The Judean Experiment: Ep.2 – Can We Live A Guided Life?

one year ago my wife and I sold our house and invested our life savings into building the newest and deepest settlement in Judea after a year unlike any other we are finally telling the story and sharing the lessons we've learned on the way it's been 12 months now but we're just getting started well I was in a constant state of catching my breath and just trying to put one foot in front of the other the Gila kept a journal of this once-in-a-lifetime journey here's an entry from our first days after the big move it's been a week since we came to the farm I would be lying if I were to say it hasn't been hard Edun and hun are covered in weird itchy spots and has a fever Eden just finished antibiotics for an infection she caught hiding hiking in an infested River and when I know I'll have something wrong with their tummies the kids look and feel terrible I don't even know what to make of it we still have no kitchen and boy is it hot I am really out of sorts just not myself I also physically don't feel well there's so much dust from the construction everywhere my throat and ear have been killing me for days but I'm actually happy however weird that sounds like I knew it would be hard this is what I signed on for I just didn't know in what ways it would be hard it makes sense to me it's not supposed to be easy and if we're to be easy it would be as if we weren't actually pioneering the challenges remind us that we're really doing something and doing something it's hard I'm keeping this diary to remember our journey and it truly is a journey a journey harder and scarier than I ever envisioned but we feel has Shems kindness in every step of the way just different things that make it clear to us that this is happening for a reason and for our growth I feel like there's nothing to do but relinquishing control to allow what Hashem wants to fix and mold in us to be done to us not when I think about this place sometimes I feel like it's sucking the life out of me but in a good way like an inhale and an exhale its inhaling the old life out of me all the inertia the comfort the habits so it can't exhale into me an entirely new life a new life a new show this is the Judy an experiment welcome welcome welcome this is the Judy an experiment this is Jeremy compelled and I am here with the fantastic articulate brilliant to he'll again pal to Gila how are you again well let me tell you I'm just listening to you read off your journal and there are two lines that struck me just very powerfully one was that you said you knew it was going to be hard and I feel like that sort of is the differentiating factor between me and you and our relationship somehow I convinced myself that it wasn't going to be hard I was like Hashem is guiding us miracles are happening before us we're gonna go and it's gonna be like an amazing adventure and I went in with such a naive expectation that it was just going to be really awesome and when I encountered the insanity of how hard it was it broke me to the point of a like sheer on live I was just heartbroken at the whole thing oh but then I was thinking that in that process I remember we learned to Torah I think it was from Rome known Yitzhak I think that's where the the source was in some you know a woman or man came up to and said listen we're having marital problems and he says oh you have to understand that the man and the woman they have a very particular way of being in the world and I know this isn't politically correct for all the people that are not for boys and girls and all the different things that are different and were supposed to be equal but in Jewish tradition there's differences between men and women and it says that the men he is like oh ma that's where the man thrives that's his natural inclination what does whole amount it means wisdom but it's that initial burst of inspiration it's like hey let's move to the and that's like Oman it's a flash of inspiration it's like hey let's go to the beach that happens to us quite often we love the beach we love going to OSH pilota in my opinion ashqelon is the most underrated city in Israel and I'm like a tequila let's go to the beach and then all of a sudden bina kicks and that's the woman the woman is veno what is veña veña is sort of like well we have this a destination we want to get to but now it's like wait a minute there are details here there are details of how to get to the destination and what did you pack a bag are there towels do you have food and then very often a man will hear a woman in her bina being like ah she's being so annoying why she's such a downer let's just go to the beach do you think that no not about you I'm sinking when I have the beats back yeah a little bit of it it's a little bit annoying sometimes when you're like given all the details I'd let's just go to the beach and you're like this would go to that sunscreen if I didn't so here's that what happened was is that I had this moment of Hama I had this moment of like a flash of inspiration and I'm like I really feel like this is just a moment of inspiration it's from above it's gonna be amazing and I didn't have the bina to actually think about all the details of like wait when you need a babysitter oh you're gonna need a babysitter with an m16 because you can't leave your kids alone on a mountain it's been now 12 months we've only left our house one time because there was a Bar Mitzvah and another happy event on the same night we're like okay we have to go out tonight and we had to hire a guard we can't hire a 15 year old babysitter and pay her 12 shekels an hour he hired a 50 year old man to babysit our children a fifty year old man with an m16 to come and go like babysit our children because we live a low on a mountain I just didn't really consider that at the time and you know when you say like you knew it was going to be hard that it was not my experience at all I was totally dumbfounded and shocked and the truth is Ari was such a good friend he it was warning me well I kind of looked at things differently I come from a long line of warriors so I sort of tried to I always kind of try to plan for all the worst-case scenarios that I know will surely happen how did that go for you how did it go for me when I mean did you have any chance of even coming to grips with how many obstacles there would be how could you even kill so I didn't know that's why I said in my diary I didn't what the obstacles were gonna be I just knew that they were going to be and so I had to be four months before we left I was just bracing myself you know bracing myself for the flood and the truth is re was actually trying argue had already moved to the farm before we did was trying to dissuade us from making this move he told me he came I remember one time you weren't home he came in the kitchen was like listen this is going to be really hard I think it's going to be too hard you should really really reconsider re Abramowitz is the co-founder of the land of israel network my best friend we've been doing everything we've ever done together since we're about 18 he's one of the four founders of the IRA goat farm but he was actually the first one on the mountain and so he had experience of exactly what life would be like two houses down from his brother we're his children are best friends with their children their families are connected you can't replicate something like that his only asset and he was going to sell