We Expected a Miracle… But Got a Ceasefire | Land of Israel Fellowship

Um, how are we doing nationally? It feels a little bit more like a roller coaster right now. Uh, as you know, about 6 weeks ago, the Shabbat before Purim, the third round of this long, protracted war broke out. I know you all remember it. And since then, uh, we've been in and out of shelters. The kids have been in and out of kindergarten and preschool, which as everyone knows, at least everyone in Israel knows, it creates an impossible juggling act. Managing the chaos of war while somehow also preparing for Pesach, for Passover. You know, Passover is destabilizing enough on its own even without missiles. Add missiles and the chaos and the craziness, it's been a lot. And now here we are. Pesach ended Wednesday night, and that left exactly 2 days in the week before Shabbat, which we just finished last night. So, it's just like days without electricity, days of being disconnected, holidays, Sabbath, days apart. It's disorienting. And, uh, and we just finished Shabbat to turn on our phones to learn that there is something being called very carefully, very, very, very tentatively a cease-fire. And today, for the first time in a very long time, the country seems to be returning to something at least resembling routine. That is until the last hour or so, where it seems that the cease-fire may be over. And maybe not, and maybe yes, and maybe not. And I don't know. Um, but, uh, but up until I would just an hour or so, it seemed like the cease-fire was on. Um, you know, although I'll tell you like this routine idea, after weeks of erratic and unpredictable insanity, you can actually forget what routine really is. You know, it feels like the word is like losing its meaning. So, on the one hand, maybe there's something stabilizing about this idea of a cease-fire. If it's happening still, or if it's not, I'm not clear. Maybe Trump is saying, "No, blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Ah, we deserve from Iran." And there's a cease-fire. You know, it's just so crazy, but it seemed like there was some It seemed like there was some sort of stability that was coming. Like maybe a rare opportunity just to exhale for a moment. But knowing me like you guys do, I imagine you can already guess that, uh, turning on my phone to learn about a cease-fire, it was I I I'm struggling with that. You know, it's, uh, you know me. I And I don't think I'm alone. Because going into Pesach, the holiday of redemption, I'll admit I I did have expectations. High ones. Jeremy knows it. He's like, "Yeah, all right. I know. I know. I know. It's going to be This is the great day of the Lord." >> [laughter and gasps] >> But I know in his heart he was also expecting it. I think so. Anyways, I know. I know. Expectation is the root of all heartache. Shakespeare was right about that one. And I try I generally try not to set myself up like that, but what can I say? I'm only human. Because going into Pesach this year, and especially going into the seventh day, the final day, the day the sea split, and that energy is still in the air. It's It was in the air before the sea even split. It was a day of redemption since the creation of time. And the sea split on that day because it is an auspicious day of redemption. You know, and Hashem intervened directly into the laws of nature in this global display of love for the nation of Israel. We were at our lowest point of impurity, and he still redeemed us in this miraculous open way. It was just such an act of love. Anyways, I wasn't just hoping for something, I was expecting it. Am I alone here? Was anyone else in this fellowship expecting something big this Pesach? Can I see hands? Tabitha, yes, okay. All right, there's a lot of Thank you. Okay, I'm not crazy. We're all You or I am crazy, and we're all crazy together. But I don't think so. I think there was really reason to because the timing felt too deliberate to be a coincidence. We were in what felt like the final round, the final showdown. And then Trump issued an ultimatum, set to expire in the middle of the night on the seventh day of Pesach itself. The tension was just like extraordinary. Felt like the geopolitical stage was being set for something larger than politics, something ancient, something redemptive. Right? And to me, it felt like the pieces were lining up. Like we were inside a story that was reaching its crescendo. You know, because that's what we do here, right? We We read reality like a text. We look for the meaning underneath the surface of events. And everything underneath the surface of this moment was pointing in the same direction, redemption. And so, I waited. And I held my breath. And I was wondering, "Well, if I turned on my phone, what would I see? What's happening in the world right now?" Cuz we're just totally on this hilltop in Judea in this bubble of holiness not knowing what's going on all around us. We don't have security guards like they do in synagogues in America that can share with them everything that's happening. Right? And