Training for that Moment That Will Change Everything - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

I was talking to tehila over Shabbat and we were just talking about just the challenge of kind of having to go with the flow there's so much of this world that's so radically out of our control and what do we do with that when things don't go the way that we want them to go but we have just no control over it the only thing you can really do is just let go and let God and we think about this Torah portion and the Book of devarim so much of it is Moshe just retelling the story of The Exodus from Egypt that travels through the desert and from his perspective what it meant to him how he saw things unfold and why is that such an important lesson at the end of the Torah and we were talking about in all of Shabbat and we had beautiful friends over for Shabbat from California and just kind of exploring this idea like why would that be the end of the Torah retelling the whole story once again sort of highlighting like well you know there was we sent in spies at the beginning of the book of devarium and retelling that stories and the failures and the wars that happen like why the retelling and I I think that tahila really nailed it I think I have to give her credit for this idea but just as you know most of the Torah is teaching us that we have to be in a constant state of training we're constantly training ourselves we're constantly commanded to do meets the vote you know to give charity you know you get a paycheck 10 of that money should go to charity you get another paycheck 10 of that money should go to charity it's something that happens all the time you wake up in the morning you should start your day with prayer you wake up and every morning you go to bed at night you say the Shema before you go to bed every night sometimes you feel it sometimes you don't you just do it because you're in the tour is training you it's trying to create an embodied knowledge it's trying to take the knowledge the wisdom of the Torah and really integrated into our being and the only way to do that is by consistently practicing out what you believe and then what is the book of devarim say the book at varim says that every once in a while there are going to be moments in life where there's going to be almost a fork in the road Road and it's going to be Choose Your Own Adventure and how do you Choose Your Own Adventure it is literally by the person that you have become if you've become a person of Courage then you'll choose the courageous path and if you become a person of virtue you'll chew The Virtuous path and then what really is the retelling of the book of Deuteronomy it's like saying listen it's not every day you're training every day but it's like spring training but every once in a while it's game time every once in a while it's like the real world it's like all of the training comes up to these moments in time out of 40 years there aren't that many events I mean you know maybe once every few years There Was An Occurrence that's actually recorded in the Torah of this 40-year adventure through the desert that's what it's teaching us that's what life is all about life is about those few events in that 40-year adventure and then in that 40-year Adventure if you work on yourself to become who you need to be when the time comes are you going to send in the spies or when the spies are you going to listen to Joshua and Caleb are you gonna listen to the other 10 what's going to happen there and so why is that the ending of the tour the ending of the tour is telling us because like you have 613 Mitzvahs to keep here there's an entire world of of Commandments of physical training of spiritual training of emotional training of emuna training Faith training and then moments in life will come and it's like all of that training is for those moments and so everyone we're all going to have those moments in our lives what are we going to do in that fork in the road happens and by that time that the fork in the road happens and you can choose right the the true path the courageous path The Virtuous path The High Ground or the easy path and by the time you get to that fork in the road it's too late you are who you are and your decision will be made based on the person that you are and so the Torah is saying train yourself train yourself train yourself look at what happened guys look at what happened throughout these 40 years where they weren't training properly so when you go into the land of Israel remember learn the Torah every morning and every night keep it close to your heart train it practice it because the challenges are gonna continue in the land of Israel and so all of life is really training us for those moments in life you know teal and I had to make a decision we had to say well are we going to sell our home and put all of our life our children our marriage we're gonna like stretch it to the Limit and build a home in the most contested real estate in Israel in the middle of the Obama Administration I mean at that time Trump was no one thought Trump was going to get in it was going to be Obama and then into Hillary in the last act that President Obama did as president was to wire 220 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority you're going to sell your life savings your home and put it out there like that's a fork in the road that has changed our lives in the most dramatic way possible that is probably aside from actually marrying to heal him the move to the farm was the most fundamental shift that we've ever experienced and we realize that all of our life up until that moment was training Us in preparing us for that moment of truth and that's what changed everything for us and that's why the end of the Torah is reminding us that we have to be training ourselves every day training our children every day because those moments of Truth they arrive and by the time they arrive you are who you are so you better be strong enough wise enough smart enough good enough because when those moments come that will determine your fate and so we should realize that the book of Deuteronomy is just waking us up for game day and it's not a coincidence that it comes always every year right around Tish above where am Israel the nation of Israel when the Moment of Truth came we were destroyed and exiled and then it's been a two thousand year practice to get us back in line get us back to the land rebuild this land rebuild our country rebuild our language because right now Israel is going through another Moment of Truth right now the nation is like there's two demonstrations happening simultaneously against reformers are in Jerusalem and the reformers are in Tel Aviv and it's happening right now and so may Hashem bless us to become who we need to become to walk through the challenges of life in the best way possible that's really what Moshe rabenu in this last speech the greatest speech and the most impactful speech in arguably all of human history it's really here to remind us that the moment of truth is around the corner so we need to build ourselves into who we need to become today