Perfect Timing (Rosh Chodesh Nissan)- Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

so nice to see you guys and I have no plan on leaving the fellowship uh my our beloved Fellowship ever God forbid um you know it's so amazing I already that was a great uh that was a great fellowship and I uh a great uh section and what's funny is that we didn't coordinate but I my message really uh what I want to teach is really going to connect uh with what you just said okay so nice to see everybody um how are you guys doing yay okay amazing okay so this coming week we're going to be studying the Torah portion of theou which discusses the completion of the Tabernacle so in Exodus chapter 40 verse number two it says on the first day of Nissan the first month meaning on the first day of the first month we know that it's Nissan uh you must erect the Tabernacle which is uh the tent of meeting and then mha does what Hashem says and it goes through all the processes of everything that happens oh sorry it goes through all the processes of everything that happens and it says in ch in verse 17 that on the first month of the second year on the first of the month the Tabernacle was erected now you guys are like yawning okay great thanks for the thanks for the calendar report tahila no but this is really cool what is very marvelous is that every year this portion comes out right actually as we are starting the month of Nissan meaning the Commandment to Mosa and the actual fulfillment of the Commandment to complete the building of the Tabernacle on the first day of Nissan always comes out right after we read that this very Torah portion so like this coming Shabbat we're going to read the portion of PUD we're going to read these verses and then Saturday night check this out we're going to actually celebrate the first day of that month so we're actually reading the portion of something that happened like right then now why is that interesting it's interesting for a lot of reasons but there's this sort teaching that's brought down in the sages in all different ways it's it it appears in a whole bunch of places and it always has kind of the same message in different wordings um in in one place in yimon it's the idea of this this midrashic tradition is that the Tabernacle seems to have already been ready to rock and roll ready to be set up and yet there was some kind of delay so I'm going to read to you guys from uh one of the midrashic sources called yalu shimoni says on the 25th day of KV the preparation of the Tabernacle was completed and it remained folded up until the first day of Nissan and the Israelites were grumbling about Moses saying why hasn't it been established immediately maybe there's something wrong with it and the Holy One thought to to combine the joyous occasion of the establishment of the Tabernacle with the time that Isaac was born and then okay I thought maybe this is just a weird midash you know like some esoteric source and then I saw it again in the tanuma in another midash where it says for three months tan and the Tabernacle was completed and it was just laying there in shambles for the month of t for the month of Shabbat for the month of Adar and on the first day of Nissan it was established and why wasn't it established immediately because Hashem wanted to combine the joyous occasion with the birth of Isaac again this idea appears and it says and the the crass people of the generation it is like the clowns like sort of like the class clowns of the generation were mocking Moses and saying why isn't this being established immediately because they didn't know God's plan which was to create which was to establish the Tabernacle on the day that Isaac was born and it appears in a whole bunch of other places also now even in Rashi for example it says that the people weren't able to build to actually establish the Tabernacle because it was just too heavy so that's why uh Moshe had to come and actually like lift up the weight of the beams there are so many strange things in this tradition now I've been trying to unpack this and something that's important to know when you're studying the words of the sages sometimes they seem very cryptic but the sages are masters of noticing the finest details in the biblical text sometimes you'll see something in the stages and it'll seem so odd and then you'll go back to the text and you'll suddenly be like oh my gosh wait how did I not see that what is bothering the sages that in so many different sources they keep telling us that the Tabernacle wasn't immediately set into action and even though it was already ready even though it was already complete so let's try to think about this for a second when did we talk a lot about you know time and and and and the and the sort of stamp that Hashem put spiritually in different times we know that Moshe came down to bring the second tablets after the the the golden calf he brought down the second tablets when do you guys remember Anum kipur we've talked about this a couple of times that this is like this like element of forgiveness that stamped into that time so at the very least we know that they're starting to build around the build all the parts of the Tabernacle around yum kipur now if you guys think about it I'm not a professional or anything but like anyone else had anything to do in the desert it's not like they had a day job everyone was dedicated to this one task of getting the Tabernacle ready not a very big