best for israel at that time the midrash says that if he had tried to overcome and he didn't manifest his true virtue of acceptance and he would have tried to be courageous and rise up against the people the nation would have killed him and the nation would have never been able to recover and repent for killing aaron and so he accepted reality as it was empathized with the nation and he lived out that virtue for all of us to know that that is a virtue we have to be able to embody in our own lives and i want to point something out about this map because the map is is a brilliant map and you can see a lot just by looking at it for a moment can we get the map up on the screen for just a minute if you look on the right side of the map you can see um excuse me if you look on the left side of the map you can see the gevora of isaac who embodied self-sacrifice in restraint that's connected to the surrender and acceptance in the admittance of hode that aaron represents that's why they're above each other both on the left side on the right side we see abraham's unbridled love and giving and then underneath that you see moshe courageous leadership in victory is that's they're they're all interconnected it's almost like a spectrum that moses is there to act and aaron is there to accept and you know there's a lot there's um you know this map means so much to me at this point because i've been working on it for so long it's already now the third page of all of my journals and i just look at it for a few moments every day and it just helps me align with who i want to be what are the virtues that i want to accept upon myself how i want to live in the world what is the spirit that the bible is trying to bring out in us and i remember when i first got the message that our vineyards were going to be destroyed and i remember one of the partners at the farm said okay this is obviously something that's out of left field it's beyond our world it's something that's happening at a higher realm we'll just pray and we'll accept whatever the decree is and i said okay that's right for him and then i went inside and i said well really what is what is what am i supposed to do and what came to me was to lena i am going to fight i am going to win i'm going to work as hard as i can and do whatever that i need to do and i'm just going to draw on netsuck right now and i'm going to try to lead this battle together with ari to fight for our vineyard with everything i got and now my partner didn't do anything wrong i don't know we're both just following our inner guidance system but what the map helps us do is to know what are we even working with here what are the virtues at play the clarity and the simplicity of it all allows us to go inside and know how are we meant to live and so i want to go one step deeper now to aaron because more than a person aaron was an idea he held this position the high priest and facilitated all of the spiritual service of the nation in the tabernacle that would ultimately become the temple and the virtue of pode is the most fundamental idea in the worship of god let's get the slide back up again just a so i said means admittance so we spoke about that but the next one is the same word as gratitude to admit and to give thanks they're the same word now why is admitting the truth the same word is thank you in hebrew because there is an ultimate truth to human life most people forget it every once in a while and a lot of people straight up deny it the truth is that this life is a gift we were given life and life can be hard but ultimately life is so good we didn't earn it and with all the challenges and struggles of life we're so fortunate to have been given this gift and the proper upright response is to be mode to admit to the truth and then to be modain and to thank our creator for this truth that our life is a gift we didn't do anything to deserve the gift sometimes it takes a trauma a near-death experience to wake us up to remind us how precious life is and how much we want to be alive no matter what the challenges are every day with our children every day with our spouse every day with our loved one we're alive we're healthy it's a gift thank you and you know my father is a neurologist an expert on the human brain and neuroscience discovered that the brain works like a network of roads and the more often you think along a certain neural pathway the more well paved that pathway becomes that's what's going to happen it leads to an increased tendency to repeat that same thought pattern and the cycle goes on so the more you think in a certain way the more you're going to think in a certain way and so most people have developed mental highways towards stress fear worry concern fear about the future regretting about the past and we have like dirt roads toward gratitude and thanks and if you've read my book the judean art of waking up we're guided every morning to control our thoughts and the first thought of the day that generates the first feeling of the day is gratitude it's the first words that come out of our mouth thank you god for another day and over time the more you practice gratitude the more you become grateful and the happier you are that's just the way it works and it's ultimately when we say it's the base of the service of all worship a sense of gratitude it leads into another emotion that's called indebtedness what's indebtedness what's the difference there it's two different words indebtedness is a sense saying ah i'm being called to some sort of action to give back i feel in debt i'm so grateful i feel already that i have a debt that i need to repay that feeling right there that is the prophetic biblical orientation toward life in the natural orientation of our soul you admit that life is a gift you're modest you are mode then you're thankful for the gift that you have so much so we're so thankful we want to give back ah you want to give back here's the torah go spread the light go help the widow in need go help the poor go give your wife a hug bring some more love into the world you want to give back for this life spread the light that's exactly that's where the torah comes in it's not a law that was imposed on us from above it's actually something from inside us that we're so grateful to be alive that we want to give back for the gift we've been given and that's why aaron the high priest who represents all spiritual work at its core is hold at its core is gratitude it's the base of all service of god that's why the sages of israel say all the sacrifices are going to be cancelled in the future except the korban except for the sacrifice of thanks because at the core of every sacrifice is gratitude and as long as we're alive we should be thankful and you know the soul that it's teaching us the natural state of our soul it's thankful like if you take away all the stuff and you just live life for a moment and you're just where you are now not thinking about the future not thinking about the past and you just let life be for a moment thank you that's when you know you're centered again you're just your natural self that's why the word yehudi to be a jew is to be thankful it's the same word in ud it's all the same thing that's why the king of israel comes from the tribe of judah to teach us all that the proper posture of man in the world is to be in a state of gratitude that's the right way to be and when you see people especially young people i'm getting old and those young real young people but you see young people now and they're just they walk around feeling so entitled and it rubs everyone the wrong way everybody i'm saying watching not this everyone's like nodding their head yes yes those millennials yes yes that is just really annoying of them there's nothing wrong with feeling entitled like you deserve something it's not proper it's not upright we can see that something is off so gratitude it's not just another emotion it's a godly virtue it's the spirit behind every mitzvah that we're commanded to do it's the way we truly give glory to god that's why the word ultimately means glory and the way for us to shine god's light into the world is to live in that state of gratitude and so with that we now have almost the entire map out before us of how we are meant to form ourselves into the world how we're meant to reveal our light in the world it's like the spirit behind all of those characters our different points in our life and every morning i wake up with kind of a decision and i look at that map and i'm like who do i want to be today because i ask myself three questions every day what do i need to do today what do i want to do today and who do i want to be today those are three really awesome questions to ask every morning and i do that every morning it's a part of my prayer and okay what do i need to do everyone pretty much does that they gotta make a to-do list of all the stuff they gotta do what do i want to do that's nice it's important to remember that question too but the third question is really is like a game changer who do i want to be today and when i look at the soul map i'm like who do i want to be today i really want to be courageous today so many people around me are fearful i just for today i'm going to manifest courage and i'm going to manifest a lot of love i am going to love on everyone that i see today and so the soul map really just helps us point directly to the virtues that we want to be that we need to be that the world needs us to be and it brings us right to the heart of it all and so hode is the last one before arguably the most important one which is king david but that's the basis right there it's it's gratitude it's to just live with the acceptance of life as it is and whatever the challenge is around us it's gratitude that's why aaron and moses they manifested those virtues in slavery in egypt in hardships because courage and gratitude are most important they are most manifest when times are tough so when times are hard when we shine a light of gratitude even then it's like a neon light in the dark that shines up everyone else around us and reminds them you know hell is kind of depicted as a bottomless pit and things are hard and things are challenging it can always get worse it can always get worse so there is always reason to be grateful wherever we're at there's always room to be great 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 they're 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 lo 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 calen ardell 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 century 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