Caption transcript for Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel) (2021): “To All Generations” (3/8)

• 00:01 ♪♪♪
• 00:03 David Hart: Welcome to "Our Jewish Roots," with insightful
• 00:06 Bible teaching from Israel by Dr. Jeffrey Seif.
• 00:09 We travel to Bethel today on "Eretz Israel,"
• 00:13 the "Land of Israel."
• 00:15 ♪♪♪
• 00:25 male announcer: "Look to the north, the south,
• 00:30 the east, the West--"
• 00:34 ♪♪♪
• 00:41 announcer: "--all the land which thou seest, to thee will I
• 00:44 give it unto thy seed forever."
• 00:50 "Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber
• 00:55 nor sleep."
• 00:57 ♪♪♪
• 01:03 announcer: "Eretz Israel."
• 01:05 ♪♪♪
• 01:12 David: We're so glad you've joined us today.
• 01:13 I am David Hart.
• 01:15 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 01:16 Jeffrey Seif: I am Jeffrey Seif.
• 01:18 You know, people that visit Israel report wonderful
• 01:21 experiences with the Lord when they go there.
• 01:24 Jacob had an experience too.
• 01:26 Heaven opened up for him, didn't it?
• 01:28 Kirsten: It did, and the vision of the ladder.
• 01:30 Jeffrey: That's right. Kirsten: Right?
• 01:32 That's what I think of when I think of Jacob--a stone pillow
• 01:34 and a ladder.
• 01:35 Jeffrey: Come out with a song.
• 01:37 I know you're just waitin' to--
• 01:38 ♪ We are hear climbing Jacob's ladder-- ♪♪
• 01:40 David: We learned about it a long time ago, but there's so
• 01:41 much more to the story that we need to hear from you today.
• 01:44 Jeffrey: Well, it's all in the book,
• 01:45 and we're gonna take a look.
• 01:47 David: Yep.
• 01:48 Dr. Seif is teaching on location today from Bethel.
• 01:50 But, first, let's take a look at Jacob's journey.
• 01:53 ♪♪♪
• 01:57 announcer: And Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward
• 02:00 Haran, and he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there
• 02:05 all night, and he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the
• 02:11 earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.
• 02:14 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, "I am the Lord God
• 02:20 of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac.
• 02:24 The land where thou liest, to thee will I give it and to thy
• 02:28 seed, and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and I
• 02:33 will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee.
• 02:38 And Jacob rose up early and took the stone that he had put for
• 02:42 his pillow and set it for a pillar and poured oil upon the
• 02:46 top of it, and he called the name of the place Bethel.
• 02:52 ♪♪♪
• 02:57 Jeffrey: It's great to be here in the land of Israel.
• 03:01 Glad you wanna go on the journey with me.
• 03:04 It's not just about me and you, however.
• 03:06 We open up our Bibles, and we learned that the likes of
• 03:08 Avraham, Yischaq, and Yaaqob, the patriarchs,
• 03:12 frequented this very place.
• 03:14 Now, when I speak of "this place," in this program, we're
• 03:17 going to a place called Bethel.
• 03:20 Promises were made to Abraham here and to Jacob as well.
• 03:23 Come with me. Let's check it out.
• 03:26 ♪♪♪
• 03:36 ♪♪♪
• 03:46 ♪♪♪
• 03:56 ♪♪♪
• 04:06 ♪♪♪
• 04:13 Jeffrey: "Like father, like son."
• 04:14 That's what they say.
• 04:16 And the saying is reflected well in the biblical text as well
• 04:19 where God does the talkin'.
• 04:21 Now, the reason why I say that--and you're going to see it
• 04:24 as I say it--is because God has commanded particular people to
• 04:29 have residency in a particular land given to Avraham, Yischaq,
• 04:34 and Yaaqob, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 04:37 Here you can see it.
• 04:39 Present Israel is just a little sliver there, carved up more
• 04:43 and more, it seems, by the month by political pressures
• 04:47 wanting to enclose it.
