The Mystery of the Dark Roots of Redemption - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

shalom my friends more than ever in my life i feel like we're on the cusp of redemption you know sometimes i hesitate to say the word redemption because it's such a loaded word it means something different to everyone and to many people it's a heavily religious word with abstract theological implications and i myself cannot claim to know what it even fully means but since moving to israel since starting our mission out here on the judean frontier i've tasted it i've felt it i've touched it more than ever before so the question i want to touch upon is exactly that what does redemption mean what does it really mean so to answer this question we need to go back to the very beginning we need to look at some of the initial seeds from which redemption sprouted from which redemption is sprouting to understand the true nature of redemption to even start to understand the beginning of what redemption truly means and i think you'll understand and you'll agree with me that the closer we look at the roots of redemption the more surprisingly and unexpectedly dark they are because when talking about redemption you would expect perfection and holiness and nobility not the sin and the darkness that we actually find now the first place to start in this long journey towards redemption would be at the beginning of the exile the beginning of sin when adam and adam and eve ate from the tree and were exiled to the garden of eden because from the minute of their banishment the long history the story of the return of mankind begins the the redemption of mankind is a more beautiful story than the human mind can even imagine now we can we've touched on this before and for time constraints i won't dig too deep but one thing that i believe all sages agree upon is that while adam did disobey god and it was an act of evil and a terrible mistake his intentions were good as we discussed before perhaps he felt the lechambusha as our sages explained the bread of shame that he felt unworthy and undeserving of this blissful prophetic experience and wanted to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in order to infuse within himself that evil so he would be able to overcome it out of his love for god in order to serve god in order to be able to do something anything for god so he eats from the forbidden tree and is banished and the story of redemption begins the next dark route of redemption i want to discuss is the story of lot and his daughters their mother turns into a pillar of salt and their home is destroyed traumatically before their eyes their entire city is destroyed before their eyes they find themselves in a cave with their father and our sages tell us that they truly believed that they were the last people on earth that the entire earth that all the world had been wiped out and so in order to propagate mankind they violate the severe biblical restriction and abomination of incest and they lie with their father and bear children by him the younger one names her son moaf meaning from the father she names him after the sin itself and why does this qualify as a root of redemption because who emerged from moab many generations later ruth the great grandmother of king david the next stop on the journey of dark redemptive roots is the story from last week's torah portion in which yehuda judah gives his two eldest sons to tamar and due to their sin and their unworthiness they die he's supposed to give his youngest and last remaining son to tamar but out of fear he doesn't leaving her unable to remarry and just in limbo she boldly takes matters into her own hands and poses as a prostitute along the path which she knows judah will travel and judah shockingly solitus solicits the supposed prostitute and from this union came paris from who came boaz the great grandfather of king david and not only the genealogy of king david but the continued genealogy to the eventual mashiach through his son solomon for solomon was the son remember of batsheva whom king david took in a sinful manner that at the very least appeared to border on adultery so we see that the messianic roots the very seeds from which redemption is blossoming come from such darkness as being connected to incest prostitution adultery disobedience how can such a thing be why would hashem orchestrate the redemption of mankind through such dark and sinful roots so if there's one verse in the torah that i believe answers this question it's in this week's torah portion it comes in the wake of what i believe is the most dramatic and emotional moment in the entire torah when joseph reveals himself to his brothers they're stunned they're confounded beyond words their mind couldn't have even thought such a thing was possible and now their minds are whirling with confusion and disorientation disbelief even fear this is joseph would he take revenge on them does he hate them for their horrific sin against him and in the first and greatest act of forgiveness in the entire torah or perhaps in all of history joseph says in chapter 45 verse 8 so now it was not you who sent me here but god and he has made me a father to pharaoh and a lord of all of his house and a ruler throughout all of egypt joseph forgives them rabbi sachs may his memory be for a blessing points out the genesis is a thematic revelation of evolving family relations particularly between brothers cain and abel rabbi sax explains ends with murder isaac and ishmael ends with them standing side by side bearing their father abraham together jacob and esau ends with them meeting and embracing but then going their own separate ways but only now in the story of joseph is their complete chuva complete repentance and profound forgiveness which culminates in the brothers living together and coming back together as brothers and his family and his family far stronger than they ever were before and i believe that the only way joseph was able to completely and thoroughly forgive his brothers is because he has internalized the truth of hashem to his very core as i've shared before maimonides he says that the greatest distance in the world is the distance between your head and your heart you can know a truth in your head but internalizing that truth into your heart well that's a life mission that may be the primary purpose we're here in this world as deuteronomy davarim tells us in chapter 4 verse 39 know therefore this day and consider it and internalize it into your heart that hashem is god in the heaven above and upon the earth beneath there is no other because of his complete faith which he's nurtured and refined over the past 22 years of slavery joseph believed or even knew that everything that happened to him was from god and is therefore good his knowledge of this truth was so thorough and internalized that he was able to forgive his brothers and love them with a complete heart without any doubt or grudges or reservations the only way such forgiveness is possible