Great Story: Walking the Tightrope of Life - Jeremy Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

here's what I wanted to do today in the fellowship I wanted to offer um a tool or a key of a way of studying the Torah and the stories in this week's Torah portion they're very known uh The Binding of Isaac Abraham is called to take his his only son that was meant to inherit him in his ways and build the nation of Israel and sacrifice him and Abraham had to contend with that but not all wasn't only Abraham's test Isaac was not a young boy he was a young man and a lot of like the Bible stories are like kind of the the cartoons that we imagine or that when we think of it when we're told that story We imagine Abraham taking like a child and it's like a child sacrifice but in the lineage and definitely in the midrashim Isaac is not a young boy he's a young man and Isaac is well aware of what's going on and he is participating in the process and it's out of I mean Isaac theoretically is stronger than Abraham Isaac can be like I'm running away I'm not going to participate in this process of my father's lost his mind he want now of my of his whole life he's been fighting against child sacrifice and now he's sacrificing me God promised me to be the continuations I'm out of here and he could just run away and Abraham was old and I don't think Abraham would be able to catch him and so it was Abraham it was Isaac's um self-sacrifice it was two movements that are meant to um be shown in this biblical Saga but it's more than just the story what we're supposed to do the the Torah is a poetry and it's it's it's it's a song it's a prayer and the highest level of learning Torah is when the Torah that we learn becomes our prayer and so the tool that I want to give and we can even try to do it now is to actually put yourself in Abraham's shoes and in Isaac's shoes because it's two different tests one is to sacrifice that what steers to you and so when I was learning the Torah portion I was kind of closing my eyes and thinking about you know taking my child and it immediately it dawned on me that in just a few months love he's going to be entering into the IDF it'd be a soldier in the army and here I am offering him to Israel so for him to do what he needs to do to defend our land to defend our country to defend our people to defend our freedom to really defend the whole world that's what I believe and Akiva is just a few years after him and so to really offer that as a sacrifice up to Hashem if that's what's being asked of Abraham and that's what's really being asked of every Israeli parent is to offer their children up into the unknown on behalf of a cause and a mission much greater than them and then I had to think about avraham and his walk and then Isaac's walk and as I was thinking about that thinking well if I was called to give up my life um and for whatever reason I don't understand why Isaac needed to be sacrificed but if I had to be sacrificed well there's many times where Ari and I went out on missions and every Mission you know if you open up that door in a house in Gaza or if you're in um a cave in an ambush On the Border you have to just you know if if you're gonna die so be it you're there to defend the civilians of Israel you're there to defend your family and you have to be ready to give up your life and I know that that's that's not um an average life in the United States of America but in Israel it is we have to know that you know if we are to be called into the first Army since the times of King David King David went out to war and so too we need to go out to war and defend our freedom and fight for our rights and we have to kind of give that up and as I was thinking about those two um meditations because they're prayers those stories as we're reading them they're meant to be our prayers would I be willing to be like Abraham and walk into the unknown would I be willing to be like Isaac and give myself up and I then heard a beautiful story a story that I want to share with the fellowship I was in the studio last week um and my guitarist who's really a holy righteous Jew told me a story that is an ancient Hasidic story from the lineage of Chabad he didn't know which rebbe in the lineage said over the story but it's just an ancient story that comes somewhere out there in Lubavitch up there in Russia and Ukraine and Poland in that area and he said there was a master and a circus famous circus hundreds of people would be coming to the service and in the middle of the show the uh leader of the circus put a wire from one end of the circus tent to the other and he took out the fence and then he called out in this you know make microphone to the audience who here is ready to walk along the wire and the whole audience is like stunned who in the audience is they're gonna do that if they fall they're gonna die and so no one raises their hand and he's like who has the courage and then one man in the audience raises the sand and says I'll do it and the circus leader is excited he's like all right let's place bets all right if he falls to his death or is he gonna make it to the other side and the audience is oh my gosh they're excited almost everyone votes against the guy they're excited they're gonna not only are they gonna get to watch this spectacle like in the Coliseum of someone dying as they fall down but they're also going to make a lot of money and the man gets up to the top of the wire and just cruises across and he's so happy he's like counting his money he won that bet and the audience is stunned how did he do that and then he tells the audience I want you to know I'm pretty good at tightrope I'm a professional and he said well if you're so good can you do it backwards he says yeah I can do it backwards this is all right let's bet everyone let's bet and at this point now half the audience is like oh I'm betting with this guy this guy's good half the audience is like backwards he'll never be able to make it backwards and then walks backwards right across wins the bet he's counting his money he's so excited he's rocking it then the leader of the said can you do it with the wheelbarrow and the man says I've never done all the wheelbarrow but pretty heavy I think I can do it though he said well let's make the bets three quarters of the audience says he can do it and one quarter says no it's too heavy it's too crazy it's gonna mess up his balance gets up to the top lines walks right across cruises by and he makes it he's super happy he's won three bets in a row and then the final thing says well can you do it with the wheelbarrow with a human being in the wheelbarrow and then the audience is like wow and the guy thinks about it and he says yeah I think I can do that and he says all right who wants to put down the bets the entire audience bets that he can do it the whole audience puts their money down and says this guy can do it and then the circus leader says is there a volunteer to get in the wheelbarrow and no one wants to volunteer no one wants to get in the wheel they're happy to put their money down they'll bet but they actually go up onto the thing and there was no net in the wheelbarrow of this guy on the thing no one wants to do that and then the circus leader is kind of waiting what's going to happen and no one wants to go and then one young man in the audience raises his hand and says I'll go the crowd cheers they're so excited what a show what a show he goes up to the top of the thing and he walks right across wheelbarrow and all he says how did you have the courage to do that and the young man in the wheelbarrow said this guy's my Abba of course I'll go on the wheelbarrow trust my Abba I trust my father and that's the end of the story and that story there is a meditation because there are so many challenges in life we have no idea we have you know our dear friend Becky you can see her right here she had to go to a checkup is the checkup gonna say that her cancer has disappeared has it come back you're in a wheelbarrow on a tightrope and you have no idea Bridget and Harold they've been struggling oh gosh one surgery after another surgery they've seen a wheelbarrow on a tightrope and they don't know and there's so many challenges that people face and a lot of us just like Isaac who's to be in a wheelbarrow on a tightrope and trust that our ABBA is going to bring us along to the end and we should all just be blessed that as we read these stories to trust in our father to trust in our father that he will get us on this Tightrope on this narrow bridge across the world and to know that if our father is pushing us on the wheelbarrow we're going to make it on the other side and that is Hashem that is to trust in Hashem and we should be all blessed and be strengthened by the courage and the Faith of Our Fathers Abraham and Isaac and all the struggles that we go through no we're in the wheelbarrow let go and let God and we'll get to the other side