• 04:49 When I look at the biblical promise, however, we see the
• 04:52 Lord leading Avraham and his ilk down here, wanting to expand it.
• 04:57 Well, our story takes place today with Yaaqob, Jacob, in
• 05:02 Be'er Sheva, and he is commanded to go northward up to Haran to
• 05:06 marry, and on the way, he's gonna visit this place
• 05:09 right here, Bethel.
• 05:10 It's a place we're about to visit.
• 05:12 And why?
• 05:14 Because God visited him there.
• 05:16 Let's check out the story.
• 05:18 Come with me to Bethel and see what God might say to you as you
• 05:22 walk in the footsteps of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
• 05:25 here in the land of Israel.
• 05:27 ♪♪♪
• 05:37 Jeffrey: Followers of Yeshua, Jesus, that is, have heard
• 05:40 the term "altar call."
• 05:42 In fact, even those that don't follow heard the term.
• 05:45 They haven't necessarily gone to the altar.
• 05:47 Those that are familiar with the language aren't necessarily
• 05:50 familiar with where the term "altar call" comes from.
• 05:54 Comes from the Hebrew Bible.
• 05:57 And those of us that have come to the altar, some of us have
• 06:00 come with choir singing behind us the song "I Surrender All,"
• 06:06 which reminds me, those who come oftentimes don't come
• 06:11 without a fight.
• 06:13 Police officer in another life.
• 06:14 I've been in chases, and someone says, "Okay, I give up."
• 06:17 Sometimes you're on the run, and we just give up, and we say,
• 06:20 "Lord, I surrender."
• 06:23 That reminds me of the story for today.
• 06:25 We're looking at a fellow Yaaqob, Jacob,
• 06:28 and he's on the run.
• 06:30 He's not really running from God now.
• 06:32 He's minded to run to him, and you can see God beckoning him,
• 06:36 his way.
• 06:37 The story, of course, as you may know, if you're familiar with
• 06:40 it, is that Jacob has been on the outs now with his brother,
• 06:43 Esau, who's minded to kill him.
• 06:46 And so, Mom and Dad say, you know, this would be a good time
• 06:48 for you to go on a journey, son.
• 06:51 So, ostensibly, he sent off to Haran, Syria, that is, to find a
• 06:55 wife, but, really, in so many ways, he's running for his life.
• 06:59 He is on the run, big time, and as is the case, when people find
• 07:03 themselves in a precarious place, at wits' ends that he is,
• 07:08 first time in his life he's on his own.
• 07:10 His mother's been takin' care of him for all of it.
• 07:13 He lays down his head, and absent a mother to take care of
• 07:16 him and a father to guide him from a distance, he lays down
• 07:19 his head, restless, and the Lord shows up at a place called
• 07:24 Bethel, House of God.
• 07:27 He lays his head down, we're told, and he sees a vision of
• 07:30 what we call Jacob's Ladder.
• 07:33 Another song in the Christian church,
• 07:34 "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder."
• 07:36 It's been made popular.
• 07:38 Well, one can think of a fireman going up and down a ladder.
• 07:41 That's not accurate, however.
• 07:43 Better, I think, is a "ziggurat," these steep pyramids
• 07:46 found in this part of the world, a staircase going up to heaven.
• 07:50 Well, never mind that.
• 07:52 Jacob sees a vision of God looking to communicate with him.
• 07:55 He's on his way out, wondering what his future will be, and the
• 07:58 Lord shows up, and he assures him in no uncertain terms that
• 08:01 this place--that "I will be with you," we're told in verse 13.
• 08:06 He sees the ladder, and the Lord says, "I am the God of Avraham,
• 08:11 Abraham, Yischaq, Isaac, and now you, Jacob."
• 08:15 And he says, in effect, "I will give this land--" very, very,
• 08:19 very clearly-- "the land on which you lie I will give to you
• 08:26 and your descendants."
• 08:29 "Eretz Israel," "The Land of Israel."
• 08:32 "This very place, I'll give it to you."