that to build a house here at the farm that doesn't even belong to him I simply tried to do what a best friend would do and I sat down I'm just saying I don't want to interfere in your family's things but maybe it's worth considering ways to move out to the farm without some more time and he said no this is what we've decided to do we're committed to it and so I had to respect that but it was difficult seeing him make a decision like that and when I saw them come out here and the house wasn't ready in time and they were in a compost bathroom without we had to divide it between ourselves it was a very difficult transition but I have to admit that my respect for the self-sacrifice and the commitment and being true to that internal voice it was a very moving and inspiring for me so a lot of people always ask me how did you let Jeremy do such a crazy thing as moved to this farm and I always tell people you don't know how many crazy ideas he's had that I didn't let him do it's like I'm always the brakes putting the brakes on your crazy ideas like well if you do that then all this terrible things will happen and then and so then um you know I say like you know the brakes can't always work there was like a brakes malfunction this time around but the truth is is yeah I didn't I didn't put the brakes on this crazy idea because uh because we really both felt that that was our calling but yeah I would say that I was a little bit a little bit more bracing myself than you for the challenges and that's why I can I share the present you just made me yes Jeremy just made me the most beautiful gift it's a big piece of wood eucalyptus tree it's a big piece of eucalyptus it's beautiful where he wrote the hearty laugh I said knew right about Hulett I lifted her aibum ADA Barba Eretz lizra which means I remember the devotion of your youth how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness through a land not stone that's from the Book of Jeremiah yeah the second chapter of Jeremiah so when we when we first when we first decided to move to the farm you told me that that it kind of reminded you of that verse how I was following you along in this adventure anyway I've been just on that at that point I really feel like there's a key here to she'll embody that I've taken a lot of coopera that coma and be not just realizing that there are different natural states that men and women have that yes to heal alike followed me into the desert but then there just needed to be a lot of beena there and sometimes that created chaos and sometimes that created order and so I just feel like if people recognize that there's just different natural inclinations it really is a key to shell and bite because to me I live alone on a mountain with this woman that you're listening to right now it's like if we don't have shell um bite we are in big trouble I mean we're fighting I won't have any friends because you're the only guy around like mile you know you just said that you really felt like it was our calling and I just want to pause on that for a moment and in fact what I want to say today has to do exactly with that what does that mean that it was our calling who's calling us and who's listening and what is that mean and I feel like the um the experiment here for me was I believe and I'd set an irrational belief because it's you know it's I don't know how to prove this but I believe you can be guided by the universe and the creator of the universe in your life and what is that guidance it's a calling you have a calling who's calling you the Creator is calling you to go do something and as I was thinking about that you know the first man that had the calling is of course Avraham and it was right around this time we're about to finish the Torah we're about to start Bereshit now and right as the height of this move I'm like learning the stories of Abraham and the first time that he hears a calling it says laa-laa go forth to yourself and then Rashi says there what does it mean go forth to yourself it says let o vodka Villa Hannah Attica for your good and for your pleasure and so I'm like great I'm getting a calling it's gonna be for my good and it's gonna be for my pleasure I am going to go and have the greatest time ever and then all of a sudden we're encountered with the most instrumental challenges I pop on a plus and I'm like this is not lit Tova this is not lejana there's no good and there's no pleasure here what is going on and what I realized is that I I misunderstood that Rashi yes it's for your goodness for your pleasure but I think that it was actually guiding us to understand it a little bit differently that there are two forces that can guide our lives one is fear and one is desire you make a decision what do I want to do with my life well what about my bills well what about my this what about this what about that that's fear so are you gonna make a decision based out of the fears that will be or I really want to pursue this in my life and then there's a desire and there's those are the two options there's really no other choice you can either operate out of fear or you can operate out of desire left lekha little Vata oh you got it when you get a calling a calling is not coming out of fear it's coming out of Lata Fattah it needs to be from your desire for your Hanukkah so what does that mean here to heal and I are standing before this choice should we do this irrational move should we not do this irrational move and I start like making order in my mind and I'm like well gonna leave our beautiful community of Nevada no we adopted you know the eighth grade class they were now in the 12th grade our best friends happened to be our next-door neighbor's literally my brother was my next-door neighbor our family the finances oh my goodness the security our children our marriage is it going to rip my marriage apart what's gonna happen the comfort the ease it's so drastic what are we gonna do here no one else is doing this well those are all the fears but then we have this inner desire to want to live our dreams to want to live a guided life and it was like all of these fears were on one part of the scale but then on the other side of the scale was this desire to want to help Israel was a desire to want to live a more biblical lifestyle and we had to like kind of weigh it up against each other and I think Layla ha if you want to live a guided life if you really want to follow a calling or at least discover your calling it can only come the Tova Kavala Chanukah it has to come from a place of desire that's beautiful I really connect with that um that idea that you're bringing from Rashi because he's saying you go on this journey and ultimately it will really be for your benefit you might not see it while you're on the journey but ultimately it's for your benefit and I you know as I'm you know as we're preparing this and I'm looking back on our experiences I realized just how much the hard part's in particular more than anything else eventually turned out to be for our benefit what does that mean like I look back and like when we got to the house you know when we moved to the farm we didn't have doors toilets you know of sockets air-conditioning kitchen you know almost almost anything that you would think of as like normal even even like beds we didn't have beds we were sleeping on the floor we didn't have a couch I was nursing a baby sitting on the floor like I couldn't even I didn't have a chair to spend we brought the