The Story of Joseph: The Prophecy to Defeat Hamas - Tehila Gimpel: Land of Israel Fellowship

hey everyone so as you can imagine these days have been very complicated and filled with emotional ups and downs you Joy from seeing hostages return and go back to their loved ones and heartbreak from you know Terror attacks and and lost soldiers and sometimes it's just it's this roller coaster up and down all the time and it seems so fitting that these weeks we're studying the Torah portions of the life of ysep of Joseph because his life seems to have similarly been a roller coaster like things are going great he's the Beloved son and then he's at the bottom sold to Egypt and he rises from being a slave to being the respected caretaker of the House of potifar only to be thrown in prison but then there's hope he makes friends and maybe they can help him and speak to Pharaoh on his behalf but then they forget about him and then they remember him and he becomes second to parro only at the end to have his brothers Still suspect him he's on this constant up and down of you know Peaks and valleys and you wonder how does ysep maintain his amuna his faith and his equilibrium in the face of everything that happens to him when I try to understand his real message to us I think it's distilled when he's able to look back at what's happened to him and he doesn't you know talk all that much but when he does it's so meaningful and he says to his brothers in chapter 45 verse 5 he says but now do not be sad and let it not trouble you that you sold me here for it was to preserve life that God sent me before you but they don't even really internalize it they still think maybe deep down he's angry and in bra sheet 50 in Genesis 50 he says Don't Be Afraid am I instead of God says he says like I I'm not the planner here I'm not Hashem I am just moving in hashem's plan and he says indeed you intended evil against me but God designed it for good in order to bring about what is at you know what is at present to keep a great populace livive so you guys might have thought that you were hurting me but it was really for me to save all these people from the famine there was a good a good ending to all of this so if there's this one message that ysep teaches us and he didn't just teach he practiced what he preached throughout his life is to live without fear and sadness from the knowledge of the fact that even the hard and the bad seeming events are part of a larger plan and you know ysep implores us to try to put whatever challenges or suffering we face into a broader perspective of how Hashem is moving us and moving the world forward forward in a grander Redemptive process that you might not be able to see with your natural eyes so you know in the beginning of the war the first ideas that I felt guided to explore were trying to understand the meaning of Hamas in the Torah because obviously Hamas didn't do market research and try to use a Biblical word for evil they think they're the heroes you know not not the Hebrew meaning of Kamas but it just seems so strange to me that the word Kamas in Hebrew would be the culmination of all evil that we see in the portion of Noah that leads to the flood the fact that they chose that Arabic acronym uh you know that had to have been planted there by Hashem in order to guide us and give us a sense of what we're up against and you know the idea was that you know and sort of just know this intuitively that people reveal their true selves without even meaning to and so if they chose Hamas as their name that that has to be a sign of their inner intention in essence and that's you know a deep life lesson in general because so often we see people around us and you know as the way we want to see them but when you actually listen a lot of times people will tell you what they really mean and what they really want and we should listen and what I didn't realize at the beginning of the war because I was so involved in like our Jewish Israeli perspective was that Hamas doesn't just re re like reveal who they are through their name but also through what they're calling this particular action they're calling this war the AL oxa flood the flood of the Temple Mount that's really interesting for a few reasons first of all because the first time we see the word Kamas in the Torah is in the context of the flood that hardly seems like a coincidence and what was the flood essentially when we think back to the flood in the times of Noah it was the idea of sending the world back into chaos because the world started as too this chaotic watery mess that Hashem made into creation and little by little all the first chapters of the Torah are like the world standing up on its wobbly little legs and starting to make process we hear about agriculture and shepherding and music and cities and then the flood came it essentially rewinded all of that and set everything back to chaos so when someone tells you that they want to make a flood believe them they are revealing to us their deepest purpose and existence to take a world that has made progress we have technology Prosperity science economy and turn it back rewind a flood onto it now why does that matter I mean maybe it doesn't matter but maybe our enemies are doing the heavy lifting for us by showing us how they fit into a larger scheme of things what do they mean to do maybe without even intending to reveal that to us now it's interesting there's only one other time in the whole Bible where the world word mabul flood appears and that's in Psalm 29 it says that Hashem sat enthroned at the flood Hashem sat as king forever and the translation often appears like it's in past tense but the Hebrew actually seems to be future tense in relation to a flood Hashem will be king forever meaning that hashem's eventual recognition as king of the world will come in some sort of context relating to a flood and I was thinking wow that's strange and interesting and then I stumbled across a passage in the writings of radya gaon who lived in the 9th century he says something so strange in his writings about what's going to take place in future days and he says that the eventual Redemption will come through a flood that is not really a flood he says there can't there's going to be a flood at the time of redemption but it's not an actual flood of water because hasem promised that at the time of Noah not to ever bring another actual flood to destroy the world that's sort of a funny thing to say because if you're going to say there's going to be a flood then say that there's going to be a flood if it's not going to be a flood then say there's not going be a flood there's going to be something else what is the meaning of a flood that's not an actual real flood and so there's something else that's going to flood the world and later interpretations in the mystical writings try to figure this out maybe it means a flood of confusion or a flood of disbelief how interesting that the Hamas themselves of all things actually call this war of flood they're saying to us we areas we are trying to bring a flood