The Meaning of Abraham's Shofar on Rosh HaShanah - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

and now we have these monumental chauffeur blasts that we've just read in the torah but in the judean tradition in the sections of the torah that we read and in the prayers that we say we're pointed to a totally different shofar a shofar that we don't even hear and we're called to remember this other shofar and that's the shofar i want to talk about today i said anyone with the bible can find those other five chauffeur blasts in fact there are even a few more times the chauffeur has sounded but this other shofar in some ways unlocks the secret of rosh hashanah and you wouldn't stumble upon it in scripture and it's the ancient judean secret that ties everything together that gives us the ability to access the spiritual power of that day and so sometimes i think about this fellowship and i just cry a little bit i just i don't weep but i just tear up you know i think about the centuries upon centuries that the jewish people held onto the torah to shabbat to these ancient traditions of the temple in jerusalem these ideas and these wisdoms and against all odds the catholics tried to convert us and the muslims tried to submit us and against all we just held on to the torah and it's like we knew that one day it's like we held on to it for you we believe that one day would come and the righteous among the nations would join us together and jews and believers from around the world would learn together with us and this year it's like the day has arrived and the nations are learning together with us and you know it's just the jewish people are learning the secrets of the torah together learning to live by the spirit of the bible and the guidance of the torah together it's like this fellowship in some ways it's like our oldest dream come true and just in the nick of time during this global transition um people are casting their lot you know where are you gonna side you're gonna side with iran you're gonna side with israel that's what's happening in the middle east right now i mean where are you gonna sign you're gonna side with god you're gonna decide against god that's just what's happening now and israel is like that's the stake in the ground and uh here we are all of us together make claiming our stake and so um what a blessing to be here in these times and so the essence of the day that's what i want to talk about because it's a day for all of us it's not a jewish holiday at all i mean the the celebration of adam and eve it's the most universal holiday of all of the biblical feasts this is for us together to start our year off together with and so um the story in the torah and in the prayers the shofar that were pointed to the essence of this day were pointed to the story of the binding of isaac to the final test of abraham when he brought isaac as a sacrifice to god somehow in that story we're pointed to the shofar there but where's the shofar in that story it's like at the very end here's what it says and abraham raised his eyes behold a ram afterwards caught in the thicket by its horns so abraham went back and took the ram and offered it up as an offering instead of his son it's like that's that's that's not the story the story is the binding of isaac and it's like the climax has happened it's like no abraham don't do it you passed the test and it's like oh yeah at the end there's this there's this ram that gets stuck with his horns the horn of the shofar is stuck in this thing and that's what we're called to remember the horn of the sacrifice of isaac i wanna let's go into that because there's a deep secret there somehow abraham and isaac in this act give over the essence of the experience of rosh hashanah of yom but in order to understand we have to go a little bit back to really understand the context of this final test of abraham the story of abraham so i'm just going to give it over as concisely as i can and here we go abraham and sarah let's go they were just they were two independent thinkers they lived in a confused and cruel society with no truth and no moral structures kind of like the society that america is pushing towards right now and some people think no morality is just this natural feeling um but meaning that flame that can get so covered that you lose that natural feeling that flame that soul that's inside us that's a flame of god if you dust it up and you suffocate it and you cover it you can extinguish that moral flame and you know some people think no that's just not possible but sarah and abraham lived in a time where the most basic moral evolutionary intuition to guard your children wasn't even established in the hearts of fathers and mothers child sacrifice was the general practice of the world around them go figure where morality is go figure where any logic is that was the world of abraham and sarah and abraham looked like everyone else in ur he dressed up like everyone else spoke like everyone else abraham and sarah in a crowd they wouldn't have stood up they just looked like every other person but he was a seeker and he moved away from the big city and attempted to follow his intuition he didn't feel comfortable in the society around him he knew that something was off and so many of these the members in this fellowship that i've been in contact with i mean they are modern-day abrahams and sarah's living out this blueprint to the t you know they grew up spiritually oriented you know abraham was educated in his father's house tara who literally ran a business selling idols for worship so abraham was familiar with all the different gods of that time all of the rituals of that time that was their family business but something inside him wasn't settled he had a family business that was waiting for him to inherit and he left it all behind and in his contemplation and thoughts he saw that all the forces that people were worshiping they all come back to a single source to one god and he felt intuitively that the society around him just wasn't right and he began seeking and then he began teaching about the one true god the entire world was on one side and he was on the other side that's what the hebrew word evri means to be on an ever to be on one side on the other side and the whole world and it's like he had the courage to say i'm sorry all of you are wrong and i alone am right and the midrash tells us nimrod hears about this abraham and preaching about the one true god the creator of all things and the king at that time threatened that there's a god that might be above him he arrested abraham and brings him before judgment and nimrod says to avraham if you believe there's one god who rules over everything no problem i'm going to throw you into this fiery furnace let's see if your god can save you then and was that a foreshadowing of the story in the book of daniel when nebuchadnezzar throws the three jewish men into the fiery