couch oh my gosh when you brought in that couch for the first time that was like 10 years of psychological treatment for me all in one moment like just like mental healing having a baby oh yeah but it was it was it was first of all it reminded me of like home but it was also having physically a place to sit because I was you know I had like a baby and I just had nowhere to sit when I was holding I was always sitting on like a stone floor and so so at that time it seemed like that was a real difficult part of the journey but looking back I see that what Rashi is describing so much is so is so perfect for what happened to us because I can look back and see that actually was for our benefit because things that we would have normally taken for granted all right like flushing the toilet all right or like you know just having a bed the things that we were just you know those are like normal things each and everything we learned to appreciate even now sometimes sometimes I like I turn on the washing machine I'm like oh we can use a washing machine and it's just so much fun because each thing you know each each each thing that we put together in our house and every little piece of order we were able to make in our in the chaos that became our life now is something that's forever ingrained in us as something worth being grateful for and something worth appreciating so even the dark parts of our journey really did turn out to be for our growth and for our benefit yeah it seems like for me on this adventure you definitely needed the hindsight to see the kindness that was there because in the middle of it it was just blur and I remember there was one point where one of my just dear friends Arie fold was murdered and you know I've known the fold family since I was in the eighth grade and our fold was significantly older than me he was this black belt ninja warrior Jew constantly on social media just putting out the good fight I mean we were arrested one time together that's when we really became close fighting for the land of Israel at some demonstration outside of a fraught and he was murdered in the middle of our move and I remember that two things happened I'm like man I'm so scared about the security here on this mountaintop and the man was just going to the mockolate in Selma to goosh and all of a sudden at the supermarket he was so he was stabbed and killed she can't believe it and as if I wasn't going through enough turmoil all of a sudden it's like yeah just dark wave of terrible feelings came over me I never teal and I went to this supermarket called oh sure odd which is like I guess the closest thing that Israel has to a Costco its limp it's like a pathetic version of Costco but it's like the closest thing we got here and he'll be out I'm standing at the line and I'm just in a dark place and all of a sudden I'm standing you know right there putting the things on the on the con the conveyor belt and the guy the guy says the guy says have you heard about our sales do remember that he says have you heard about our sales and I said what are the sales he goes I'm giving a hot clean um machine um I'm giving free love for free I don't remember that part I'm giving free love for free right it's like as if he could read Jeremy's mind and saw that he actually does needed some love and this is this is just the guy at the you know just the guy at the register and he says to Jeremy you know I'm a Cohen I don't feel like I'm a priest because I'm a Cohen can I give you the priestly blessing and he gets he goes around him around the counter he puts his hands on Jeremy's head and says the ironic blessing and then that was it and I just said like I felt like I said wow jeremy hashem is just saying like hi i'm here like you're blessed and you know I'm watching out for you two things happened to me at that moment one I always have this compare and contrast where I think about being at line at Costco or being at line at t-mobile and talking to the dude behind the desk and then having him say I'm out giving free love avanti nom isn't just free love sounds like a hippie that's like a torah term of just loving unconditionally your fellow Jew loving unconditionally your fellow man and then coming around the corner and giving me the ironic blessing those with the guy behind the counter at the cash register is a cohan that's giving out free blessings and then I just felt like wow what a lucky generation we are in the land of Israel and we go to Costco and the dude behind the counter is giving us the Aaronic blessing what a country and then at the same time I felt like wow that's a spice cart Thank You Hashem I needed a spice cart right now what's a spice cart spice cart is a terminology developed by Rabbi Ari Abramowitz and he says that when you read the Torah portions of Joseph Joseph is sold down into Egypt and it says there that he was sold down on a spice cart and then Rashi says a spice card why do we care what carriage Joseph was sold down on his way down to Egypt like it's an irrelevant detail the Torah doesn't waste words why do we need to know that it was a spice cart and Rashi says that usually on that trail the Ishmaelites sold sulfur in this terrible smelling gross stuff and Joseph knew that and all of a sudden he says hey this isn't sulfur I'm in a spice cart this smells delicious and he said wow that's so out of the ordinary that I see God's signature right here that's a spice cart and that happens all throughout our lives if we talk about living a guided life trying to find our calling and live by that calling spice carts happen all the time if we have the eyes to see them and I'm in this dark blurry space where have I gone nuts I'm just seeing colors and most of the colors are very dark and all of a sudden a spice cart in the middle of oh sure odd I'm getting the ironic blessing it's such a sad period of my life and I feel like it was those spice carts that even when we're down but also when we're up it's constant reminders that hey don't forget I've concealed my presence here in the world Hashem is telling us but I want you to know I'm here at every corner Here I am at Costco and so for me in this dark time it was like moments flashes of spice carts that's all I had I had nothing else to heal inherent Diaries like oh I see how shams kindness in every corner I didn't see how shams kindness anywhere I just saw dark and then everyone small I would get a flash of light and being like okay and this dark dark scary place there is a flash of light here and I feel like I felt it most with the people that all of a sudden manifested themselves at the farm and you know at the very very beginning of the farm before we had almost anything there I'd already given all of my money re had given all of his money Yossi and Roni we were like out of money we had nothing else to do and that all of a sudden imagine this six years earlier Ari went on a speaking tour to Europe to encourage Jews to make aliyah not that Aliyah is such a hard sale in France at this point but he arrived in the Jewish community in Berne Switzerland and all of a sudden there was one woman there that loved ari stock and started listening to our podcast on the Land of Israel Network and then six years later I mean Ari didn't remember this woman who ever thought of such a thing we're just living our life and we're at this point we have no more money to help the farm and I mean I wasn't so stressed out about it cuz it was just a project and I didn't care