The First Jewish Hanukkah in Dubai - Jeremy & Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey everybody um we are live right now in dubai although this video isn't live we're alive we're live that's a good start well we wanted to do it live but the internet reception here is just not allowing us to connect on the zoom so we're quickly right before the fellowship making this video we wanted to light hanukkah candles together with you and we wanted to share with you maybe some insights that we've had we didn't know why i didn't know why we came here it just felt like an inner intuition and i just try to be true to what i know is true in the world and i thought that we were going to come here with the mission of bringing the torah to the nations but i've come here and i've been quite humbled because i feel as though well on one hand we're living through history the abraham accords watching people's response to learning that we're proud jews from the land of israel but i feel like for the first time in a long time i have a lot to learn from the place that i'm at and i don't necessarily want to teach i just want to continue to absorb and i feel like i'm we're like here can i tell you every day that you have a lot to learn sort of now you finally picked it up well i feel like i'm learning it from like the arab world i just never saw it that way all day i tell you to listen to me now you're listening to there i'm listening whatever floats your boat so um it really to me it actually touches on the heart of chanukah the biggest lesson that i've learned here and you know we've been now here since friday and you know dubai is really remarkable they have the world record for so many things the world's largest and tallest building the world's biggest mall the world's largest where they have like so many different types of world records for this and you know just 20 30 years ago it was just sand dunes here and everything that they've created they've created from nothing and on one hand they've really accepted progress and they've pushed the world forward and they're an example of like wow look at what human innovation and ingenuity could do but on the other hand as we're walking around the largest mall in the world the muazzin went off and they have a public call to prayer in the middle of the mall so on one hand they've really adopted progress and they've become a global hub for tourism but on the other hand they've really held on to their tribal indigenous garb they've held on to their traditions and their values in such a beautiful way and i think that that's really what the essence of chanukah is chanukah and all of the prophetic writings what's called the galut of darkness like when abraham darkness fell upon him so then the midrash says ooh abraham was seeing that once we're going to have a galoot we have an exile called greece greece is a darkness because it wasn't about killing the physical body but it was about trying to really extinguish the fire of the jewish people extinguish our torah extinguish our way of life extinguish god from the world and here we have this unique people here in dubai that have really somehow maintained their own values their own culture their own language their own garb and at the same time they've been very open to the world so i feel like we as the jewish people in the land of israel have a lot to learn from our first peace partners i thought we were going to come here and bring the torah to the nations and a little bit of dose of humility i think we have a lot to learn from our arab neighbors here what do you think i think well it's a tricky place it's a complicated place because it's um you know they have this small minority of local like the actual tribe themselves and 85 people that are into them people that are here working and it's really interesting to see the relationship between that it can really help you like tap into understanding what a kingdom once was where they don't tolerate whether they're opening they open their country to others and they're welcoming to others but at the same time still are able to maintain that set of boundaries like this is our culture this is who we are you can come and be here but we are also having a certain level of separation from you and it's an interesting thing to see how they they insist on not having any any evil like you walk through the streets and you see there's no crime you walk around you would think there are 85 people here that are just from all different countries in the world they'd be like street fighting or like punching each other in the face because you messed with my culture i messed with your culture they're able to maintain a certain demand of this is how you behave in our country this is you know and this is the the level of tolerance we're gonna show and there and they're willing to build churches and you know um temples for all religions as long as you behave properly like you better stay in line and respect other people but beyond that we're accepting and tolerant of everyone i thought that was a really interesting thing here there's a lot to learn and we're just kind of scratching the surface now but you know we always read the torah portions of joseph always around the holiday of chanaka because hanukkah was more an internal battle than it was an external battle it was the jews that wanted to maintain the torah tradition and there were hellenized jews that wanted to just adopt the global culture and it was a internal battle and you know that's why joseph was really the first um schism or fracture within the jewish people and the brothers sold joseph into slavery and they sold joseph into slavery in the city of shechem and then decades decades decades decades later you see that the kingdom of israel was split in year of ambinavat where was he made king in shechem the kingdom then once again split in shechem and then decades and decades and centuries and centuries again later here we are in chanukah celebrating the same split within the nation and so the medicine for that split i think the medicine