Soul Map: Joseph, Yesod - Foundation - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and so this map was extracted from the stories in the wisdom of the bible and written into this map or this formula this code this diagram to transmit the heart and the essence of biblical life it sums up the aim of who a believer ultimately should strive to be in the world so let's just put the map up really quickly because what i'm gonna do today is we've gone through the three patriarchs we've gone through love and compassion we've gone through avraham yaakov and what i'm gonna do today is i'm gonna skip now all the way down to the second to last one which is represented by joseph because that's what we're learning in the torah now and yosef is yassod which literally means foundation it is the foundational virtue upon which this entire structure stands it's the foundational virtue of our soul that's why the word yasod is literally translated as foundation but i think the best translation for virtue in hebrew is called which translate in english as equanimity now i would like to translate that also as self mastery now what does he shavut equanimity what does that mean it means that you are such a solid foundational person you can't be moved good things can happen to you bad things can happen to you challenges can be struck sad hard ah you're unshakeable you're emunah your faith your inner world is so strong it can take any blow whatever surprise whatever disappointment it doesn't drag you down into depression or sorrow you are unshakeable your equanimity just all equal to you and this virtue is best expressed by king david in one of the most foundational verses in the book of psalms in psalm 16 verse 8. shiviti hashem le nigd that is written on i would say half of the arcs that the torah scrolls are in every synagogue either on the torah scroll on the arks or maybe above where the leader of the prayer where he stands shiviti hashem the [ __ ] i have placed hashem before me always but what does it mean i've placed god before me always shiviti comes from the word in hebrew which means equal why the word equanimity really translates here it means equal the word shiviti i've placed god before me but what that really means in a practical sense is everything that happens to you in your life you have god before you you know that everything comes from one source it might look bad it might look good it might look scary it might look hard it's all the same it's all good it all comes from the same source it's chavez it's all equal to me and my response is to hope to see the ultimate good that will unfold for this that is the story of joseph in a nutshell hardship after hardship after betrayal after injustice he never complains he never loses faith he always keeps his charm he's always positive he knows somehow god's plan is unfolding in all of this chaos and everything is for the good he is in total inner peace he's never shaken but i'm going to get to that soon now i want to share a short clip from an in-depth interview that i did for our fellowship members i've been working on this series like i told you now on this soul map for more than a year and in some ways i really think it has the power to bring so many believers together because it's aiming toward the spirit of the torah that transcends religious beliefs and traditional practices when i um studies about the virtues of ishtavut i was looking for books to go deeper into the subject and i found an amazing book written by an english-speaking rabbi in jerusalem by the name of moshe gerst the book is called it's all the same to me and what i loved about this book is that it is a 100 percent torah true book but the language is so universal it's accessible for anyone from any background it was a bestseller on the wall street journal's best seller list it's uncompromisingly judean and absolutely open kind of like our fellowship and just the fact that it made the wall street journal's best sellers list from an orthodox jewish rabbi in jerusalem and it's about the torah that is really really unique and that's just not a simple matter so first what i want to do is i just want to read a short excerpt from the book that explains the virtue of of equanimity here's what it says is related to the word chavez which literally means the same thus meaning sameness oneness or equanimity is the state of non-judgmental awareness you're able to totally accept reality as it is without labeling things as essentially better or worse it is the beginning of what it means to live in the presence of god it is the secret of life the baal shem tov known as the founder of khasidut describes the sameness as being the fundamental principle upon which all of spiritual development rests the 20th century spanish philosopher bacha even pakuda writes in his famous work duties of the heart that he is the most important spiritual practice and quality one can attain now when the baal shem tov says it's the foundational principle upon which what everything else lays he's really referring back to that soul map i believe that after we take love and truth and all of those virtues at the end it has to build our inner world that the floods can come but we're going to be rock solid for everyone around us we're going to be strong enough to take whatever blows life give us and we're not going to say this is horrible this is bad it's all from god and ultimately somehow good is going to unfold from this that is the foundational principle of joseph and so this is a short clip from the interview that i did for this fellowship i'm just going to give you a taste of it and then tomorrow i'm going to send you out the full interview from those of you that want to go into a 30-minute more in-depth study of ishtavu but just now to get a taste of this sweet holy rabbi and really to learn this foundational biblical virtue of hishtavut so here you are moshe gerst you know what when i first encountered the idea of devote was when i was meditating on the pasuk shiviti hashem the negri tamid i shall place hashem before me always and you know there's nine passages that i really carry with me all the time every morning i go over them they're like my mantras of how i want to live my life and when i learned that shivity isn't just that i placed god before me always but she beat me that everything that happens to me i see is equal the good that happens to me the bad that happens to me it's all from god it's all the same and i still feel like wow that's that's that's really quite an amazing way of not just to