if it took five years if it took ten years of it took 20 years okay it is what it is but at that point you know we start dominating being like our - I'm if you want this project to move forward we've done all the weekend it's your turn all of a sudden er he gets an email from this woman from Switzerland and she comes out to the farm and to make a long story short she sees the views of the IRA goat farm you have to understand the views are breathtaking they're intoxicating they're majestic they're wondrous it's from one of the highest mountains in Israel you see the lowest place on earth the cliffs the valleys it's just unbelievable and I've tried to capture it in my music videos with drone footage and music trying to express but Ari says like trying to see the ARU goat farms on a screen is like seeing a sheet of music with notes and then comparing that to the Philharmonic Orchestra it's just not possible to understand the beauty of the our goat farm without actually coming and seeing it and here this woman comes out to the farm and she's not a young woman and she comes and sees the views and all of a sudden she turns white and starts to cry and Ari's a little bit nervous I mean we're out in the mountains there's no hospital near Ari's like is she having a heart attack no one understood what was happening and Hari says tell me what what's wrong is everything okay and this woman says you don't understand for so many years I've been having this recurring dream over and over again about a very specific place and I knew that it was in Israel of valleys and mountains and rocks and there were people there and was a place that I was connected to and every time I come to Israel I look for this place and I've been to the Golan and I've been to Samaria and I've been to a lot and I've an eventually I'm just like okay maybe this is just some sort of delusion in my mind and I thought okay I'm like you know not a young woman anymore I'm just never gonna find this place and Here I am looking at the place that God has put in my dreams for as long as I can remember how much money do you need to finish this whole place and we're like what and Ari said a pretty large sum of money and she says no problem and I'm like oh my goodness can you imagine Hashem was planting dreams in this woman's mind before maybe I was even born only to allow Ari to speak in Europe six years earlier to allow us to meet exactly at this time when we exactly ran out of money that is a Spice card if I've ever heard of one it was those kind of miraculous things that happened that gave to HeLa and I the Emunah to like make this drastic move because it was so unbelievably miraculous like who ever heard of thing God planting dreams and this woman's mind only to allow us to meet exactly at the right time fine so we are not on the farm but all the sudden were on all of these financial stresses so many financial stresses and then you know I had a dear dear friend of mine maybe fifteen years we've been friends and I knew him when he had just started becoming a little bit more Torah observant and you know he's he's not even not necessarily of Jewish lineage but he loves the Torah and he loves just biblical living and at this point when I go to his house the man has a freaking stun Steen he has an entire shot in his living room I've never been to a non-jews house where they have Midrash raba they have a shot I mean what is going on here he's like a Torah scholar in the middle of the Carolinas and we were just in the shot and scene is the art scroll version of the Babylonian Talmud it's very rare in all of my experiences teaching the non-jewish world and I have quite a bit of experience in it to find someone who sewed steeped in Torah that he has now the entire oral a Bologna and Talmud in his house and you know we I'd met him at the very beginnings of that journey of you know where he was and where he is today and he'll wind like my art backs were against the wall all of a sudden seeds that were planted in friendships that were made years earlier all of a sudden now came to fruition the man became a super successful businessman he's like what Jeremy you're in trouble no problem she writes a check saves the day and I'm like Hashem you are making miracles for us all the time and I just want you to know that if we just have the eyes to see it even in the dark dark places there are Spice carts all around but you have to have your antenna out to see them because my antenna was broken I need a giant flashes of light like ironic blessings at Costco but for most people if you just start paying attention there are some things that are just simply out of order a coincidence that just shouldn't really be there and if you have the terminology that re Abramowitz has brought into our lives a spice cart then you can really start living a little bit more of a guided life so with all these you know miracles and things that happened to us it really made us feel like Hashem was with us on the journey you know kind of kind of reminds me of when a general when Governor Huckabee came to see the farm a few weeks ago yes I do he was he governor Huckabee is a big supporter of Israel and he he brought 25 congressional candidates to the ARU go to farm it was through a beautiful family that's very politically involved constantly helping Israel involved in every good cause that Israel has to offer and they have somehow brought all of these really important people to learn about Judea and Samaria and the political realities and the historic realities and the biblical realities of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and so uh governor Huckabee said to me well you know it really it really feels like you're doing God's work here I mean he said it reminded him of a joke he said once once there was a man who worked for years to turn a barren land into a beautiful flourishing farm and then his pastor came and said to him look at what you and God have done I think I says well you know pastor you should have seen what this place looked like when God was working on it on his own that was really an amazing day when the governor Huckabee came out yeah or Netanyahu the son of the Prime Minister came out to our farm and sometimes I wonder like I barely have cell phone reception on this mountain and all of a sudden groups from Africa and groups from Holland in the United States and congressional candidates and the son of like what should really be like I mean the Prime Minister of Israel it's like he's like the king of Israel his son the prince is like coming out to our farm and look at our chickens and giving me advice about what he thinks we should do with them they're just like an amazing amazing day but things like that are happening all the time and now that you're starting to get to note to hila and I and you've known me and Ari hopefully for many years we're just people and there's no way that we could be doing this something is happening here yeah you know after after the show last week I was very I was very nervous when Jeremy shut off the recording equipment I'm like I don't think anyone's gonna want to listen to you cry babying for 45 minutes about those proper-- and he was like no no no it'll be great it'll be great in so that's it's a good opportunity to thank everyone who gave who gave us encouragement and positive words cuz that persuaded me to keep on doing this I want you guys to know that I mean we really bar Hashem we got feedback from all over the