is by fully integrating the truth that everything is from god and everything is good as we've mentioned before gam zulutova this too is for the good in this one pivotal moment we see true repentance and true forgiveness repentance in judah who was transformed from a man who sold his brother into slavery and to a man willing to be enslaved to save his brother from it and forgiveness in joseph who embraces his brothers comforted them and assured them that everything that happened was from god i remember very very early on in our journey jeremy and i were speaking to a christian group in jerusalem and after my speech a german woman came to me with tears in her eyes and she handed me a note and i'll never forget it was written with bright red marker i've been looking for it ever since and it said please forgive us for the horrible things that we have done to your people the jewish people please forgive us please forgive us she handed me this note she looked in my eyes with tears dreaming down her tears streaming down her cheek and she said we are so sorry i was so shocked i never experienced anything like that before i didn't know what to whether to say thank you i didn't know what to think i didn't even know if responding was even my place and the more i reflected on it the more i realized that true forgiveness and true repentance go hand in hand for maimonides explains the true repentance happens when the center finds himself in the same situation in the same circumstance but rather than take the path of evil they take the root to righteousness i'm sure that you've heard the remarkable story of the germans who volunteered to help us build up this mountain when i asked them why was that why they were here why us they said that after all the horrific things that their parents and grandparents that their nation did to the jewish people they wanted to come out to here and to bless us and build and to bring life they said that that here on the judean frontier this is where the world is the most against us and so this is where they want to stand with us just this morning right behind me right now this very morning germans came out again to bless us and what do they want to do it's difficult to imagine such a thing but they want to build this beautiful pergola deck jutting out behind our house of prayer this is them right behind me they want to build this beautiful pergola deck overlooking the the valley of arugot where we can host weddings in the hills of judea fulfilling the prophecy that jeremiah shared in chapter 33. he said thus said the lord again there shall be heard in this place in the cities of judah and the voices of gladness the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride the voice of those who shall say praise the lord of hosts we've been singing these words at weddings in the exile for thousands of years that there would be weddings in the hills of judea but then they were just words of yearning and prayer and hope against all odds and now we're singing them here in judea and who is helping us to bring these words to life the source of our greatest persecution the german people right here behind me and it's fitting because it was germans that contributed to building the house of prayer the the house of prayer and the synagogue itself for my entire life i'll never forget that day in which my eyes beheld hamad an arab descendant of ishmael hand a stone to tomas the grandson of a nazi and a descendant of esau who handed the stone to abu kamal descendant of ishmael who handed the stone to tomas a descendant of esau ishmael and esau our two brothers who have been the greatest sources of our persecution building a house of prayers for jews in judea with which israel can bless and be a blessing to the entire world if that's not a taste of redemption i don't know what is so why my friends must the flower of redemption blossom from such dark roots because without those dark roots redemption itself would have been impossible would have been meaningless only by looking back now and seeing the undeniable and irrefutable hand of god in all our troubles and all our sorrow can we raise the sparks only by looking back at our persecutors with hearts of love and forgiveness can we reveal the hidden light that has remained hidden throughout history that light that light is the light of redemption in hebrew the word for exile is gola here i wrote it up right here i hope you can see it the word for exile is go la gimmel lamid vav hey that's on the top the word for redemption is what's the difference between these two words aleph aleph is one aleph represents god himself the ultimate oneness when we see the hand of god even in the worst of exile and we understand that he never left us that it was all from him and he was with us the whole time at that moment the aleph is put into exile and all of history is immediately transformed into geulah into redemption hashem please give us the eyes to look back at our most painful devastatingly dark exiles and to see with our eyes to see with our minds to see with our hearts that you are behind it all orchestrating all of it to bring us to this moment here right now back in our indigenous homeland of judea in our promised land of israel and allow us to look back at our tormentors with forgiveness allow us to view our persecutors with love put in our mouths words of compassion and blessings so we can finally come together as the brotherhood of mankind and sing your praises together in the holy temple in jerusalem shalom my friends i love you all back to you shalom my name is jeremy ginpel a few months ago we started an online seminar teaching life-changing biblical wisdom revealed from the original hebrew and straight from the mountains of judea with global instability on the rise more and more people are turning to god realizing now they don't exactly know where to look for guidance the bible says the guidance will come from the land of israel what started as an online seminar has grown into a global fellowship with hundreds of members from over 30 countries we are participating in fulfilling prophecy as we learn the bible through the eyes of prophecy with a focus on what it's telling about us in our lives today what you will discover is that the wisdom transmitted thousands of years ago is speaking directly to us in our time right now instead of learning the bible as a religion it's the torah of israel the living guidance of god so please join us for our next online gathering and get access to the full library of teachings that the land of israel fellowship is offering join now and get an audio series on the prophecy encoded in the book of joshua absolutely for free just click on the link below or email fellowship at the land of israel.com i don't know how you found this video or what compelled you to click on that link but i don't believe in coincidence and i would encourage you to take the next step on your journey toward the land of israel i hope to see you at the land of israel fellowship shalom you