Tabernacle it's pretty small and the whole nation is working on it nonstop with not really anything else to do and yet in our portion it says that only on the first day of Nissan was it established so it seems a little bit long like like this was going on a little bit too long and when you look at the actual verse in chapter 40 uh verse two it says that Hashem had to command Moshe to like get the Tabernacle up meaning the parts seem even from the simple meaning of the verse seem to have already been ready and it just doesn't seem like it should have taken that long so the sages are paying attention to this like fine strangeness in the text and saying you need to understand something the Tabernacle was already ready and it was waiting for Hashem to come and say now now is the time and it's like these sort of like Lego pieces they're all like waiting there to be put into motion and so it's not an an unreasonable assumption that there's this sort of waiting period but why why is that so important to talk about another thing that's strange here is okay let's say that Hashem is waiting for a momentous time okay let's say that we just like we're we're going with okay sages we're going with you here we'll we'll accept that the the Tabernacle was probably prepared it makes perfect sense that Hashem would want it to be established in Nissan think about it we're exactly one year after all of the Miracles that happened last Nissan in The Exodus this is like an Obviously good time to be doing something the midash could have said that Hashem was waiting for the anniversary of The Exodus last year that would be like a special energy a special quality in the time we know that Nissan is a month of Salvation wouldn't it be bef fitting to like complete this physical salvation of Israel from Egypt with like a spiritual salvation why do they tell us that Hashem was waiting for Isaac's birthday that seems like a oddly I don't want to say unimportant because obviously Isaac's birthday is important but compared to like the miracle they just had a year ago specifically choosing to focus on Isaac's birthday as the day of making the Tabernacle seems a little bit strange furthermore there were other things that happened on the first day of Nissan too like the sages teach us that you know there's there's a big conflict between like a big like a argument between the sages if Adam was created on rashash on the first day of Tish or on the first day of Misan and they kind of like go back and forth and then they settle on that he was actually made man at you know first man was actually made on the first day of t- but the idea of creating man happened on the first day of Nissan and then if you follow in Genesis 88:13 when Noah was in the flood it says the first day of uh on the first day of the first month the waters dried off the earth a really special time in history furthermore we know that the sages tell us that all of the Patriarchs were born in the month of Nissan so if there are so many things that happen in the month of Nissan why are the sages so focused on telling us that the Tabernacle had to be made on the birthday of Isaac couldn't it just be like okay there was like a lot of great stuff that happened in Nissan great timing it's a great day we should just make it on that great day all of those other things with all due respect to Isaac seem a lot more dramatic than Isaac's birthday so I know what you might be thinking you might be thinking well there's the sacrifice of Isaac and like we make sacrifices in the Tabernacle maybe we should do it on Isaac's birthday but when you really think about it the sacrifice of The Binding of Isaac was really like at least as much if not more of a test for Abraham why not if Abraham was also born in Nan why not connect it to his birthday so on the one and we can really like understand why the sages are drawing us to see that Hashem would want the Tabernacle to be established on such a wonderful month like the month of Nissan but it doesn't but it's I I was like hacking away at this midress trying to understand why is this so focused on Isaac I think that the madash is it's so when there's something surprising it's trying to catch your attention and I think that the sages are trying to draw us to understand and say you want to understand the Tabernacle you want to understand the power of the month of Nissan there's something that you need to understand that you're going to see if you look closely at what Isaac symbolizes in the world you want understand what Isaac symbolizes in the world let's imagine a world without Isaac what would happen if Isaac wasn't born ABR wasn't the first righteous person in the world like in Genesis 522 we have uh I think I think in English it's pronounced Enoch Enoch uh that walked with Hashem and Hashem took him we know that there was Shem the son of of Noah and we was maled who was a priest to the God Almighty in Jerusalem but none of them created something Everlasting that brought hashem's presence into the world they were like they were like firecrackers they make like this beautiful light that then just sort of Fizzles out could have so easily been that too he had no children and is passing time is passing to the point that it seems so ridiculously long that his son's name Yak actually EMB like embodies the laughter at the Ridiculousness of the preposterousness of the very Prospect of his birth even happening because Isaac's birth more than any other