Leah’s Blog Elul 2025
Elul 2025
The first of the clouds of elul come rolling in now and not sooner enough. A whole new reality, especially for one like me who does not relish summer to say the least. For me, there is no pleasure that compares to autumn: the falling leaves, the cooling air, the promise of rain, the festivals right around the corner. The King is in the field and I am coming out to meet Him. He is always here yet there is a promising and golden time that is your call. The grapes hang low and heavy now- waiting for the picking. I’m thinking about pomegranates, apples and leeks. In Israel, where the land produces rich and tasty fruit and vegetables, the charm takes over you at the market where it is displayed like diamonds in a jewelry store. Mesmerizing, I wonder at the words of the spies that sinned that said “It is a land that eats its inhabitants”. Moshe told me once that there is a segment in the Talmud that discusses the concept “He prophesied and did not know what he prophesied”! So- in fact I’m thinking that this land that lay desolate, barren and not owned by any nation for all of these years couldn’t support food to grow here. Like a faithful wife- it waited for its betrothed to return. In fact, I’m thinking a land that eats its inhabitants means a land that FEEDS its true inhabitants.
The concept of bringing first fruits to the Temple was preceded by hundreds of years when Yosef (the giver of food) called his son Efrayim, literally meaning- fruitful, or “to be fruitful”. Symbolizing growth, prosperity and abundance, Efrayim came to settle the mountains of the heart of Israel, the place I live. Yosef named his son Efrayim in prophecy as he was destined to be one of the most influential tribes in the northern kingdom of Israel- our biblical heritage and even the name of this territory (where I live). When we were commanded to bring fruits to the Temple, it was a sealing in of identity as they were presented in baskets with gratitude on our lips. These baskets were carried to Jerusalem on the very same road I take to get there- and now I too acknowledge the abundance of the harvest. Bikkurim was mandatory, reminding us about leaving Egypt and the significance of reaching and living in the Land G-d chose for us. There is a deep guarantee interlocked between fruit and promise.
There is a vision in Jeremiah (24) about two baskets of fruit- one of rotten figs not fit for eating, and the other of the good figs representing the exiles that will one day return to their land. Jeremiah also sees the grapevines flourishing thousands of years before they appear HERE NOW. The theme of the fig, grape, olives etc. is woven into the matrimony to the Land.
When you leave fruit out for too long though, it rots. Ever notice a bruised fruit? It rots even faster.
AND FOR THOSE WHO PERCIEVE ISRAEL AS DID THE SIN OF THE SPIES:
I am literally shocked to see statements by “Rabbis” condemning so called “settler violence” and buying into false blood libels. As if they will feel protected in their claim to join the fake news, fabrications, and propaganda- their bruised influence has rotted off hundreds and thousands of innocents that believe the words of their leaders. And so the saying “A land that eats its inhabitants” will boomerang back into their faces because the enemy does not differentiate as was in Nazi Germany- the most assimilated shared the same fate. Jewish pioneers living on Israel’s heartland are reviving desolation and returning to their ancestral land, reviving prophecy- period.
“Hashem set His eyes on them for good and would one day bring the remnant back into the Land- He would give them a heart to know Him, and they will return to Him with their whole heart.”:
Shabbat shalom dearest friends! Xoxoxoxoxoxo BLESSINGS! Leah
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