What Has to Happen to Become Israel? - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

This is one of the most epic Torah portions. I mean, we get our name. We get our identity. We're forever called the children of Israel. The land gets its name. The land of Israel. Even God gets his name. The God of Israel. Eloh is the God of Israel. It's like all happens right now. And everyone knows that the name Israel is earned. Yakov, Jacob, begins in life with one name and is given a new name after a long process. It's seemingly a transformation that Jacob goes through. You can see the transformation because it's built right into the Hebrew. Yakov, Akov in the book of Jeremiah means Akov means crooked. When you look at the word Israel, it literally spells out Yashar which means straight. L which means God. So Israel literally means straight with God. So, Jacob, a name that's rooted in crooked, transformed into Israel, literally written out as straight with God. It doesn't get more transformational than that. That's literally what happens. And so, I want to look a little bit deeper into that because YaKob starts his life totally pure. He's anything but crooked. Scripture defines him as an ishm yosvi, a pure, wholehearted man who dwells in tents. It seems like Rifka divided between the two brothers. Asab is out in the fields hunting. And she kept Jacob close to herself indoors in the tent. He was pure. He was Tamim. He was good. She wanted him protected, sheltered from the outside world. Growing up with Lavan, with Laban, she knew what it was growing up with a brother that could be a bad influence. And she didn't want that for Jacob. So this straight man had to go face Levine, a lying, manipulative, sinister sociopath. He had to leave the safety of his mother's tent, go face the real world. He really needed an encounter with evil to learn how to deal with the negative dark forces of the world. He needed to meet the crookedness for real in his life. Not only with Lavan, but he had to face Asov again and Asov's angel. We're told that Asov's angel was just about as bad as you could get. Literally like the angel of death. And so only after his encounter with true crookedness, darkness, and evil was Jacob able to become Israel. Being sheltered, being pure, being wholehearted, it you're just not able to be a complete person. As long as Jacob was sheltered, he could not become Israel. He may have been righteous. He may have been good-hearted. He may have been the sweetest person in the world, but he wasn't complete. And although every parent in the world wants to shelter their kids, shield them from the outside world, they don't want they don't want to keep them out of public school, they want to save them from Tik Tok, they just want parents want to protect their kids from all harm. But what the Torah here is teaching is that you're sheltered your whole life. There's nothing about it. You cannot become all that you can be until you experience the darkness in your life. You can't be whole. And in modern Hebrew, the word tamim literally means naive. And so maybe there's really something to that modern Hebrew word that when you are just totally enveloped in goodness, you're a little bit naive to the outside world. And the angel makes it clear. Jacob is transformed into Israel because you have struggled with man and struggled with God and prevailed. God sent not only a man named Lavan but Asav and Asov's angel to create real adversity for Jacob. He he was like through living through the struggles he became Israel. But what does that mean that Jacob struggled with God? And what does it mean that he struggled with man? So I really want to break that down. Why are both of those struggles integral to becoming Israel? So let's start with struggling with man because that's seemingly understandable through the text. He had to deal with his brother Lava, with his mother's brother Lavan. Both Asov and Lavan were really powerful. Both had no interest at all in keeping Jacob sheltered. On the contrary, Asa wanted to kill him and Lavan wanted to take away everything from him. So, Jacob had to struggle with these two men in his life and figure out a way to overcome them both. And that's the story as it's told in the shot right out of scripture. And it makes a lot of sense. Jacob struggled with man. So, first to become Israel, you got to deal with the evil that's within men and overcome the darkness. But I want to look at the meaning of what does it mean to struggle with God. What does that mean for Jacob? So, what does that mean for us? So, like everything in the Torah, I'm there's so many dimensions. I mean, one angle is that he fought an angelic being all night. That battle was a struggle with nothing other than the divine. And so, he battled the angel and won the name. That's it. Okay. But the only problem I have with that interpretation is that it doesn't leave anything for us to take away. I don't know anyone who spent all night fighting an angel recently and that battle gives him a name and the name is Israel. So it obviously means something to us. So I want to try to understand what that struggle with God that Jacob went through really means for us. And so here's my take. Jacob was Tom. He was pure. He was good. He was righteous. He wouldn't hurt a fly. He was honest. He was true. He was the embodiment of goodness in