world it was one of the most exhilarating things we've ever done because listen to heal and I we've never done a podcast together and she definitely wasn't confident going into this adventure and then all III sent every single what's up every Facebook post every email that we got to her and she's like wow this is amazing there were two parts that I really enjoyed the most here's one hey brother y'all see here look thank you for sharing that that podcast with me I really enjoyed it and I am how do I say I have so much less respect and all for you and I have so much more for your wife for to you I'm like wow story of my life people like me and then all of a sudden they meet the Gila and then I'm already out the window and like the Gila is actually the source of all good things okay well people say I give you legitimacy well there was one other email that I got I don't know what it just made my heart danced Shalom from rural Mississippi my husband and I loved listening to you and your sweet wife on this beautiful Shabbat morning inspiring isn't a strong enough word please please do more podcasts for all of us outside Eretz Israel you just can't imagine how much blessing we received from your adventure with Hashem as you built an incredible life in the mountains of Judea of course we love Ari - anyway the email goes on but I just love the idea that we are in the mountains of Judea broadcasting this story broadcasting the message of toraat Eric sees Sorell the Torah of the Land of Israel and there's people in rural Mississippi that are like listening to us and enjoying the adventure I don't know to me that is just so fun yeah it's pretty surprising like if people actually saw us in real life fumbling around they didn't fumbling through life they would I don't know it was pretty surprising to me that people found that exciting you know like yesterday there's this wonderful organization that came out to film on the farm and they were interviewing Ari and Jeremy and of course before the interview Terry and Ari were being themselves which includes such wonderful behaviors as like punching each other in the shoulders and goofing around and making weird faces and being totally acting like teenage boys the camera goes on and suddenly we're all professional like Israel and the biblical and the daddy got it up I'll tell you what happened was they wanted us to both be in the shot together and they want I guess to edit it through their own you know visions of trying to help spread the message of Judea and Samaria and so Ari and I are on a camera shot together and then I turn to Ari and be like listen it's this must not be easy for you being next to such a good-looking guy I mean it's not listen and then if that started that started a whole process the problem with organized that we've been friends since we were 18 and so we very quickly are able to revert all the way back to the maturity level of 18 even though we're almost 40 now and so as we're like goofing around and bickering and fighting it actually got into physical blows at one point and this professional organization with a film crew is like are watching all of this what happened started laughing and in the morning they're liking this with you guys are enjoying this Ari and I we can do this all day but then as soon as the camera goes on all of a sudden Ari becomes the most articulate spokesman for Israel in the world and then as soon as that like the camera cuts immediately back to like immature eighteen year old behavior and that's just sort of the life that and then afterwards the guy was like you know it was such an honor to meet you because you you've been one of my longtime heroes go perhaps I should have held back a little bit it's just it's exciting that the distri ins in some ways is perhaps giving people strength to go on their own journeys on their journeys you know to live a guided life you know there's moments that's like Aloha moment people have that and I guess the question is what do you do with that moment when it comes I know a lot of people that come to Israel and they're like oh my god this is my home this is where I'm supposed to be this is the way I'm supposed to raise my children they're inspired they feel it it happened and they go back to America and then it's like ooh what do you do with that feeling now are you gonna follow through with that because here's the deal sometimes you may only get one calling Avraham had luckily huh and what if you had not gone for himself to the land that God did not show him I might have been a second to there might not been a second chance and even with the second chance how many chapters do we actually have of Abraham like 12 chapters in the whole Torah that's it how many times did Avram actually have communic at least the ones that were recorded that were significant enough to be mentioned in the Torah not that many so if you ever have a moment where you actually feel inspired to act inspired to do inspired to make aliyah do not let that moment go because you might not have a second chance so here are my thoughts I mean living this guided life how is that even possible what if someone hasn't had that calling it what if they don't even know what to do with that so how do they know if they're actually on a guided life and so I felt like it's a really simple equation there is one purpose in this world when I boil it down to it all and what is the purpose to walk in the light and to spread the light if you're walking in the light then you're obviously on a guided journey because here you are walking in the light well what is walking in the light main well the Torah is the guide of how to walk in the light that's why ha ha ha Jewish law is called challah meaning to walk halakhah is to walk it's how we walk in the light the Torah is the guide of how to live the light and so first you have to recognize that there is light and that there is dark that there is good and that there is evil and that there is morals in the world because obviously there's an attack on the fundamentals of reality right now the imperialist left wing that's the battle there is no truth there is no lie oh the IDF in the Hamas it's a cycle of violence in this narrative of the conflict in the Middle East no I'm sorry there is orience Behar Hashem ekodama a beautiful nineteen year old girl who is just walking in the light and spreading the light and on the other side there is the Arab rapist murderer terrorist that is not in the light there is good and there is evil it's very very simple when you look at Israel in its reality and so what it is to walk in the light is to have the first consciousness that there is good and evil and then to constantly trying to be realigning yourself with the ultimate good and if you're constantly living with that as your guide then even if you haven't had this calling this moment of inspiration you're at least doing your best to tune yourself in to eventually receive that calling because you're constantly realigning yourself with the ultimate good who is God and so good is light bad is dark truth is good lies is dark and you know making that differentiation between truth and lies is something that even on a national level we're really dealing with now the last elections it seems that there were more than a hundred of voting stations that had massive falsifications and and mess ups in the vote counting and so mess up cells like it was a mistake yeah now that wouldn't be the what would what would