• 08:36 He says in verse 15, "I am with you," and then he says after
• 08:41 that, "and I will keep you."
• 08:43 Why is it, by the way, today, people that are religious, they
• 08:46 claim to be Bible readers and wanna say, "God is not minded to
• 08:49 keep the Jewish people.
• 08:51 He's not minded to be with the Jewish people"-- that there's no
• 08:53 relationship between Jewish people and real estate?
• 08:57 Those that speak that way, they're just not Bible readers.
• 09:00 They might be religious in some sense, but they've lost sight of
• 09:03 the literature.
• 09:04 God, in no uncertain terms, visits this fellow Jacob,
• 09:07 Yaaqob.
• 09:08 His name is going to be changed to "Israel," as Bible readers
• 09:11 know full well, and there's an abiding promise with him to be
• 09:15 with him, to keep him, and that his descendants are bound to a
• 09:18 parcel of earth--very, very, very, clear--in response to
• 09:23 which Jacob, with this in his mind, how awesome is this place.
• 09:28 He recognizes it as the gateway to heaven.
• 09:31 He is so touched spiritually, he will then refer to the place
• 09:35 that had a name beforehand as "Bet El," "The House of God,"
• 09:39 and there he will worship.
• 09:43 Those that worship the Lord in the house of God today,
• 09:46 respective churches, friends, consider the origin
• 09:49 of the altar.
• 09:51 Consider worship in the Hebrew Bible, and remember,
• 09:54 we're learning from a man, we're learning from experiences that
• 09:57 are bound up with the people, with the land, with destiny, the
• 10:01 Jewish people here, the Eretz Israel in the land of Israel.
• 10:09 announcer: Our offer on this program, "Whose Land Is It?"
• 10:12 Does Israel belong to the Jews?
• 10:14 And, if so, who says so?
• 10:16 In this DVD and booklet, Zola Levitt offers irrefutable
• 10:19 reasons why the Jews are the Holy Land's rightful owners.
• 10:23 Zola also defeats key arguments that attempt to undermine
• 10:26 God's covenants with the Jewish people.
• 10:28 "Whose Land Is It?"
• 10:30 will arm believer and unbeliever alike to defend Israel's right
• 10:33 to the land.
• 10:35 Call 1-800-WONDERS and ask for the DVD booklet or both.
• 10:40 David: Join us right now for additional content that is only
• 10:43 available on our social media sites, Facebook,
• 10:45 YouTube, and Twitter.
• 10:48 Visit our website, levitt.com, for the current and past
• 10:51 programs, the television schedule, tour information, and
• 10:55 our free monthly newsletter, which is full of insightful
• 10:58 articles and news commentary.
• 11:00 View it online, or we can ship it directly to your mailbox
• 11:03 every month.
• 11:05 Also on our website is the online store.
• 11:07 There you can order this week's resource, or you can always give
• 11:10 us a call at 1-800-WONDERS.
• 11:14 Your donations to Our Jewish Roots, help us to support these
• 11:18 organizations as they bless Israel.
• 11:21 David: Please remember, we depend on tax-deductible
• 11:23 donations from viewers like you.
• 11:26 David: For many, a trip to the Holy Land
• 11:28 is the dream of a lifetime.
• 11:33 The Bible truly comes alive as you see the sites where so many
• 11:36 biblical events happened.
• 11:39 Come on a Zola Tour to see Israel in Petra.
• 11:42 ♪♪♪
• 11:44 David: See the land of the Bible for yourself.
• 11:46 ♪♪♪
• 11:49 David: Contact us to reserve your dream of a lifetime.
• 11:52 ♪♪♪
• 11:57 David: Many of the places that you see in the series,
• 11:59 we take you on our tour to Israel two times a year.
• 12:03 We go both in the fall and the spring.
• 12:04 We invite you to join us.
• 12:07 You can find all the information right here on levitt.com.
• 12:09 Kirsten: One of the places that you filmed on this program,
• 12:14 Bethel, or Bet El, "House of God," we don't actually
• 12:17 go to on tour.
• 12:19 Is it open?