see god before you in your life what does that mean but when the things actually hit you to recognize that everything is coming from one source and so you sort of have definitions of what the real media or attribute of kish i just wanted to go over some of them that you write about in your book so the first thing you said was equanimity and then you spoke about harmony and so do you want to touch on those two ideas the way that i i interpret those is those are very um kind of completing each other because equanimity alone just means like all right i'm going to be stoic i'm going to let things happen i'm going to be calm i'm not going to get emotional i'm going to try to judge things as they are and but harmony is adding a whole other element in to the occurrences that happen to us it's not just equanimity it's not just a calmness or a stillness it's not just being sort of a little bit detached and removed from reality but it's also recognizing that there's sort of a an a harmony an alignment that if you're chauvet then you're not just removed and detached but you're also in line you're also living in harmony so i just wanted to hear your thoughts about that yeah i think you said it exactly right and that and i'm so happy that you you've you've kind of painted it and framed it in that way and that's why i i really hesitated when with using the word equanimity though it's probably the closest word you know that we could use to to touch on the subject as equanimity coming from the word equal right and and that sameness uh but it does have the almost the cold detached uh aspect to it which is kind of that non-judgmental you know full objective awareness of a situation whereas what what that's really about is coming into an alignment with it with a transcendent reality that there's more to life than what you see on the surface uh you know for me this whole last week as we're sitting here you know on a holiday that that's all about getting to know a deeper light in the world right there is it's all about this olive oil but olive oils come from olives right and in the talmud right it says that if one eats olives they may come to forgetfulness they'll forget things and yet olive oil is always a symbol of wisdom of hofma of a deeper knowing of life and the idea there is that if you get stuck on the outside of something right so that that allows you to forget what life is really about like the olive would be metaphorically the material world and just getting stuck on the outside so the first step is to actually take that step back and just see it for what it is and okay it's just the outer shell and then but when you were to kind of like squeeze life you realize there's so much more that's behind it like the oil that's hidden within the olive and that itself allows you to go deeper and you can use the potential hidden in the oil to get to a deeper light life is the same way so is not just about not being emotional but it's about connecting to a transcendent deeper reality um a light of knowing that you can you can be involved in the flow it's really about being in flow right with life that's that harmony that's that alignment and what allows you to do that i i like to think of this kind of like emunah this this faith and this knowing paper experience as the gatekeeper to to presence because that's really what this is about when you're fully present right and i i think i mentioned it there there in the book as well the name of god in hebrew right the way that it's spelled right yudk right um the tetragrammaton uh it the yud in the beginning means constant right many times throughout the year in the beginning can mean future tense but it could also mean to me d all the time and then the following three letters are have hey which means present so to be eternally present right which means to transcend and to kind of move away from the stories that we create the dramas that we create about life and say how can i rise above that and know that you know instead of being stuck in the micro of what's happening in this moment go into the macro no wait there's like a cosmic design a cosmic order there's there's a perfection and i think that's why you're absolutely right with me being yosef right being this vision joseph is the one who it um right rashi the metro says he was always saying thank you god thank you god thank you god hashem was always on his lips because he he was living in flow so it wasn't a lack of emotion which is obviously maybe kind of like the entry level but it's much deeper where it's i i i want to lean into life i'm leaning into it and that's the harmony that's the alignment that you're that you're picking up on over here which is um i'm not just one i'm certainly not going to stand in resistance to life and stand against it uh i'm definitely going to at least be objective but more than that i'm going to see things as opportunities i'm going to see things as messages as reminders as lessons leading me in a new direction that i want to go and this is you know i think that we describe this idea of like when um trials show up in front of us i like the acronym you know kind of roll with the punches right that life is sending us our reminders oh opportunities l um lessons and uh the other elves leading us in a new direction that's really the harmony in the alignment because you're not standing against life you're kind of moving with it so instead of trying to steer the river you just focus on your boat wow okay i just love that reminders opportunities lessons leading us in a new direction roll with the punches he's just a wonderful guy and i feel like he lives what he's teaching and so he'll be coming out to the farm in the near future i'll send out the full interview in the link tomorrow and i think you'll just absolutely love it because he's just as sweet as honey just a sweet sweet rabbi in jerusalem that is spreading the light to the wall street journal's best seller it's all the same to me that's the name of his book okay so now what i want to do is we're running out of time but this is so important i want us to put on our torah learning hats and i want to learn the tour together in this dimension understanding the biblical character of joseph not only as the father of the people of israel but as a living idea that manifested this godly virtue in the world to teach us that we should emulate so let's start with joseph equanimity self-mastery harmony flow balance all of those words really come to mind and when do we not feel those things in our lives i think when we don't see god