Spiritual Evolution (Parsha Eikev) - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hi guys so you know this past portion of akev there's an interesting blessing that we get if we listen to the Torah it says in verse 14 you shall be blessed Above All Peoples there will be no sterile male or Barren female among you or among your livestock it's a striking blessing when you think about it it doesn't say it's going to be you know it'll be fruitful and you'll multiply it says that if we listen amendments and we listen to the Torah and we follow hashem's path there will be no barrenness now on the one hand it's like an amazing blessing on the other hand the whole Torah tells us stories of extraordinarily righteous people who struggled you know who struggled with their fertility uh you know I remember I once had a woman speaking to me and she just burst out crying saying I had a miscarriage and I'm struggling with my fertility but the Bible says that if we listen to the Commandments there will be no barrenness and of course I told her contrary the midrash teaches us that Hashem gave challenges to our matriarchs of Yearning For Children because there were they were the most beloved our matriarchs started the nation of Israel it wasn't a sign that they weren't worthy to be mothers it was it was because they had to go through those challenges to become who they were meant to be so it could be that this blessing is speaking about you know future Messianic time and it could be but at the same time I want to see if speaking to something that we can relate to right now maybe there's a message for us here and you know the first word of this portion of that word it's a word that in Hebrew means like a cause and effect something that stems naturally what stems naturally from this kind of righteous path that we're told to walk on what could be the prophetic message for us here it struck me that there seems to be a process going on of spiritual Evolution if in the past there's sort of survival of the fittest that favored whoever was the strongest and the smartest you know like if you were a good hunter or you were smart at evading Predators then you'd have more babies that would survive more than the other guy and so you would pass on your genes today with all of the technology we've you know lowered infant mortality it seems that we've moved into something else something of a survival of the most spiritually inclined if we look around the world the life is easier in every way even though there are countless Technologies to help infertility even though people have more of a social Financial Network than ever before even though we have more food almost everyone in the western world has shelter you think that you know you would think that families would be exploding but they're just disappearing and it seems that the world is dividing into two groups those who believe in raising the Next Generation and those who don't I'm sure it's not a surprise to any of you and this is something that many people speak about that birth rates are declining all over the developed world as the world becomes more educated and more wealthy birth rates decline we're at a point right now we're in the Eastern World China Japan Korea demographers predict that in 270 years the populations will be two percent of what they are today from a historical perspective 270 years is not even that much and the world as we know it would be totally different but it doesn't even take that long Europeans in 60 to 70 years in about seven years are going to be 60 percent la Less in population than what they are now and some people say well you know there are Rises and falls and birth rates this might change historically there has never been a population that dropped below replacement rate and still managed to recover it hasn't happened so it's hard to imagine that it will subtly happen out of nowhere in the secular industrialized world and as more of the world becomes educated and industrialized it's easy to imagine that this trend is going to continue now instead of fighting this implosion of humanity we see that the strong and the powerful economic forces in the world are actually pushing this agenda and they don't even hide the reason there is actually a deep hatred of humanity underlying decisions being made by world leaders today take for example Yuval Noah Harari the Israeli professor and author who is the highest level advisor to Claus Schwab to the world economic forum bringing together the strongest and most powerful people who make policy plans for the world he doesn't hide what he really thinks he tells us straightforward there's a great quote of him he says uh you know by you all know he says the useless class this is how he titles his speech the most important question in the 21st century economics May well be what to do with all the Superfluous people what will conscious humans do once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better this is something that they could talk about that humanity is actually a burden now if this is what the powerful Elite secular leadership really thinks then we can only look at what's left for us to do is to look at things that are happening in the world through that prism to make them make sense when you look at the war on simple biological truths the war on marriage the war on men being men and women being women I'm making families you think what the heck is going on why is this happening but then you say oh if the purpose is to lessen Humanity then everything makes sense okay then you might say surely the environmentalists they care about our health and want to help us flourish right well interestingly you can see that everyone seems to be focused on carbon emissions but conveniently ignore other parts of the environment like I don't know all the Plastics and the chemicals in the water and the food that are messing with everyone's hormones okay well surely the medical organizations the world health organizations they want to help Humanity flourish of course oh wait were they the ones ignoring all the vaccine side effects on female you know cycles and fertility oh no well here surely the technology companies want us to flourish well maybe if they're encouraging us young people to live online and to be on dating apps that encourage short meaningless relationships instead of getting married and starting families if you go one powerful secular institution to the next suddenly not everything is a head scratcher anymore everything actually works in a convenient Direction Jordan Peterson often quotes young in saying that if you can't figure out what is motivating someone and what they're doing look at the outcome of their actions and then infer backwards and figure out the original motive so if we see this happening before our eyes the world being divided between the secular vision of basically wiping out Humanity's saved but of course the few wealthy and Powerful useful people on the other side of hand we see that people of Faith are the only ones actually continuing to build families and they're the ones that are going to build future Generations now what is really interesting is