The 42 Day Journey - Jeremy & Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

uh so here guys it's so much fun to see everybody because it's seeing new faces that we've just gotten to meet and seeing you know people on the fellowship and seeing people that we've known for a long time but didn't really get to know them until this trip so really excited to see all your beautiful faces um just a small idea on the torah portion we read we just basically when you think about it finished hashem's part of the torah all right we're about to start the book of devarim the book of deuteronomy and we're going into moshe's speech so hashem's direct message to us as being dictated to moshe as you know the first four books is coming to an end now and next week we're going to start moshe's last you know teaching to us right before we go into the land but as you know this last book is finishing i would kind of expect that it was going to be some you know love your neighbor as yourself or it's going to be you know a really deep idea about prayer but then we get to the last portion and it sounds like a map it sounds like we get from here to here and here to here and here to here and the torah portion is actually called ma which means the journeys it's basically just listing our journeys and that's kind of surprising when you think about it because you'd be expecting some profound message and that doesn't seem profound it's just a list of names of places that we went and rashi had such a beautiful rashi the great um commentator on the five books of the torah he has a beautiful parable to try to understand this he says it's as if hashem it's like a father and a son imagine if the son is sick and the father took the son on a long journey to get to a doctor to heal him and throughout the journey the son is like really suffering he's nauseous he has a headache he feels terrible but then he goes to the doctor and he gets better and then on their way back they're reliving this journey and the father as they're going through all these places says then remember when we went here remember when we stopped there and you weren't feeling well and remember when you stopped there because when they were on the journey it seemed so hard it seemed so difficult but in looking back at the end of the journey they're able to realize that all of it was for this purpose of getting to the doctor of having the healing he says it's the same with hashem he's taken us on this journey in the desert and while we're in the desert it feels impossible it feels so hard and so exhausting but now that we've gotten to the destination and we're about to step into the land hashem says remember when we were here and remember when we were here look at all we've been through together and we're able to look back and realize that hashem was carrying us the whole way and taking care of us and it was all in order to bring us to this greater good no matter how hard it seemed so even though this message seems kind of you know when you first read it sort of technical just like a list it's actually a really deep message to finish off these four books of the torah with to tell us it's important it's a value to look back on our journeys and reflect and spend time understanding how hashem was guiding us along the way and you know we're in the car now a lot we're crossing all the huge you know state of texas and and we uh while jeremy's driving i'm kind of now that like our trip is winding down i'm collecting all the pictures and uh you know seeing all the friends that we met and all the places that we were and i'm trying to set them up in an album and i'm sort of saying like day one i'm like jeremy i'm still on july 11th i can't believe it i've been doing this for hours and so it has it's like the parasite teaching is that this has so much value and there was just something that happened to us last week that i have to tell you guys just to understand the way that we're able to look back and see how hashem has been guiding us on this trip when we came on this trip our travel agent quoted us for a car and it was too much money jeremy knows i'm a bit of a cheapskate i love finding deals so i went online and i found all the deals and i got us a seven seater we get to america jeremy's like can you show me that model of that seven seater and i show him i'm like look look what a great deal i got and he says [Music] this guy's friends right here he's like guiding us on the way and as we've amassed stuff because we have to have our kosher dishes we have like our pots and pans and now the car got and we didn't know what to do because our son is coming to join us one of our older boys is coming to join us and they're literally you can't stick a pin in this car and then we got to our dear friend and stacey in texas and mike our friend mike looked in the car oh mike hey so mike looked in the car and he was so grossed out i'm not a mess our kids our kids looking at our kids our kids fall the amount of mess the kids made he took the car get it clean so kind and then a light popped on and said needs maintenance this is right before our son joins us he takes it to the dealership and they say well we have to maintenance the car we're going to have to upgrade you to an even bigger car and it just shows like each step of the way hashem knew exactly what we needed and you take just one more step and hashem guided us and looking back on that and reflecting just like in our parsha for me has been really faith strengthening oh that is a perfect um in course into what i wanted to say a faith strengthening and so i can't help but feel very connected to what's going on in the parsha because we're talking about maasai we're talking about the travels and the journeys and never in our life have we had with we're entering into week six of almost every single day a new city a new stop i mean i think we're gonna hit 42 stops on