• 12:21 You got there to film.
• 12:22 Jeffrey: Well, we'll go off the beaten path a little bit,
• 12:24 places where visitors to the Holy Land don't always frequent.
• 12:29 You know, tours stay in Israel proper by today's boundaries.
• 12:34 Bethel, of course, belonged to Israel yesterday, but now it
• 12:37 goes under Palestinian autonomy, but we sneak under the wire, and
• 12:44 we shoot there.
• 12:46 David: I remember driving by Bethel on tour, and these homes
• 12:48 are built, like, five stories high, where families
• 12:51 all live together.
• 12:52 I kind of like that.
• 12:54 Jeffrey: Well, I like it too, and what's interesting, to me,
• 12:56 about that is the chasm between the rhetoric and the reality.
• 13:00 Those homes are paid for in cash.
• 13:05 They're built up, step by step, by Palestinian families, many of
• 13:09 whom cried, "poverty," and the like, and I don't wanna make
• 13:12 light of pain and suffering and poverty, but you can drive all
• 13:16 throughout Israel, both the West Bank and Israel proper, and find
• 13:22 Arab-Muslim communities that are thriving,
• 13:25 and that's an example of it.
• 13:27 People think, "Oh, those mean Jews.
• 13:30 You're just keeping those poor Arabs under their thumbs."
• 13:33 Well, you wouldn't know that if you look at the real estate
• 13:36 because these houses are gorgeous, and it's paid for with
• 13:39 Palestinians earning money from the Jewish state.
• 13:44 Kirsten: Which is something that people need to see for
• 13:46 themselves, and it is eye-opening to travel to Israel
• 13:50 when the news shows one view and the truth is a totally different
• 13:55 other view, and that's what we get to bring people
• 13:58 when they go on tour with us.
• 14:00 Jeffrey: Yeah, when people go there and they see it, they
• 14:02 really sense the difference between what they hear
• 14:05 and what really is.
• 14:07 It's like that with political discourse in America, true,
• 14:10 that, you know, you just get different spins on things
• 14:13 according to political agendas.
• 14:16 I just like to get to the land, and I hope, too, that you that
• 14:20 watch us--of course, we're bringing Jewish views on
• 14:24 biblical news, but I hope you would construe it as truer to
• 14:29 what really is at play in the world and in the Word.
• 14:33 There's lots of spinning things around, but we like to tell it
• 14:37 the way it is, and hopefully, you find value in it.
• 14:41 David: One of the places we do take you on our tour is the
• 14:43 Old Jerusalem Wall, one of our favorite places to go.
• 14:46 David Dolan is there right now with our history lesson.
• 14:49 Let's go there right now.
• 14:51 Jeffrey: David Dolan's backdrop this week is the old
• 14:54 city of Jerusalem, a great vista from which to continue his
• 14:58 remarkable saga of the modern state of Israel.
• 15:04 David Dolan: Behind me are the walls of the old city built
• 15:06 by Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman leader.
• 15:11 This area was a center of World War I.
• 15:15 The British forces in the area were led
• 15:17 by General Edmund Allenby.
• 15:20 During World War I, the British high commissioner in Cairo
• 15:23 promised the Arab leader of the whole region, Sharif Hussein,
• 15:27 down in Mecca, that, if the allies were victorious in the
• 15:30 war, they would help establish a number of Arab states after the
• 15:34 war, but he also said that they wanted to keep this area,
• 15:39 Palestine, as a separate entity with the idea that the Jews
• 15:42 would have a state here, and also, to the north,
• 15:45 Lebanon as a separate entity where the Christians
• 15:48 could have some autonomy.
• 15:50 Sharif Hussein agreed to this proposal.
• 15:52 In 1919, his son, Faisal, endorsed this proposal as well.
• 15:58 Well, in 1917, General Allenby, right behind me here, walked by
• 16:04 foot through Jaffa Gate after British forces captured the city
• 16:09 of Jerusalem.
• 16:10 He said, "I cannot ride--" even though he was a calvary leader
• 16:13 with a great horse-- "I cannot ride where the Messiah walked."
