Toldot: The Central Message - Hiding in Plain View - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey guys hope you're all doing well today i want to start with a pop quiz hashem appears in the world he tells people things right sometimes he speaks to us as a nation sometimes he speaks to individuals to profit if i ask you when hashem appears and says something is there a theme that repeats itself most often like what is the most common sentence commandment guidance that hashem gives us it's an important thing to know right because if we know that then we'll know what hashem most often wants from us so i did this pop quiz on shabbat for our friends and they said um maybe it's the verse that says not to cook a lamb in its mother's milk well okay that's a good guess that appears in the torah three times i popped quiz jeremy as well i knew what he was going to say but i still asked him and i knew he would get it wrong and he of course said it's to take care of the orphan and the widow which is also a good guess that appears like three or four times in the torah and many other times in the prophets like maybe tennis okay doing closer he's getting better the phrase that appears most often in the bible and something that hashem says to either us as individuals or as people is actually also in this past week's torah portion hashem says it to yitzhak in chapter 26 and the verse is do not fear that is the most common thing that hashem says to people do not fear hashem says it to abraham he says it to yes he says it to yaakov he says it to the nation when we're going to go into the land he says it to moses he says it to joshua he says it to a few of the judges to elijah a bunch of times to isaiah and jeremiah and twice to daniel and that's a lot that seems like hashem is saying notice this notice this big flashing light right here's an interesting fun fact though it's not only what hashem tells us the most there are search engines on the internet for finding biblical verses and consistently over years they've been finding that the verse that is the most popular is our verses that say al-tira last year was isaiah 41 10 do not fear i am with you do not be dismayed for i am your god same in 2018 that one also won in 2017 the top verse was joshua 1 verse 9 do not be afraid do not be discouraged so this is really a two-way street when you think about it it's like hashem wants to tell us this message all the time but it's also the message that people most often seek out to hear from hashem when they want something to meditate and hold on to you know there's a famous uh passage in the writings of rabbi nachman jeremy made a beautiful song about this uh which some of you may be familiar with and rebbi nachman of breslav famous saying that the world our lives are like a narrow bridge he doesn't say narrow bridges it's a very very narrow bridge it's even worse right he said the most important thing the most important principle and rule in life is to not be afraid i always thought that was a little strange like isn't the most important thing to follow the torah be a good person and if you manage to also not be afraid then yay happy day for you but is that the main thing but then when i realized this about it being the central message that hashem gives out throughout the tanakh i realize reminiscent is not just saying something cute he's saying something explicitly biblical it would seem that hashem is saying this really is the main thing now it's so interesting how when the torah says not to fear it might be i think it's in a different way than the modern world season a lot of people these days they want to prevent fear by having safe spaces trigger warnings people wrap up their children in bubble paper so they don't experience anything hard or scary but i don't think the torah looks at it that way like rabbi nachman said he didn't say don't be afraid because the world is a walk in a park in the park everything's gonna be great don't worry he said life is a very narrow bridge meaning you could really slip off and fall into the abyss it might not be a simple thing for you but with all that do not be afraid so you can really see this the first time hashem says not to be afraid of the torah the first time this verse appears this phrase appears as to avraham in chapter 16. hashem appeared to abraham in a dream and said do not fear abram i am a shield for you your reward is very great and then they make a covenant and what do you think is the first emotion the torah tells us that avraham has right there right there in the same chapter in verse 12 it says that a deep sleep fell upon abram and behold dread great darkness fell upon him like great darkness and dread that's about as strong of a term as i can think of for fear so hashem tells him not to be afraid and the very first emotion he has is this horrible paralyzing fear and what does hashem answer him i would think i should say we just talked about this all is good don't be nervous everything's going to be great what does hashem actually say to him when he's in this dread he says no with great certainty that your offspring shall be aliens in a land not their own and they will oppress them for 400 years but after four generations they'll return here well that's not the classical kind of comfort that people look for and it's interesting he's saying i'm not promising to you that everything's going to be okay i'm telling you that there's a long game there's a plan how different from that is the modern way that we look at not fearing where we just try to shield ourselves hashem doesn't say don't worry there's nothing to fear he says there's a lot to fear things are going to be hard fortify yourself choose to believe and know that this is all part of my plan i have a close friend who survived breast cancer and was miraculously able to have a baby after all the treatments and i remember her husband speaking they made a celebration of thanks and he gave a speech and he quoted psalm 136 praise hashem free as good as kindness is forever and he said don't understand that as meaning hashem's kindness is just everlasting that when you have the right glasses the vision that's looking at things in a forever perspective then you really understand the kindness because sometimes if you just snapshot a certain moment like in their case it was going through the diagnosis and these horrible treatments you don't really feel the kindness but when you look at everything in a broad span of time the kindness becomes so much easier to see and to understand now in this past torah portion we read we round shabbat it's interesting hashem tells isaac not to fear as well this is the second time we see this in the