so, I waited, and we all waited. And then the day passed. Uh, and after the holiday, we rushed and opened our phone to hear the news, and it was like, "Wah, wah, wah, a cease-fire. A cease-fire. Like what?" The sea did not split at all, just the opposite. At least that's what it felt like. And then, just as all that settled in, and the cease-fire, and it's not a cease-fire, this 15-second video of the waters. At least at this very moment, this is what the waters in the Strait of Hormuz look like, and it's making its way around. I haven't confirmed this. I just got it, but I had to share it with you. Okay? All right. I mean, it's blood-red water, the first plague, the water turning red. Not a miracle in the way we imagined, not a nature-defying miracle, not the sea splitting, not the kind of moment you could point to say, "There, that is it." But at the same time, come on. You can't just write that off. Right? It is just so clear that Hashem is communicating with us, that he's sending us a message. And of course, you can explain it like iron oxide, soil, natural causes. There's always a way to explain it. But that's almost the point, because if the sea split every time we needed reassurance, there'd be no space for emunah. But when the water turns red, and you don't know exactly what to make of it, cease-fire, no, yes, after Passover, no, maybe that right in there is where the relationship often lives, right? That's where we lean in. That's where we say, "Hashem, I may not understand what you're doing, but I know that you are doing it." And that's enough for me. You know, because when we turned on our phones to learn of the cease-fire, it was clear that, you know, on some level, nothing had changed. Even now, right? The Ayatollahs were still there. And we were back into what felt to me like completely futile just futile. Is it futile or futile? Either way, it is worthless diplomacy. I mean, listen, diplomacy it can work, but it can only work when both sides have some reason to want it to work. Iran doesn't. They've told us exactly what they want clearly, repeatedly, for decades. They haven't just told us, they've showed us. The entire purpose of their existence is the destruction of Israel and the global jihad. And And you just can't split the difference on that. Right? But But But nonetheless, we turn our phones on to find out that some sort of cease-fire, right? And then, Shayna receives a text that the schools are back on. And what came with that return to normalcy, that feeling was it I just felt this sadness and disappointment. Like what happened? Everything seemed to be so aligned. You know, it really felt like the appointed time had come. And I couldn't help it, and I was even more than a little disappointed. I told my friends in the prayer services, I shared it with them. And a lot of them were, too. And they shared the many times over the last number of years that they have It was really like each Oh, what about that time this? I was really expecting it then. I was really expecting it then. You know? And then, on the Sabbath, as happens more often than I probably deserve, Hashem spoke to me through the Torah portion. I was comforted, you know? I was I was grounded. I felt like I was being re-aligned through the portion. Because Parshat Shemini is a parsha of what happens after the preparation is complete, right? After 7 days of consecration, the Mishkan is built. The The Tabernacle's built, right? The offerings are arranged, the nation gathered. Aaron and the people stand ready. Everything is in place. Uh, the expectation is almost unbearable. Right? And then, verse 24. And a fire came forth from before Hashem. It happens. Right? But not because the people forced it. Not because they timed it or understood or or decided this was the moment. It happened because Hashem willed it at that moment. And almost immediately, the portion turns. Nadav and Avihu step forward, right? Aaron's two sons, two of the greatest souls of their generation, burst forth with passion and with yearning, with what may have been similar in some ways to the desire many of us felt on the seventh day of Pesach, a desire to draw closer, to complete the moment, to bring something more. Right? Let's look inside of Leviticus chapter 10, verse 1, to see what they brought. Right? They brought It says they brought a strange fire, esh zarah, asher lo tziva otam. A strange fire that he had not commanded them. And the result is devastating, right? Aaron's beloved sons, Nadav and Avihu, were totally consumed in a flash of of divine fire. At least I don't know if it was a flash, at least that's how I imagine it. Right? And but they were definitely burned up and consumed in fire. And I think >> [snorts] >> that at least part of the message there is that is that even the holiest yearning, right? Even a passionate desire for that which we're supposed to desire, for redemption, for closeness to God, when it steps beyond the boundary of trust, when we insist on forcing our desires and our expectations, it can become