the world. But as I see Jacob, he had a real struggle with God just as the people of Israel today are struggling. I know that I struggle with this in my own life big time. Jacob struggles with the question of all questions. Why? Why God? Jacob was so good. He only wanted to do good. He didn't have a bad bone in his body. Why do you put him up against Asav and Lavan at all? Why do you send evil his way and make him escape being killed, working for slave wages for 20 years, used and abused over and over again? Why did you do that to such a good man? You look at Israel today, by far the best country in the region. We have no natural resources. We're not sitting on our tails just sucking up oil and selling it off to other nations. We don't have that much clean water. Everything we made, we had to produce literally out of salt water. We clean the water. I mean, we've just hard work and ingenuity. And everyone in Israel has a place. Every religion has a place. It's the freest country in the Middle East. Israel as a country is so good. Hashem, why you send Hamas on us? Why Iran? The jihad and all their proxies against Israel. Like, what is that about? So many hearts are turning against Israel. Why are you making Israel's life so hard? Why do we have to deal with this evil? That's a real struggle that Israel is dealing with now. And so it's like a replay of Jacob's life all over again. It's not just that evil exists. Evil is harming the good. Jacob really struggled with God. All of Israel after 2 years of war is struggling. I feel like most of the people in this fellowship are so good. They are so tame. They just every person that I've had a chance to speak to, to get to know, to pray for, to listen to the challenges that they're going through, everyone is living out a bestelling drama. Everyone here is just going through epic struggles, unbelievable challenges. Like what is going on? Why the challenges, the pain, the hardships? Everyone I speak to is going through a certain exile. Why are these people of light confronted with so much darkness? That is the struggle with God. When we hold on and we prevail, we become Israel. So what does that exactly look like? So here are my thoughts. Goodness, it's just not enough. It's not enough to be good, hiding in a tent, locked away, being good. In theory, you can be as tamim or as righteous as you want, but as long as you're hidden away, you haven't really accomplished Israel's mission. Israel means to struggle with man, to struggle with God, and prevail. It's not enough to just be good. You need to prevail. You need to be triumphant. Good needs to prevail over the evil. And in that battle, good will be hurt. Good will be injured. It won't be easy. Jacob walks away injured and limping. But in the end, his goodness wasn't locked away in a tent. In theory, it was his goodness that was able to overcome the evil. His light that was able to banish the darkness. In struggling with God, Jacob doesn't let go. He doesn't let go until he gets the blessing. That part of the story is so deep. Let's go inside the actual fight between Jacob and the angel. Genesis 32:26. And he, the angel said, "Let me go for the day breaks." But he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The angel says, "Let me go." And Jacob says, "I am not going to let you go until you bless me." How does Jacob struggle with man and God and prevail? He says, "It's been a long night. It's been dark. I've been in exile. I'm injured. I'm hurting. I will not leave. And I won't let you leave until I receive a blessing from all this." That is when Jacob gets his name Israel. He struggles with God and prevails. When he demands a blessing, he becomes Israel. when he finally integrates the idea that he encounters evil, overcomes evil, and out of his encounter, he will receive a blessing that he could not have achieved had he just stayed hide away in his goodness. That is the essence of Israel. Goodness that is triumphant. Goodness victorious. Out of darkness, Jacob brings the light and blessing. That's what it is to be Israel. So now whenever the challenge, whatever the hardship, the mission of Israel is to not let go until we receive the blessing. Because within every struggle is a gift that only that struggle can deliver. Jacob becomes Israel not just for being good, but by refusing to let the struggle end without purpose. He wrestles through a long dark night, wounded, afraid, exhausted, but he holds on and he demands a blessing from the very force that's opposing him. That moment transforms him. Israel is the one whose goodness prevails. The one who faces evil, overcomes it, and draws light from the darkness. That is our mandate. That's our identity. Whenever challenge we face, we do not let go until the struggle itself yields its blessing because every hardship carries a gift that only our faith and perseverance can reveal. And so with that, I want to give everyone a braha that the darkest time of the year, we hold on because just one candle can light up the entire room. And so we have to know that inside the darkness there is a blessing that only that darkness can bring. Shalom. My name is Jeremy Gimpel. 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 and fulfilling prophecy as we learned 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. 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.