• 16:17 And the people cheered as he came into the city.
• 16:20 Well, just one month before, the British government in London
• 16:24 had promised the Jewish people a national homeland here
• 16:28 in Palestine.
• 16:29 It was called the Balfour Declaration.
• 16:32 Less than one year after the Balfour Declaration was
• 16:35 released, World War I, was over.
• 16:39 General Allenby's forces defeated the Turks up in the
• 16:42 Valley of Megiddo, north of Jerusalem.
• 16:46 The allies all gathered together a couple years later at
• 16:50 San Remo, to decide how to carve up the Ottoman Empire,
• 16:54 who would get what, et cetera.
• 16:56 And a mandate was given to Great Britain to establish a Jewish
• 17:00 national home here in Palestine, and a mandate was given to the
• 17:04 French to do the same up in Lebanon and in Syria.
• 17:08 And indeed, states were created for the Arabs
• 17:11 as the British had promised.
• 17:14 Transjordan, just to the east of us was created out of what was
• 17:18 the mandate of Palestine.
• 17:20 The Jews weren't so thrilled about this because that meant
• 17:22 that two-thirds of the area that they thought they could set a
• 17:25 Jewish state up in had been cut off from Jewish settlement.
• 17:29 But still, it was implied they could settle everywhere west of
• 17:32 the Jordan River, which would include what is today known as
• 17:35 the West Bank, but in 1922, Winston Churchill implied that
• 17:40 that would not be the case, that the Jewish state
• 17:43 would be smaller still.
• 17:44 Jews could settle in parts of western Palestine,
• 17:48 but not necessarily in all of it.
• 17:50 Well, also, in 1922, the League of Nations endorsed this British
• 17:55 mandate and the French mandate.
• 17:57 But in 1921, before that happened, in May, the very first
• 18:02 wide-scale Arab Resistance to the returning Jews took place.
• 18:07 Major riots in the cities of the land, nearly 50 Jews were
• 18:11 slaughtered down on the coast in Jaffa and in many other
• 18:14 parts of the area.
• 18:17 Through the 1920s, Jews kept coming back.
• 18:20 Nearly 60,000 made aliyah in what was known as the fourth
• 18:23 wave of aliyah.
• 18:25 Most of them came from Russia and from Poland.
• 18:28 They were city dwellers.
• 18:29 Most of them settled not in the farms but down in Tel Aviv and
• 18:33 other places.
• 18:35 Well, it wasn't long after that, in 1929, that the Arab pogroms
• 18:40 broke out that were the worst in the history of the Jews
• 18:44 returning.
• 18:45 That was led by Haj Amin Husseini,
• 18:48 the Muslim leader of Jerusalem.
• 18:50 Hundreds of Arabs poured out from the Temple Mount,
• 18:53 and over 113 Jews were killed.
• 18:56 The Jewish community of Hebron was completely slaughtered.
• 18:59 The chief rabbi hung upside down and skinned alive.
• 19:03 It was a terrible pogrom, and it was just a sign of the great
• 19:06 violence that was to come in the 1930s and '40s, all of this as
• 19:11 Jews kept coming back, that increasing in the '30s,
• 19:14 as a man named Adolf Hitler took control of Germany.
• 19:19 ♪♪♪
• 19:21 Jeffrey: Critics of the modern Zionist enterprise argue
• 19:23 that "It's thoroughly secular.
• 19:25 Nothing spiritual happening here.
• 19:27 These people don't even care about God, Bible,
• 19:29 religion--nothin'."
• 19:30 Well, if that's the case, why is it called Zionism, which harks
• 19:33 back to Zion, Tsiyyon, a biblical place?
• 19:37 And for that matter, why is the symbol the star of David?
• 19:42 David is a biblical personality, now, isn't he?
• 19:45 And why is that flag of Israel blue and white, reminiscent of a
• 19:49 prayer shawl that Jewish people drape over themselves?
• 19:53 There's more spirituality going on here than people credit it,
• 19:57 seems to me, David.