for banishing the darkness you know hanukkah is the holiday that we celebrate at night time chanukah is the only holiday that we celebrate toward the end of the month all the other holidays are either in the middle of the month a little bit at the beginning of the month hanukkah the 25th of kislev it's really when this moon is almost all gone in the middle of the night it's also the only holiday where the ikar of the mitzvah the essence of the mitzvah is at night time and what do you do you light a flight and what is that flame what is the best way to fight off the darkness fight off the foreign influence keep us united i think tehila taught me that the answer is family it's fixing that selling of joseph it's fixing the kingdom being divided into two houses it's bringing it all back together and how do we bring it all back together ner ish ube that's where you really need your home the passover sacrifice you can do in the temple sukkot you leave your home yom kippur you're in the synagogue but the menorah is meant to be in your home lighting it together with your family and that is the medicine of how to fight off all of the influences you have a happy wife you have a happy life i think we've learned that and now what is my book though i wanted to show everybody my book where's my book you can go get your book in the meantime i'll just continue okay tequila has her book oh this is the book of maccabees and this is something that we read with our kids every year this is such a great thing to do in your home the first book of maccabees is actually considered to be one of the most accurate depictions of what truly happened over this decades-long fight of chanukah and i'm just going to connect to what you said about the family right that having each person in their home when you read the story it's so bleak you have these assyrian greeks just coming through and pillaging the temple again and again and again and there's no one left in jerusalem they say the temple was like a desert and then they come to the city of modi and they send you know the greeks send this bureaucrat to come and force the jews in in modi'in to sacrifice to the greek gods and everyone is actually about to do it and we see people were not really resisting nothing was really happening people were people were just sad i guess that's just what's happening now and it and it took one person to say he says i don't care he goes even if all of you do this even if all of you sacrifice to the greek gods i and my sons we are not going to be in this game the year and we're we're in an entirely different thing and we're going to stay with our covenant with hashem no matter what everyone else around us is doing and at some point when you're reading the story you don't know if anyone's gonna follow him because the story is a story that continually gets bleaker and bleaker and then comes the story and it could really just be another dark part of the story but there's this one family that gets up this one father and five children and they turn the whole thing around and they do it relatively quickly right it's like it doesn't take as long as you would think once people start hearing of this they get inspired to follow them you know we were traveling in america so many places we went we would meet a lot of the members of the fellowship and they'd be like we're the only family and they'd show us like this huge state right it's like we're the only people in yay wide area that keeps shabbat they keep the festivals and it can feel so lonely and so bleak right to be just like like everyone thinks we're nuts everyone thinks we're weirdos but when you read the book of maccabees with your children it can give you so much so much strength to say whatever we're doing in our little family or our little community unit can change the course of things it can just be such an inspiration for others and so that's really why we light i think in the home it's to say like hanukkah is not just the you know a lot of our holidays about the power of the nation and you know the you know great leaders um and this was about just a family they weren't seeking to be you know eventually they became kings but they weren't seeking that they were just seeking to be true to the torah and true to hashem and in just being true to that they were able to you know create this huge spiritual revolution like it's like it was like a resurrection of torah that had been squashed for so long by the greek culture and you can see that as well kind of written in within the prophecy of the book of joshua joshua as he comes into israel he says listen you may do what you want but me and my house we're going to serve hashem and that goes all the way back to abraham what was abraham and sarah just a family jacob and rebecca it's a family all of their children just the tribes it's just a family and so how is this world going to light up the darkness strong families and so i want to bless every one of you all around the world that you should light it up with your happy wife and your happy life and your happy children and light up hanukkah candles because the family is the source of light in the world that's the basis of everything and so you should be blessed and so maybe we'll bring our children in right now and we'll light hanukkah candles together from the heart of dubai at the abraham accords as instead of the oslo accord sun being thrown upon us by the western european union once again a new paradigm the children of abraham the abraham accords and those that want to be within the covenant of abraham believers in the god of abraham isaac and jacob that's beautiful and so come and let hanukkah candles with us [Music] i [Music] my [Music] is [Music] 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 they're 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 like 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 lowe 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 centuries 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 bramwich 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