i mean when we see spice carts all around us and we see green lights on our way in synchronicity and how everything is in perfect place and perfect timing and we feel so close to god so of course we feel harmony we feel and flow we feel balanced we feel excited in times when we don't see god that's when the test begins and that's how we're introduced to joseph he's the first of the patriarchs to not have divine revelation from god notice that abraham isaac and jacob all encountered god face to face god spoke to them directly he made covenants with them they had prophetic encounters in divine revelations of the highest order joseph was born into a time where god became hidden joseph did not have divine revelation he had dreams he felt like those dreams were his guide but his his father his family they didn't like those dreams they weren't accepted as prophecies i mean he's the first father of israel to leave to live without direct divine revelation because in that reality he stavert equanimity is the most important to keep god before you when god is nowhere else to be seen that's when that virtue has to be manifest so for joseph to fully express that in the world he had to be born into an existence where god was a little bit more removed and from his generation really until moses god goes away so joseph had dreams and those were his keys in life those dreams weren't just accepted um they were for him his his belief he never stopped believing them he like held on to them and there were voices that hated him for that they didn't want they didn't want him to share his fantasies but he gave us the formula for living like a biblical hero to dream to believe and to achieve everyone has to have a dream what are your dreams so many people are just floundering around the world bumping into things like what are the dreams for your life what are the dreams for your family what are the dreams for your home what are the dreams for your children for your career for your marriage for this world what's your mission in building the kingdom what's your dream you gotta have a dream but then you need to believe because there's gonna be naysayers you're gonna have brothers that are gonna bother you you're gonna have parents they may even be the biggest objectors to your dream it's not enough to dream you need to believe in the face of it all you need to believe that the cosmos are aligning themselves to help you achieve your destiny that's what um joseph's dreams were all about to dream and then to believe and then to achieve that's the joseph formula and i know that this formula has built the arugula farm it's the driving force behind this fellowship just a manifest dream that has somehow materialized and we all dream of bringing the torah from zion to the world and bringing a new unity to the world we believe the dream of the prophets will come to pass and through our belief please god will just continue to achieve it and joseph had no direct revelation his righteous his whole life he was betrayed by his brothers left for dead in a pit sold into slavery true to his moral code true to himself loyal to his master potiphar loyal to god he resists the temptation to lay with potiphar's wife and in return he's thrown into prison for a crime he didn't commit and you know there's a famous midrash that bothered me for years it's like while joseph was in prison and he interprets the dreams of the two inmates the cupbearer and the baker he begs the cupbearer to remember him and it sounds like for a moment that he complains in genesis chapter 40 verses 14 and 15 joseph says like this if you please mention me to pharaoh then you will take me out of this building for indeed i was kidnapped from the land of the hebrews and even here i've done nothing to them that they have put me in this pit and at the end of the portion it ends saying in the cupbearer did not remember joseph but forgot him and on those last words why did the torah need to say but forgot him just the cupberry didn't remember him the midrash says that god came and specifically punished joseph corrected him and made the cup error forget him why because joseph was the example to us of how to live in equanimity how to live in hishtavut happy is the man who places his trust in hashem that's how the midrash ends and so i don't think the midrash needs to be read literally but it's pointing out joseph one time he's human he loses his composure he looks to some egyptian prisoner to help him instead of realizing this whole scenario is unfolding for your release hold on immediately he's corrected for his own growth and for future generations to learn from his mistake that exception aside which makes for the good rule of joseph in all of the stories of joseph you never see him break a total sadiq unshakable he never complains he never cries out abraham had a dark terror fall upon him jacob was scared and distressed and as he approached asap he was just about to divide his camp joseph lived in total in total harmony he always lived with the big picture cosmic consciousness his dream was cosmic he always believed that a bigger plan that he couldn't see was going to unfold even though he couldn't see it himself even though he couldn't see god directly in his life what he taught us is that resistance leads to resentment and resentment leads to suffering he never resists he never resists he accepts reality as it is and he's just looking for the opportunity he's just looking to learn he's just looking to lead it in a new direction we have this amazing virtue it's the foundational one you know that if you've passed all of the code and then you've gotten to this last one that's the foundation of the whole building that's the goal that all of us become masters of self that we are unshakeable in our faith that we will be the rock that people can lean on in hard times and so another x that marks the spot on the map of our soul and that's a target that we should all aim at to be rock solid a foundation unshakeable the world around us now is so chaotic and the people we love most are going to be turning to us for love for support and for light and so may we all be blessed with the blessing of joseph to keep everything in balance keep everything in perspective to keep everything in harmony be strong enough for the loved ones who need us 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 there are 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 like 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 in 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 you