• 19:58 What says you?
• 20:00 David: Well, I think that's right.
• 20:01 It's true that only about 30, 35% of Israeli Jews regularly go
• 20:06 to synagogue, but then, on Yom Kippur, it's up to, like, 70%,
• 20:10 and most of them fast as well.
• 20:12 And, you know, you scratch the surface of a Jew, you find
• 20:13 somebody that has those biblical connections.
• 20:16 Jeffrey: Right, and you scratch the surface of the Jews,
• 20:18 you'll find some people that are traumatized from the Holocaust.
• 20:21 "Where was God when we were suffering?"
• 20:24 It might take some time for people to work out that pain
• 20:27 and recover their religious equilibrium.
• 20:30 David: Well, that's right, and, yet still, the leaders of
• 20:32 David Ben-Gurion and the others, when they met just here in
• 20:35 Tel Aviv at Independence Hall, to choose a name for it,
• 20:38 the country, Ben-Gurion said, "It has to be Israel."
• 20:41 Well, that, of course, comes from Jacob.
• 20:43 Jacob got that name from God.
• 20:46 So even there, he was a secular man, mostly, but he was looking
• 20:49 into the book to get the name of the country.
• 20:51 It's very connected.
• 20:53 Jeffrey: Yes, and that's very telling.
• 20:54 You can see the connections, to use your word there.
• 20:56 The Bible says that people will be brought back initially
• 20:58 in unbelief.
• 21:00 So even the spiritual skepticism fulfills Bible prophecy.
• 21:04 David: It really does, and, of course, so literally we have
• 21:07 Israelis coming from over 100 countries from the far corners
• 21:11 of the earth, as Isaiah 11 and other places said.
• 21:14 You know, I've been reporting that, all the Russian Jews
• 21:16 coming back, and I'll never forget, after the scuds fell on
• 21:19 this city behind us in 1991, when Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime
• 21:22 Minister, called upon the nation to go to the synagogues and give
• 21:26 thanks to God for no casualties.
• 21:28 That was a miracle, and the places were packed,
• 21:30 all over the country, with people doing just that.
• 21:33 Jeffrey: One of a number of miracles that works out
• 21:35 in Israel.
• 21:36 Your comment reminds me of the statement, "There's no atheists
• 21:38 in foxholes."
• 21:40 David: That's exactly right.
• 21:41 Jeffrey: Pushed against the wall, people do tend to turn
• 21:43 their hearts upward.
• 21:45 David: Well, they do, and they are doing that more and
• 21:47 more here.
• 21:49 Jeffrey: Yes, there's so much happening here in the hearts and
• 21:51 the minds of those that live here, but beyond that and beyond
• 21:55 the own self-determination that resonates amongst the people
• 21:58 that live here, there's God at work in the world.
• 22:01 We see it.
• 22:03 When we open up the Bible on the one hand and open up the
• 22:06 newspaper on the other, we can see congruity as we're observing
• 22:10 God watching over his word to perform it here, the Eretz
• 22:15 Israel, in the land of Israel.
• 22:18 ♪♪♪
• 22:20 [singing in Hebrew]
• 23:46 David: That was Psalm 137, sung by the beautiful
• 23:49 Israeli actress.
• 23:51 We really enjoy having her being a part of this program.
• 23:54 Kirsten: Well, she played Esther for our series "For Such
• 23:56 a Time as This."
• 23:58 She's gorgeous, but also, Dr. Seif, that spot that you
• 24:01 and David were just at, looking over the Mediterranean into
• 24:05 Tel Aviv, was a gorgeous view.
• 24:07 What a vista.
• 24:09 Jeffrey: It's a great view, and it's the old and the new.
• 24:11 Jaffa was originally the city, and Tel Aviv was a little
• 24:14 suburban area, but now Tel Aviv has grown so much
• 24:17 and continues to do so.
• 24:19 It's a beautiful backdrop, but I'm glad to be there.
• 24:21 Kirsten: Quick question on that.