this trip we've just been traveling and traveling and going from place to place and here we are now and like entering into the tour portion of the travels and the journeys of maasai and i was thinking is that you that there are 42 steps 42 do you know how long ship is how long is our trip 42 days on the dot i don't know what to say what are you gonna do with that what are you gonna do with that i don't know okay exactly and so here we are trying to just align ourselves will find ourselves to be guided in our life and it really struck me actually last night was it last night thursday night was my last event that i spoke in houston and i've met so many people here that have gone on just the most insane faith journeys that it took everything from them it took all of their strength and all of their courage and all of their will and all of their family and things were taken away from them and things were given to them and some people had to make aliyah and some people had to leave a certain community that they were a part of and start new communities and just everyone has just some of the most inspiring stories and it struck me that that is the story of avraham that is the story of the people of israel on their way to the land of israel and it really is a faith journey and what is faith in hebrew because in western culture faith is much more about what you believe in a certain theology that you believe in a certain something that you believe in it's like believing in something but the original biblical faith i don't think was so much about what you believe in but how you live out your faith and if you think of the hebrew word i made a little slide for you here the word faith is and that means faith like i have faith i live by faith and that's the word mnf we can get that up on the screen that would be amazing and then but emunah has the same root as the word which means practice and we've spoken about that a lot that obviously your faith has to be translated into action it's not like some dislodged theology that we have and my actions are not reflecting of my faith if i really believe then i'm going to act it out in my life so really faith is how you practice that faith in the world but then the next word that has the same root as means loyalty and so what is biblical faith if we take all three of those words and we combine them into one it's we have moments of faith we have encounters with inspiration with what seems to be guidance in our life like i don't know eight months ago i just felt called to book a ticket to the united states and just go i didn't know where we were gonna go i didn't know exactly who we were gonna meet but i was just loyal to that calling and as we're going in the first week or so in america i didn't know we were doing here i had no idea what we were doing here just kind of trying to be loyal to that moment of inspiration that we had and avraham is called and he's walking from babylon to the land of israel has no connection with god he has no moment of inspiration he's just blowing that original inspiration he was given so many months ago and the midrash says devil himself comes to abraham and throws every type of doubt you think you heard god you think you can hear god you can't hear god oh you did hear god but you heard wrong you're going in the wrong direction i mean just like constant doubt thrown into abraham and losing need he needs that moment of inspiration where he feels called to go he needs to be loyal to that iman in action in imun and that is biblical faith and we've just been traveling around on our masai on our journeys throughout the united states trying to be loyal to the moment of faith that we had that called us on this journey and so what um a remarkable reality that we've met so many people from so many backgrounds that had moments of clarity moments of faith moments of an encounter with the truth and then to practice that truth with loyalty after the moment of inspiration is already gone and you're just wandering in the dark and you're just trying to stay true to what you knew was true at a certain point that is biblical faith that is the authentic faith that avraham lives through and that's what israel is teaching us as they're walking through the desert they really don't know where they're going they just have a certain light a pillar of fire that's guiding them way off in the distance and they're sort of like walking in that direction not really knowing is it going to turn right is it going to turn left and just staying loyal to walking in the light that god provides for them and as you can see on our journey 42 days and as we've gone each time hashem has provided us a way to enlarge our vehicle to find us the right places often we didn't even know where we were going to be this shabbat and all of a sudden we just were able to manifest such a beautiful shabbat with one of ari's best friends from childhood and now like another connection for the fellowship has kind of come full circle here and just every stop has been blessed and every stop has been sort of another spark firefly i really like that language just another spark that's being collected to kind of make the fire grow and so faith in action with loyalty being loyal to the moment of inspiration after the inspiration is gone but will in action to really walk out that faith that we have in our life just a certain general direction we're going never to feel like we've arrived that's really the message of the torah that we should always be in some sort of journey toward ourselves toward the land of israel toward our promise that god has for us and so you should all be blessed we should all be blessed to continue journeying on and who knows how hashem will take 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 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 in tehillah 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