event really was the guarantee that Abraham wouldn't be just like a one-time firecracker phenomenon but rather an ongoing process of drawing hashem's Revelation into the world why did it have to take so long why did it have to take so long like if you were Abraham it must have seemed like an unbearably long time to wait to have a son from Sarah like if you were Sarah this must have seemed like eternity but as we're reading the stories do you really wonder why it had to take so long like when you look at what Abraham and Sarah had to go through they wouldn't have been Abraham and Sarah had they not been tested in so many ways had they not been forged in so many ways and as the readers as the students of the Torah we could see that Hashem had a plan for everything to be done in its perfect time uh there's a story about the author Leo Tolstoy that as he was writing his famous work an a Karenina that he said that that he was crying and writing crying her tragic and and and and and and and she's saying like and he's imagining her saying to him like why do I have to have all these bad things happen to me and he's crying and writing you're saying well why is he crying and writing he could have just written written it written her character to be a happy character and I think the answer is because he knew that if he just wrote her the way he wanted to just a happy character she wouldn't have been who she became it's like hash is writing the characters writing writing the story of humanity of every person exactly as it needs to be in exactly the right time and so for us when we're reading Abraham we understand that he wouldn't have been Abraham had Yak been born at any other time everything happens in its perfect time and now if we come back to our sort of story suddenly there's this Revelation and Si to an entire nation and it seems like this mination of Abraham's tradition through Isaac through the generations and through the Exodus the golden C it seems for a moment all might be lost like maybe Hashem is going to destroy them maybe Hashem is going to destroy Israel and that'll be it and like we lost our chance then he forgives us what about hashem's presence he's not annihilating us but will he will he still dwell amongst us it's a question it's not clear mha brings on the second tablet and people start building the Tabernacle and imagine they're like hammering away and working away every day to make this vessel for hashem's Eternal presence in the world they're giving everything they have every bit of gold every bit of silver like Ari said like they had to say stop bringing things because people were giving as much as they could and they put everything they had and they're waiting for something to happen nothing happened just waiting and it's so much like Abraham awaiting Isaac and you know it reminds me so much of of our situation now in Israel it's like on October 7th we have this disaster it feels like everyone Rises up and everyone is giving everything that they have everything that they can and so much sacrifice so much faith and miracles that we're seeing and just the most incredible you know sacrifices and like the most but at the same time the most incredible revelation of hashem's Providence and then lately there's just this feeling of like something like is something happening is something not going to happen of just sort of like this feeling of stuckness and just like in the midash where people start saying well maybe nothing's going to happen like you start hearing those old voices of people who are not necessarily believing in the destiny of Israel saying oh things just are going to go back to how they were and nothing is ever going to change and I'll tell you something even worse um poor we have friends over that usually are like even friends that are the most encouraging and the most positive and the most always you know seeing how everything is going towards Redemption looks a little bit downtrodden and a little bit confused and a little bit like well like when is everything going to be okay like what's happening are we are we stuck like what is this holding pattern that we're in is there going to be a a resolution are we going to are we going to like come to like a victory and a sanctification of hashem's name and it's just sort of like this kind of pause and I think that's the message of the month of Nissan and that is the message of the Tabernacle and that is the message of Isaac of holding on to this understanding that even when you've given everything and you put in all that you have and you just waiting for hashem's Redemption Hashem has his perfect time for doing everything and Hashem has a plan and sometimes the waiting itself for whatever it is that we're waiting for for whatever salvation we're waiting for sometimes the waiting itself is the process is the forging and the testing of our faith and I think that that is the message of what we pray for as we go into Nissan because we know that Nissan is a month of redemp so I think together it's a great time to just pray that as we go into the month of Nissan we see Hashem bring his presence just like he brought his presence into the Tabernacle bring his presence back to Israel and may this be truly the perfect time that just like we were redeemed in the month of Nissan many times in the past may we be redeemed again in the month of Nissan and so with that send you guys love and prayers and I wish you a wonderful week [Music]