dangerous. You know, because we learn that the sea splitting was not primarily a miracle of geography. It was a miracle of emunah. The sea didn't split and then the people believed, right? They had to step in first. They had to trust that the ground would appear beneath their feet. And we learn we real trust, right? Real bitachon is not confidence that things will go the way I expect. But bitachon is the certainty that whatever happens is from Hashem and is ultimately for the good. And that really is a fundamental shift. Right? Expectation says, I know what what good should look like. Right? Whereas the message of bitachon, true internalized faith, from the head into the heart, into your limbs, into your very essence, bitachon says, I trust even when I don't recognize the good yet, I still trust. And uh and maybe perhaps that's the harder lesson of this Pesach, right? At least for me. Because the stage was set. I believe that. And you know what? Some on some level, maybe the stage is always set in some sense for those who are paying attention. But the the longing we felt going into that seventh day was real. Our expectation of redemption was not delusional. It was alive. It was awake. And it showed that something important is happening in our hearts, that we're not numb. We're not resigned to the exile and we're not lost in some abstract ritual ritualistic religion. We're not in communication. We're in a relationship with Hashem and we're trying to hear what he's saying to us. Some and something in us and in the world is genuinely stirring. But uh but the sea parts on Hashem's schedule, not ours. Right? Redemption comes in the way Hashem knows it's right, not in the way we may we may think it is. And and there's a humility sort of embedded in this portion that uh is hard to embody. It's hard to follow the lead of of Aaron the high priest, at least for me. And may we never be, you know, faced with the gravity of the challenge that he's facing, but on our own level even it's hard to embody it. At least on my level. You know, yes, we need to prepare with everything we have. We need to yearn with full hearts. We need to continue believing that redemption isn't just some distant dream, but it's real and it's imminent. And at the same time, we need to accept that we do not control its unfolding. That we are not the authors of the final act. Right? And then and then Aaron does something that I find more and more to be one of the more profound moments of maybe even in the whole Torah. Right after his two sons traumatically die in what we would expect to be a moment of the greatest joy and celebration and holiness, when they are consumed in a fire in a way that at that moment at least probably was totally inexplicable. How does Aaron respond? How does Aaron respond? Chapter 10, verse 3. And Aaron was silent. Va yidom Aaron. Aaron was silent. And I used to read that verse as grief, as someone too shattered to speak. But we are taught that this is not the silence of emptiness or defeat. This is the silence of someone who understands that that even in the pain, even in the confusion, there are dimensions of the divine plan that exceed his view. He does not demand an explanation. He doesn't need the the architecture of heaven to be made clear to him before he can continue to serve. No. Va yidom Aaron and Aaron remained silent. And that silence is emunah in its in its perhaps in its most refined form. And so for me, now that the dust is settling, I'm grateful that Hashem has continued blessing me with spiritual resilience, because I definitely can't credit myself to it. I mean, I'm I'm just I'm not broken or anything like that, not at all. My faith in Hashem my my foundational faith in Hashem has not been touched. But I am increasingly humbled by the gap between what I expected and what is actually playing out. Not just the seventh day of Passover this year. Over the last number of years. I've always had these predictions and expectations. And it's not it's not me. I I'm not the one to me be making those. You know, and um maybe it's not bad to do it. Maybe it's not wrong to do it. But we have to keep a place in our heart that says, this is just the best we can know. Hashem is the ultimate author beyond what we could possibly understand. You know, and and so in that gap between what I expected and what's actually playing out, right in that gap, is where the portion really spoke to me. Because what if the seventh day of Pesach this year was not meant to be a splitting of the sea? What if it was meant to reveal something else? What if it was meant to reveal that while our expectation is real and our longing in our hearts is still very much alive, what if it was meant to reveal that redemption is not something that we can schedule or predict? That redemption is perhaps something that we will not even fully recognize as it begins to unfold. Maybe it will only be something we will see in retrospect. Because what if it is unfolding right now? I think it is. I just know it is. I don't know how, but I know it