it be it's called cheating lying cheating in life dark evil people are trying to steal the elections and take control that doesn't belong to them and so people tried to bring cameras into the voting booths not about he moves into the voting stations to watch the counting of the votes to make sure that no one was cheating and then the Central Election Committee said you're not allowed to do that so so Beebe is trying that was in the last few days trying to pass a law to specifically allow cameras to just the same way as you have in any supermarket or in any you know in any public building their cash security cameras to have security cameras that make sure that no one is adding you know votes into the voting box or anything like that not trying to you know cheat I want to just make this really clear to our listeners now this like a little on the inside of Israeli politics but last elections understand this hundreds of over a hundred thousand votes relies and so the government right now is trying to pass a law saying well we need to put cameras on the people that are counting the votes at the end of the night to make sure that those people that would have been entrusted with a very important mission of making sure that these elections were done and that the proper leadership is actually elected by the will of the people we want to make sure that there's no cheating so we are going to put cameras to film the election people responsible for counting the votes so the suggestion was obviously not to observe people voting because your vote is of course secret and private but the idea was to just make sure that no one was doing anything that was grossly against the law and shockingly enough the vote was the the bill was not passed the majority in the Knesset voted against this law they couldn't get a majority in favor of protecting the actual integrity of the election if you can imagine such a thing and but you know which is which is shocking because what you're essentially saying when you vote against the law like that is saying I prefer to I think I'm going to have a better chance of winning the election if people are cheating then if we actually count the number of votes that I'm going to get and I want to take it but I want to take it and that I wanted I want to win the elections in that way you know it it but you know I thought it was actually you know be be clearly knew that you know that this law wasn't going to be able to pass because he saw that in the Knesset there are you know parties that would prefer to win and you know prefer to win in that way but it reminded me of an interesting subject in economics that Professor John Leavitt would call a teaching your garden to weed itself I just want to give you guys a quick background about tequila she is writing her doctorate on Jewish law in behavioral economics a new analysis of the Talmud based on behavioral economics so when she talks about economics she's somewhat of an expert okay sorry yeah so we're gonna call this the nerd moment so my research is about what gets people to tell the truth or to lie on the kind of gold standard though the holy grail the right would be to get people to voluntarily admit when they're being bad guys when they're lying alright it's like it's like King Solomon right with the famous story about King Solomon when there are two women that each you know two prostitutes and each one said that there was a baby you know there was a dead baby and a live baby and each one said the live baby was her baby so remember what he said what he said to you know try to figure out who was telling the truth let's split the babies in the middle let's cut the baby in half and one of them says no no no no don't cut the baby in half give it to the other woman alright give the baby to the other woman and then Solomon said now I know who the real mother is right because the other mother said sure no problem cut up the baby so they unwittingly revealed who was telling the truth and who was lying right there's Lahav deal a story about David Lee Roth in Van Halen very the famous rock band in the 1980s they used to do these massive light rock shows and it took a lot of expertise and there was all this equipment and it was really dangerous with all these special effects and David Lee Roth every time he would come to a new city when he was going on tour he would ask the hosts to make sure to pull out all the brown M&Ms out of his M&M box in the contract that he signed with the production company one of the parts of the contract was - when they put the mms on the table for them to snack on I don't want any brown M&Ms exactly and so so he had he had to make sure so that you know everyone said oh you know these rock stars such prima donnas years later he explained they asked him you know why were you so obsessed with brown M&Ms and he said I used the M&Ms to check if the people that I was working with were reliable because if there was a brown M&M and they couldn't even manage to pull out the brown M&Ms from the M&M box then they surely would not be able to manage all of the complicated equipment and special effects that I need in this rock show so that's how I knew I needed to find a new a new production company to put up this show so I think BB was brilliant in bringing up this law because he he wins either way if he passes the law then he's able to you know protect the integrity of the elections but even if he doesn't even which is what in fact happened even if the law didn't pass it's a way of kind of kind of getting the dishonest people declare themselves because if you vote against a law that's designed to ensure the integrity all right the integrity of the elections then you're unwittingly revealing your true are your true intentions you know living on this mountain has really helped me understand what the lies that Israel has to face in why zechariah calls jerusalem the city of truth we're living on this mountain in the mountains of Judea and all of a sudden we get a sued by these left-wing organizations that are funded by European governments and at one point I was thinking to myself oh my goodness it's me and tequila and num-num our three-year-old on this mountain and we are holding the fort on Israel against three European countries that are fighting us like law fair not warfare but law fair and what are they doing in here up there calling me a West Bank colonizing settler and I'm like are you kidding me you're calling a Jew in Judea a colonizer do you know why Jews are called Jews Jews are called Jews not because we're from the tribe of Judah because the first person in the Bible to be called a Jew is Mordechai it says Mordecai hiya hoody Mordecai the Jew ish Yamini from the tribe of Benjamin well if he's from the tribe of Benjamin why is he called a Jew he's called at you for the same reason Jews in South Africa are called Jews are Jews in New York are called Jews Jews called Jews because we're from Judea Japanese are called Japanese because they're from Japan Chinese are called Chinese because they're from China we are called Jews because we're from Judea now imagine that Europe is calling me our colonizing person in the West Bank whether are you kidding me while your funding non-governmental organizations meddling in my country you're calling me a colonizer while you're furthering your political agenda the lies are so overwhelming and Zechariah says don't worry Jerusalem is going to be the city of truth because the fact that