to look at Israel on this because the verse in our portion says that Israel will be a blessed Above All Nations in a different way from all the other nations and there will be a special blessing of not having baroness what could that mean well every demographer in the world is talking about the relationship between education and fertility the more educated people are in a certain country the less children that country has every time they write it you'll see a little you have to put a little asterisk or a little footnote except saying except there's this one exception Israel here is the absolute single outlier that no one can seem to explain with regular scientific tools let alone Israel is known as the Israel fertility Paradox because even though Israel is one of the most educated countries one of the most educated countries in the world you don't see a drop in childbirth that you see in every other country that comes along with education even if you look inside Israel it's not entirely true the Muslim birth rate plummets with education in 1960 Israeli Arabs had an average birth rate of nine children per family and now it's three the Paradox is only in the Jewish population where you see continuously High birth rates unrelated to education you might say oh it's just those ultra-orthodox Jews no even secular and mildly traditional families initial have far more children than secular people anywhere in the world something about the biblical values that run even deeper maybe than someone's conscious identity that biblical ethos that's like in our blood it just goes so deep that it it gives us a love of family and of humanity there's this one article that came out there's a lot of articles that discuss this but there's one article from the Canadian national post I just loved I wanted to read you guys a little excerpt from it says when surveyed Israeli said that the ideal family size is three but in America Europe Australia the ideal family is two I have a lot of friends in Canada says the author who say they want to be Child free by choice or be one and done but those Concepts have not Concepts have not entered into the Israeli discourse why both moderately religious and non-religious couples are choosing to procreate so often in Israel is a mystery to demographers because it is in opposition to the trans in Europe North America and Asia the real secret to Israel's fertility rates appears to be cultural the family is at the absolute Center of Israeli life getting married and having kids is the highest cultural value any Jewish person in Israel or in the diaspora will attest to the immense pressure Demaryius if a great tragedy has happened to you if you have had The Misfortune of remaining single past 26 but most importantly children are seen as a blessing and not a burden I often hear my Canadian friends talk about the cost of having children and the terrible impact that humans have on climate change but I've never heard in Israeli do the same Israelis simply lack the kind of nihilism seen among young Canadians today about the future says this Canadian journalist despite the fact that they live in a land where they know they will have to send their children into the army at 18. they aren't afraid to bring children in the world but they believe that the only way to make a better world is to have children to many Israelis children represent life only life brings hope I thought that was a great article a great sanctification of hashem's name in the totally secular Canadian media where people are trying to figure out the meaning of this Israeli paradox what's interesting is that it's not only Israel we see that among bible-believing people there is still faith in family that hasn't been influenced by this Western ideology no matter how much they Pummel us with movies and books and articles and and you know none of it is really affecting true Torah Believers and there are pockets all over the world of people that see raising a family as the greatest privilege not a burden and they follow the example of Israel wherever they are in the world and so it seems that the world is Shifting to a situation where those who believe in the meaninglessness and uselessness of humanity and life are actually voluntarily opting out of the world out of the world itself and shrinking themselves down and there's a sifting process that will take place over the next decades maybe the next centuries where those who are spiritually inclined those who see Humanity as a gift those who see having a life of purpose of meaning of giving to others a life of service those people are going to have the natural tendency to grow and it fits so beautifully with the opening word of the portion active it says this is not a grand Miracle given to us by Hashem it's the natural cause and effect if you live by the Torah you will feel this love of life this hope towards future Generations you'll want to raise children into this beautiful world that Hashem has given us I once heard this great Parable by I think by Rabbi teller if I'm not mistaken and he gives him an image you have this overstuffed emergency room just patience everywhere moaning and groaning and suffering and there's a guy running towards the emergency room and someone sitting outside of the door says don't go in there person it's it's hell in there do you know what's going on in there there's people bleeding there's just it's overcrowded people are screaming people are suffering you don't want to go in there buddy you know if you go in there you're just going to be adding to the cast and then the guy shows him his name tag and says oh I'm a doctor I'm here bringing medicine and treatments and the person outside the emergency oh oh you're a doctor oh I'm so sorry to have delayed you go on in Go in fast they really need you so it's it's like that's how Torah Believers see having children secular people say who wants to bring children into the world is too crowded don't bring people it's going to cause climate change it's just going to make things worse you're not to have a family look at all the suffering in the world but a Torah believer says don't worry look at me I'm a doctor we're not here to add to the cast we're here to bring the medicine to the chaos that's how we see our families that's how we raise our families for a life of service to better the world people who have no meaning or Mission can't understand that because if they can't guide themselves to a light of life of of you know of service and Mission they certainly can't imagine having enough to give over to a child so they just opt out that's the natural outcome and in the end what the world really needs is those doctors for people to fill up their chests of Medicine by learning as much wisdom and guidance from the Torah so we can pass that down to the Next Generation to be Healers of the world and as we do that the blessing of this week's portion is just the natural outpouring of that so may there be no Barren one among us but rather a love of Life a love of humanity that keeps us centered and focused on our families as the core value in our lives so with that I wish everybody a great week bye guys