is. Just not in the way that we imagined, not in the timeline that we hoped for. Just not with the the clarity that we expected. And and I want to share that you know, many of us may be feeling like this. This was this is a message that was written by a very righteous and deeply faithful woman here in Israel. I don't know her well. I just learned it her about her through this. But Tehila was telling me about her. You know, she wrote this on the night after the seventh day of Pesach, when there's something called a Mimouna and it's a celebration. It comes from the word emunah, faith, right after Passover. It's a time of faith. And she put into words her own struggle to process the emotions of that moment. And when I read it, I felt like she was giving voice to something what we may be carrying inside. So this is the picture of the of the Hebrew I'm putting there. And this is what it means. It says it says that the war it seems that the war against Amalek is ending at Passover. So where is it heading now? Is everything uh is everything finished halfway again? Why do we have no taste of victory? She wrote, I want to tell you that the Exodus from Egypt has two two stages in the war. The first stage, speak to the children of Israel and tell them to travel. Right? God act through our pilots and our soldiers, through our great operations and through the state of Israel has done for the entire world. The second stage, God will fight for you and you shall remain silent. Hashem y'lachem l'chem v'atem tacharishun. Simply let the Holy One, blessed be He, surprise us enormously. This requires of us much patience, much tolerance, and much faith. There will now be many good surprises. There will be great miracles and giant surprises. To speak words of faith with each other. This is the Messiah. To bring words of light. She was saying Messiah and the word Messiah to speak to each other. Jeremy's taught that before. That's what she was saying there in the Hebrew. She said, let us celebrate this festival with joy. This is the holiday of faith. Let us all meet and celebrate and to speak words of faith with Israel forever. With Israel that has done above and beyond. God watches over us. He walks before us and behind us. You know, and and that spoke to me. I think it spoke to me a lot more in the Hebrew than the English. I don't know how well that was translated. But but I you know, I know that this fellowship too has been living with that tension personally, nationally, spiritually for a long time now. We've all stood at the edge of what what feels like the sea waiting for the ground to appear. We've all had moments where the story seemed to be reaching its crescendo and then life continued quieter than expected in ways we didn't expect. But uh but that's where I want to leave us with, I guess, right now. I'm saying it again in a thousand different ways, but it's such an important message. The same God who split the sea is the same God who chooses when not to split the sea. And both are part of the story of redemption. And so the question for us right now is not only, why didn't it happen? But can I trust that it still is happening? And I can answer for myself and for all of you in this fellowship as I know you what the answer to that is. But that's the question. Can I live with that tension between yearning and surrender? Between expectation and trust. Can I stand like Aaron in the face of something I didn't fully understand and remain silent, not out of emptiness, but out of faith? And can I keep walking towards the water's edge step by step, trusting that the ground will appear when it's meant to? Because that is where the work is. Not in the dramatic moments when the sea splits and everything becomes clear. The work is is in here, right? In the ordinary days, in the ceasefire, the no ceasefire, the yes, the no, the blockade, the blood in the water. You know, it's in here these days where everything is both ordinary or and extraordinary and ordinary in its extraordinariness. Right? In the return if we return to routine, it's in there also. Right? In the quiet after the expectation, that's a lot of where that real relationship growth is happening with Hashem. And saying, "Hashem, I trust you to decide how and when." And and and I'm not giving up on the edge of the water because the same God who has always kept his word is still writing the story and we're in it. My name is Ari and I live here on the edge of the Judean frontier. And just as the prophets foretold, the mountains of Judah are coming to life. The in-gathering of the exile is taking place right before our eyes. And the final prophecy is manifesting as the righteous of the nations are coming together with humble hearts here in the land of Israel fellowship. And now I'm inviting you to join us along with hundreds of Jewish and Christian families from all around the world to experience the beauty and the holiness and the magnificence of our fellowship. So, click below so you can taste the beauty and the holiness that is happening on this mountain.