furnace only to be saved by the fire was that furnace of foreshadowing of the furnaces of auschwitz i don't know but there's something in this story abraham believed and you know he believed enough to leave his house he believed is not to preach it to others but there's believing and then there's believing i'm going to jump into the fiery furnace there's a giving toward a cause because you'll be blessed and then there's giving beyond yourself where you have nothing to gain giving because it is just the truth of your life and as abraham started his journey he was being asked are you ready to put it all on the line are you all in right now i want to know before we begin this journey together avraham are you ready to put it all on the line and of course avraham was saved from the fire he was released and his movement continued to grow and it grew and it grew and abraham began to amass wealth and followers and he started changing the world and until today how many people has abraham influenced these peace agreements are called the abraham accord and now at the end of his life he's called once again to give it all up to sacrifice his son his only heir he would lose everything obviously isaac is not a boy a young man he would lose everything he would give up his own life he would lose his son he would lose his wife he would lose his life's work all he preached was love and the end of child sacrifice in his last years finally he got this miraculous child and now he himself has to sacrifice his own son his entire life would be destroyed the final test avraham and isaac were there ready to sacrifice everything dear to them without the calculation of what they would receive in return it was a selfless dedication to their calling purchased pure giving now the shofar is the call of our soul we're asked to listen to the call of our own soul crying through the layers that are covering it up our impulses our egos our instincts our desires our habits our fears there's a call that is waiting to just break through avraham and yitzchak were fully dedicated to that call from within our true selves that avraham were not interested in money he wasn't interested in power or fame that call inside us it wants to love it wants to shine light it wants us to live our best life it wants us to give all that we got a new year's resolution isn't the word the rosh hashanah idea is that it wants us all in the chauffeur is calling us to stand for a moment fully dedicated and committed to the king bring us back to sinai anoint the king calling us to chuva it's like one moment we're like we are in we are committed to put the good at the top of my life's priorities i'll lose money if i need to i'm gonna be honest in my business affairs i'm gonna do whatever i need to do to orient my life to express good in every way that i possibly can when we hear the shofar the culmination of sinai the anointing of the king going out to battle against evil chuva and mashiach that is the story of avraham remember the story of our father who is the model to bring blessings to all families of the earth that is the concept of that avraham brought into the world through his life he brought this idea into the world he manifested to give beyond yourself to sacrifice of himself for what purpose only to draw closer only to go beyond yourself he was all in and so was isaac isaac a grown up young man was all in god was king and i'm ready to do whatever i am called to do to bring your light into this world i'm not interested in anything else i just want to be close to you i just want to do your will in my life i just want to be good i don't want what i want whatever you ask whatever i'm called to do to manifest your will to bring your light in your love in the world i love you with all my heart with all my soul and with all my might with all of my everything i am all in now we might not be able to live like that all year round but i want to start off my year with that is my aspiration fully committed fully awake when you are fully committed to a cause you are fully awake that's the essence of rosh hashanah when adam was like i'm awake i was life was breathed into me fully committed the jewish people survived 2 000 years of exile because we were all in we were ready to go when we needed to go and we were ready to be burned when we needed to be burned we rebuilt the land of israel because we are the children of avraham who gave us the gift of a total commitment to go beyond ourselves you know we hope that in the decisive moments of our life we choose to manifest the ultimate good but once a year we remember we bring it to the forefront of our thoughts total commitment to good we make god our king we go back to sinai and we know that this is the path that finally the great shofar of giulia will be blown the shofar of mashiach the shofar of king david and now judea is bringing this message of the shofar together with this fellowship bringing the torah from the judean frontier bringing all us believers together through the spirit of the bible fulfilling avraham's first calling to be a blessing to all families of the earth and what was his gift to us he gave us the blueprint of to give beyond ourselves without thinking what are we going to get in return but to give and give and go beyond why because god is our king because the ultimate good is what we want being committed to the good no matter what and i can't think of a better way going into this year than going into this year as a fellowship and so may hashem bless us to hear the calling of our soul inside us that wants so much to burst forth that wants to shine its light that wants to go beyond itself and bring light to everyone around us and know in this fellowship every person in our life you know maybe we'll meet about a thousand people in our life so think about that those thousand people know another thousand people we're two people away from a million people you know there's like this terrible nihilism that it's around the world it's like i'm just one of another 8 billion people what does it matter anyway that's not the right way to see the world that's not the torah way of seeing the world every family is its own unit every family has its own concentric circles around it every person is connected to a thousand people and those people to a thousand people every time we bring light beyond ourselves into this world we are affecting thousands upon thousands of people because we elevate ourselves and we elevate the people around us and if we go into this here we start the domino effect fully committed to good we light up worlds around us and that's the way we need to go into this here we can already see the spiritual ripple effects this fellowship is happening it's having spiritual ripple effects all around the world we are tapping into a certain flow of bringing believers together bringing the torah to the world how beautiful that we live in such an exciting time