torah and you can see how isaac lives this and it changes his approach to things that happened to him in his life so we know that isaac is digging wells and the philistines fill them with sandy things another well and they come and bother him and fight with him finally he digs a well and he just leave him alone and he calls it from the word meaning broadness he feels this expansive relief like oh finally things are okay and then out of nowhere at that time of all times hashem appears to him in chapter 26 verse 24 and says i am god don't be afraid well that's weird why now everything's okay but then when you read what happens we can understand that hashem was giving him strength and courage to face something that was about to come because the next day he gets up and they dig another well and they find water great news and then abimelech shows up the philistine king with his army and the army the general and the entourage hashem told him not told him to not be afraid what would be his normal reaction if we've been looking at the previous chapters we'd say well this doesn't really seem like a friendly visit this guy's been messing up his wells all the time he shows up after he finally you know dug these two new wells with the military and the general and after all these altercations where yitzhak had just been you know digging new wells and running away you would think that when he sees them approaching itself would make a run for it or you know maybe this time he's a little more confident maybe he'll be tough and try to fight with them and you know stand up for himself but what happens is totally different he just comes up to them with a question almost like a curiosity and he says why have you come to me you've always been you know chasing me away instead of running or fighting he's just trying to understand with an open heart where this is going like implicit in his question is that he doesn't assume that they're coming not in peace even though that's what it looks like he says wait a minute didn't you not like me in the past and it's like hashem told him not to fear and encouraged him it changed his entire posture towards life like instead of a fight or flight choice i'm going to either run away or have an altercation he just has this calm curiosity to see how things are going to unfold i've been really working a lot on this in myself because i have a tendency to get really scared particularly when it comes to mistakes that i make or that i'm afraid that i'm making i'm always worried like what will happen if i do something wrong this really affected me when my kids had code because i was so scared like what if i didn't you know keep them separate enough and somebody caught it from them and then of course noam's teacher uh caught kobet and she's an older woman like an amazing god-fearing person and i felt so bad that she was sick and she said to me tahila there are only two ways to look at life she says either you have hashem or you have hashem hashem in hebrew means guilt because you can't have both if you believe in hashem you won't be ridden with fear about your mistakes because you know that hashem has a plan and if you're busy beating yourself up and you're having hashem meaning you're having guilt and fear that means that you don't really have hashem in your life right so she this really stuck with me as the torah's antidote for fear and anxiety and now a couple of days ago i received an email from one of our fellowship members that just is living this so beautifully i didn't have a chance to ask for permission to share this so i'm not going to say her name and i hope that you forgive me for sharing this but it was just so beautiful i can't resist so she writes to me the following email she goes hashem is doing great work in us last week i was crying out to hashem for direction and balance but mostly for the ability to rejoice in any suffering or disappointment as we move forward to our next stage in life and then hashem sent me what i needed to achieve this goal and i'm thinking oh great i love getting emails with good news i can't wait to hear what blessings came upon her and then i keep reading the email and she goes i got a notice in the mail on monday that i'd run a red light and i have to pay a 500 fine plus fees for traffic court and then we had a sewer problem before shabbat and found out that it'll be expensive to fix then my husband's van needed to go into the shop for work and my husband has a dental problem that needs attention but the building where the dentist works burnt down to the ground by an arsonist last week and i have a problem with my toe that's going to need surgery and a tree is about to fall on our house and we need to trim it but it's really expensive and then i went to the grocery store and my car won't start so i go oh this wasn't a good newsletter this is a prayer request okay i get it okay so you know she's going to ask me to pray for things to get better i love that okay i'm ready to pray then she go i keep reading she goes on she goes but all is well in my soul because all of the torah messages in this last week impressed upon me to decide to trust hashem no matter what happened so i told my husband hashem has given us a wonderful opportunity to just watch and see how he's going to direct us and work each issue out and when it's all resolved we're just going to laugh when we look back and think how foolish we were to have any qualms at all we've had many times in this life when we were younger but by walking with hashem everything was resolved so we have no reason to doubt hashem now i was so moved by this letter because it just embodies the torah truths of this message of al-tirav do not fear she internalized both the understanding that there's no reason to expect that things are going to be easier smooth but hashem's message to avraham is you know it's going to be hard but there's a long plan and she also adopted yitzhak's outlook where he came to amimala not with fear but just with an open curious heart asking what are you doing here how is this going to work out what is going to be hashem's resolution of this situation and then it really did all work out so this message really was a sort of a source of strength for me this week and i hope that it helps all of you guys be encouraged to face all of the things and all the challenges uh that are going on in all of our different lives so with that i wish all of you guys a beautiful and blessed week 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 their 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 low 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 gimpel 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