the Jewish people have returned to Judea is testimony that we are exactly where we're supposed to be and what's even crazier than calling us colonizers is what they call us in Hebrew what are what are settlers called in Hebrew Cove symposium conquerors oh that's just so funny so when I hear that word I get a little bit perplexed because they say like I'm a part of the kaboosh and I'm like are they trying to hurt my feelings there I'm a conqueror that sounds amazing I mean Joshua was covet Haaretz Joshua conquered the land King David conquered Jerusalem Ezra and Nehemiah conquered the land I mean two thousand years the Jewish people were a little bit weak all of a sudden the generation has rised up and we are conquering the land actually a commandment to conquer my and their site they're looking at me and they feel like they're cursing me and I'm like excuse me is that a compliment you're looking at me like you're saying something negative and as I'm hearing you calling me a Cove ish I sort of take pride in that and I find that really ridiculous every finds me Jeremy one of the things I love about you Jeremy is that it is literally impossible to hurt your feelings because you will always interpret everything as a compliment so I remember when we were first starting to think about going to the farm and then the heads of one of these left-wing organizations one of the organizations that that destroyed a Moana and destroyed in a TV 'vote they posted on Twitter about the farm and they said this is the most ambitious ambitious and comprehensive land specced from Palestinians that there's ever been in Judea and Samaria and referenced our farm hila almost plus I was like oh no they're going after us and Jeremy's like did you see I'm like yeah I saw I was like they wrote that were the most ambitious project in Judea and Samaria and like this is right after I Mona was destroyed and I'm like oh my god they're gonna demolish the farm it looks like she's like blushing with like the compliments from peace now so reminds me of a funny story I heard from you sign fly sir the shark Fletcher is the spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron he is the host of a Fletcher show on the Land of Israel Network anyway so yes I said you say I said there were two Palestinian professors talking to each other this Palestinian professor came over from who lives in Jordan came over to lecture in Chevron and this Palestinian professor from conference says to the Palestinian professor from Jordan he said why you know I was just recently in Jordan why is everything there so backwards like the roads are so messed up and the universities are so dilapidated why is everything over by you guys so primitive and he's like oh we haven't been occupied yet anyway these ridiculous people that are calling me a conqueror and thinking that they're cursing me folks I want you to know that's a blessing that's a compliment I take real pride in the fact that we re conquering our homeland 2,000 years we couldn't do it and finally this generation we've come back so call me a co veg call me a part of the kaboosh I take pride in it that's the truth but the truth is is that you know it's it's things are changing in Israel I just read yesterday that the head rabbi you know the God all Hedorah the greatest rabbi of the generation who's like the leader of the herati community of the ultra-orthodox community in Israel his name his name is Ruth hi I'm Kenny EV ski and he came out with a very interesting statement as traditionally the the ultra-orthodox community has been anti Zionist meaning they said Jews should not you know try to bring our own our own salvation we just have to wait for Hashem to miraculously bring salvation and it'll just you know Hashem is gonna build it bring the temple out of the sky and we shouldn't take any action we just have to have faith in Hashem and so they were traditionally against the concept of having you know a secular government or doing anything that goes against let's say the United Nations or America or Europe and so their position has always been you know you do whatever the other nations say and you don't have to take any kind of strong stand about regarding the Land of Israel and yesterday for the first time the you know the the greatest leader of the ultra-orthodox movie I mean the man is over a hundred years old he's quite quite agent and sagely and he said he said he was asked about giving giving away land to the Arabs and said that Israel must not you know that the ultra-orthodox parties must not join any government that would be willing to give away land to the Arab he said it's prohibited for him adora to give land away to arabs and he said and they said well what if what if America puts pressure on Israel to do that he says anyways very old he says tell America to tell the Arabs to give us some land first and the people who were asking him that you know that ultra-orthodox his his students his followers were so surprised they asked him a second time they thought maybe he didn't hear well maybe he didn't understand and then he repeated his answer meaning there's a fundamental change now happening within the religious community in Israel going you know going away from that kind of anti Zionist position of you just have to listen to whatever the nations say and taking a little bit more Jewish pride and and having a you know more more strength regarding maintaining our homeland well I don't know rough cutting up ski at all I don't know I've never read any of his books I know nothing about him he is the rabbi of a totally different world I mean I know of his name because I think he's considered pretty much like the largest oldest sagely rabbi in the Haredi world but he's not really connected to me on a day-to-day level but I feel like the man is very very old and he has seen a lot in his lifetime and he's saying well according to what I understand in this reality of the world it's time for the Jewish people to stand up for themselves and that is a transformation that is literally a Makaha it's a revolution okay so if we're already on the subject of rabbis and Torah do you have anything you want to share about the time that we're in yes yes I do I very much so we are in the month of Elul which is the preparation for Rosh Hashanah and I always feel like this time of year is like spring training it's like we're preparing for the game day in game days of course when the new year comes were starting our new year but this is the time to get ready for the new year and in Hebrew it's called Hodesh hora Hamim the month of mercy and that's just a terrible translation Hodesh Hara Hamim to be the month of mercy the word raha meme was taught to me by Rabbi David Zeller a blessed memory and he said that raha meme comes from the word rack'em which means woo and so it's not a month of mercy like God have mercy on my soul no it's the month of a womb where we have a space to grow and to develop and in this month it is the most opportune time for us to really start making new year's resolutions of how we want to live who we want to be to enter into the dialogue with ourselves now what does that mean to enter into the dialogue with ourselves everyone has those moments Jeremy are you sure you want to do that Jeremy why are you doing that Jeremy like that that conversation that we have with ourselves well who is asking the question who is answering the question and who's listening what is this conversation that's