• 24:22 You said, "Jaffa."
• 24:24 I've heard "Yaffa."
• 24:25 What's the difference? People call it both.
• 24:27 Jeffrey: Yeah, it's a "yud," the first letter in Hebrew.
• 24:30 There isn't a "J," so it's "Yaffa" in Hebrew, "Jaffa"
• 24:35 for an English equivalent.
• 24:37 Kirsten: And I just have to say to all of you watching, if
• 24:39 you want to see that vista for yourself, that's literally the
• 24:43 first places that--we get off the plane, we get on our bus,
• 24:47 that's the first thing we do once your feet touch Israel is
• 24:50 take you to that very spot that you just showed us with David.
• 24:54 Jeffrey: Yes, it's very meaningful to Jews, too,
• 24:56 Tel Aviv.
• 24:58 The early pictures are striking when it was just sand dunes
• 25:01 and nothingness.
• 25:03 And that big, modern city speaks to all kinds of development, and
• 25:08 Jewish people will think of dint of determination.
• 25:11 There is that, to be sure but perhaps the voice of prophecy as
• 25:15 well, giving a voice to the fact that, one day, Israel will
• 25:20 emerge afresh out of the ashes.
• 25:22 Jewish people don't always process things
• 25:24 with a religious perspective.
• 25:26 In the wake of the Holocaust, a lot are a little skittish
• 25:30 about religion, on the whole, based on the question
• 25:33 of "Where was the Lord when all this happened?"
• 25:36 Well, Israel is an emergent experience in the wake of it
• 25:40 all, but in any case, it is beautiful, to be sure.
• 25:44 David: So many takeaways from today's program.
• 25:46 David Dolan mentioned--and something that just has
• 25:48 resonated in my mind--that only 35% of Israelis
• 25:52 attend synagogue.
• 25:54 Jeffrey: Yeah, and that might even be ambitious to say that,
• 25:57 and that might only be because there's a large segment of
• 26:00 Orthodox Jews in Israel.
• 26:03 Jewish people tend to be secular, and inasmuch as, you
• 26:05 know, people will talk about Christmas and
• 26:08 Easter--Christians, you know--there's Passover
• 26:11 and Yom Kippur Jews.
• 26:12 It's not part of social life on a weekly basis.
• 26:17 For me, and I would commend to you, I believe in experimental
• 26:21 religion--experiential religion, I should say, that is, you know,
• 26:25 been touched by God.
• 26:27 The reason why I find value in all of this is because the Lord
• 26:30 found value in me, and I had an experiment--an experience at a
• 26:35 moment that really brought it all alive to me, and many Jewish
• 26:39 people haven't had that.
• 26:40 The Jewish religion is just that, a religion, as opposed to
• 26:44 something that's part of our experience as we make our
• 26:47 journey through life.
• 26:49 Kirsten: Well, I love what you mentioned about God bringing
• 26:51 your soul and your spirit alive as he's doing Eretz Israel with
• 26:56 the Land of Israel.
• 26:57 We can literally see that when we land in Tel Aviv.
• 27:00 We see that when we go to Jerusalem in every site, and
• 27:03 that country is not only bringing people alive in their
• 27:06 spirit, he's bringing the land alive,
• 27:07 and that's the miracle of Israel.
• 27:09 Jeffrey: Yes, part of the life is the love
• 27:10 in the land as well too.
• 27:12 Jewish people, a gracious people in Israel and warm,
• 27:16 loving, caring, and sharing.
• 27:17 Christians and Jews, all are welcome.
• 27:20 Muslims are come--are welcome to come in peace
• 27:23 and be friends as well.
• 27:24 David: So much more to come in this series.
• 27:26 Thank you for joining us today.
• 27:27 We end today's program with--
• 27:30 Jeffrey: Sha'alu Shalom Yerushalayim.
• 27:32 Kirsten: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 27:35 ♪ Oooh ♪
• 27:39 [singing in Hebrew]
• 28:04 ♪♪♪
• 28:14 ♪♪♪
• 28:24 ♪♪♪