it's exactly what the mystical tradition is telling us will be and exactly what the Psalms hint what the psalm hints will be in relation to the development of the world into a recognition and consciousness of godliness and so we have Kamas and we have Flood now why would they call it the al- AXA flood al- ax is the Temple Mount what is the Temple Mount seemingly the war had nothing to do with the Temple mount the attack that happened on October 7th wasn't anywhere near the Temple Mount and the retaliation was nowhere near the Temple Mount either it's imagining like a war between Ukraine and Russia called the Australian war what's the connection and why a flood it didn't start in the winter it wasn't rainy time the Sun was shining on October 7th when the war started they could have called it a war of firebombs from aloa the explosion anything manly sounding why a flood what's the connection they're telling us and we only have to listen what is the Temple mount the Temple Mount symbolizes the final correction of the world the Redemption the Pinnacle of spiritual achievement they're saying we are here to flood that to set that back to create chaos where you would want to build the height and Pinnacle of Holiness Purity connection with Hashem we are coming to turn that back into flood and that of course sent me looking to the book of Zakaria because the imagery of a flood from Jerusalem that's like a big flashing sign to zaharia chapter 14 where it says and it shall come to pass and on that day a spring water it says in the English but it actually says in the Hebrew living water shall come forth from Jerusalem half of it to the Eastern Sea half of it to the Western sea in the summer and winter it shall be and the Lord shall be king over all of the Earth on that day the Lord shall be one and his name one like our enemies aren't wrong they are intuiting something deep they're supposed to be a flood of sorts from harab from the temple Mountain but not a flood that brings death like the first flood not or or like the flood of Kamas it says specifically in the Hebrew living water will burst forth from Jerusalem and create a river that goes from one sea to the other you know like that we hear people chanting from The River To The Sea uh yeah there's going to be a river to the Sea they are saying to us or maybe Hashem is saying to us through them through their choices of words like zoom out of the current moment and see that what is happening is not just a random isolated episode but it's part of a much larger process and you know the next verse says that the the Lord shall become king over the Earth on that day Hashem will be one and his name will be one what's interesting is that if you just you know flip a a few pages back to chapter N9 it talks about that time where Hashem will be king and mashiach will arrive and what is our vision of that what is the vision that the prophets of Israel set forward for that time look how it contrasts with the vision that our enemies portray it says I will cut off the Chariots from Ephraim and the horses from Jerusalem meaning and the bow of War shall be cut off and there won't be any more tools of killing and of fighting it says that mashia will come and he shall speak peace to to the Nations and his Rule now listen to this imagery carefully shall be from the sea in the west and from the river to the ends of the Earth the biblical vision of redemption compared to the Kamas vision of redemption when they say Al AXA flood they mean a metaphoric flood of killing blood violence when the prophets of Israel think of gula when they think of redemption they describe mashiah that brings peace to all of the Nations now of all the way that the prophets of Israel could have described this peace listen to the words that are chosen it says mam from water to water what is that what do you imagine when one body of water meets the other body of water that's like the definition of a flood of water springing forth right that imagery is coming to say there will be a flood but it's not a flood it's going to be a flood of Peace in the place that you thought you were going to bring a flood of suffering and pain and killing Hashem has the vision of the world that will will be a flood of peace and then the next very next verse right after that in in zaharia chapter 9 it says in verse 11 you too with the blood of your Covenant I have freed your prisoners from a pit in which there was no water now it's really interesting that in this context that it's talking about this time where there's going to be you know floods of Living Water and floods of Peace around that time they're going to be prisoners freed from pits under the ground now think back like the ability to dig really deep pits was probably fairly Limited in ancient times people were able to dig Wells and ssts to gather water but like pits that you could live in I mean it was probably possible in the ancient world but not extraordinarily common and the interpreters here don't even have a vision of people actually physically being held underground so they say oh it's like a you know the pit here is a metaphor for being in the Exile or from spiritual Darkness here we're actually living in times where we see people being freed from underground pits exactly like the verse says and the Hebrew is really interesting here because it says that they don't have water in them these are going to be pits that are characterized about with not having water which is kind of interesting and even funny like we just read yesterday in the newspapers that Israel is considering flooding the tunnels with seawater it's like um you know the the vers almost seems like wink wink it's tunnels pits in the ground that have no water um you know maybe maybe they could be using some water right about now but the words are like a giant flashing sign to wear when we think of a pit that has no water there actually is that term somewhere else and this brings us back full circle to ysep when ysep was thrown in the pit it actually says his brothers threw him in a pit that was empty and had no water it's like flashing sign you're going to be in a time where you're going to need to draw strength from this Yosef perspective from this calm and amuna that comes from the knowledge that even your darkest times like ysf exemplified in his own life of being down in the pits and being you know and fighting against you know so many dark evil forces that in his life he was able to walk around with this knowledge that it's part of hashem's larger plan to bring about something good and some and a Salvation and and a Gula and you know so so we we it's like a perfect time for us to draw our strength you know especially during these Paras and during these Paras of life and these pares in the Torah draw strength from that ysf perspective and take that with us to help us make it through these days with less sadness less fear and with more faith that Hashem will lead us in the end to the final Gula that he plans for us so with that I wish everybody a good week and hope to see you again soon bye