happening inside my mind and inside your mind because everyone has this inner dialogue all the time and so Rob Daniel Cohen of but I and explained to me that that conversation that's happening to you is yourself talking with yourself but who are these two cells where there's lots of different names for it there is in Hasidic language would be called Melinda cotton Melinda got lute a small mind in the big mind some would call it your lower self and your higher self some people would call it the super-ego in the ED so of Daniel calls it the me of this world and the me of the next world of Olam haba the uneo of a lama ba there's a place inside me that I already know who I'm supposed to be and I'm having this conversation with my best self and so in that place of raha meme in that place in the womb when we enter into that dialogue with our higher self with our best self with our self of the world to come it's in that space that we begin to grow and I feel like as long as we are trying our best to walk in the light and we're trying our best to actually reach that self that we know that we can be then we know that we're going to be on the guided path so I'll tell you something I've been really working on and that in that context of trying to you know work on myself towards the new year work on yourself but you're so perfect oh I think they work on yourself thank God it's about time okay we got to work on a few things so you know a really really big thing happened at the farm in the last few weeks which is that Roni masa and his family have moved to the farm one of the founding partners has joined us on the mountain with his five children with his wife you know his wife Noah and their five children and we had them over for Shabbat for the first time last week and you guys might already you know have picked up the Jeremy and I have like a little bit of what I would consider a kind of cute endearing banter which involves sometimes me teasing Jeremy a little bit and so I was just being myself and I was I was telling Ronia know a funny story about how you know Jeremy the other day says to me he's like he's any crazy that our youngest child is about to get out of diapers and I'm like and I said to Jeremy I was like wow it's gonna be amazing because your life is gonna look exactly the same as its looked always meaning you're gonna go from like never changing diapers - never changed a diaper that's really gonna be like a life altering experience anyway so I think this is like cute banter and then at the end of the meal aroni says to me you know in Arabic a wife is called Mara that means bitter but in Hebrew a wife ISA the Komachi of the numerical value is dvash honey and I'm like oh that's nice and he kind of says and in Arabic my wife is called Mara bitter I'm like yeah I got it and he's just kind of looking at me and I'm like is that like a critique he's like I'm just saying he's so brave and I was like after he left I'm like wow that was a really fun lunch guys bye come anytime I'm like I'm never having him over again you're our only neighbor and you're never invited again and the whole rest of the afternoon I was like taking my Shabbat now I'm like lying in bed like the King comes everyone who comes into my house he's gonna tell me what I thought that and then I was like wow I'm getting really defensive you must have like touched on something in that little critique that he gave me and so I said I'm gonna you know what I'm gonna observe this little like what was he saying he was saying that I was coming across as being a little bit bitter right like I like a little bit on like unpleasant and I you know I didn't perceive myself as that at all I thought that I was being really cute and funny but I was like okay can I accept it maybe to some people you know my words are coming off as being not so calm not-so-friendly okay like can I handle that and I decided to just you know because because our sages teach us you should love rebuke and it's like how do you love rebuke it's actually like a real inner work to do to try to be appreciative it's so counterintuitive to try to be appreciative when people give you criticism and so I kind of laid there and I could almost physically feel like this criticism going into me and it was hurting me it was hurting my feelings but I said can I accept this criticism and I tried to say like you know I made like it was like a conscious effort to say I'm going to look at this criticism instead of putting up all my guards and saying oh you know why was he being you know critical of me I'm just going to listen to absorb and see what I can make better because in every area there's something that we can make better so that's like a real work that I'm working on is trying to learn how to not put up all my defenses against criticism but actually try and kodesh lol in the month of Ella to see how I can bring about some sort of chuhwa and repentance through hearing what people are saying to me see chufa is the Hebrew word for repentance but again that's just such a terrible translation the word lush ou've means to return and I feel like you know Ruth Cooke talks about that there's just a wave of chuhwa that sweeps through the universe it's like a wave of that's you can ride it you can actually like join the movement of the universe and where is the wave taking us it's taking us all the way back to the Garden of Eden it's taking us back to our best selves it's like pushing us forward in this evolutionary process and I was thinking if you want to live a guided life then you really have to learn a little bit about surfing at least to watch some surfing videos or at least maybe experience boogie-boarding because it is to like find a wave and then try to ride the wave that God is guiding on you but then you know what sometimes happens is you're like riding a wave and then you find yourself in the middle of the ocean and you're like how the hell did I get here what am I gonna do now oh my goodness I'm gonna drown I'm in the middle of the ocean how did this wave take me here that's not good yeah but then all of a sudden I need to realize 12 months later oh I'm just now another wave is on its way and I'm gonna catch this wave in a totally different direction and so that really is the month of Elul that's really what this journey has been it's a return to ourselves it's a return to the core of what it is to be a Jew in Judea and thank you for joining us today before we before we wrap up I just have a little surprise for you Jeremy a surprise are you pregnant that's coming out in the editor no it's not that's great no no that's coming out of the you don't want to surprise my Christ did this does today's date remind you of anything today's date is our is our anniversary it's the worst husband ever happy anniversary verse remit to God that is really exciting so it's our 17th anniversary which means that we are going into our 18th year together Wow so 18 is high life so I bless you my dear that this coming year for us is a year full of renewed life and livelihood and liveliness and all the good things thank you so much happy anniversary [Music] I call for a vote I'm not home for her only an idiot you should know who are you gonna vote for in the upcoming election hi this is Josh hastin host of Israel uncensored on the Land of Israel Network full election news and analysis that you're not going to get anywhere else that's the land of israel network at the land of israel comm keep it locked