Yair Pinto:
I’m standing in a field in Moshav Pri Gan. This is a farming community in the Eshkol region, just a few kilometers away from the Gaza border, near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. On October 7th, Hamas terrorists tried to storm this Moshav, this community. A handful of locals and rapid response volunteers from a nearby community came to the rescue along this area. They fought them back and saved the entire community from infiltration and destruction at the cost of some of their own lives. They stopped the massacre and kept every resident safe.
But in this area along the Gaza envelope, other communities were not so fortunate. Like so many communities in this region, Pri Gan’s people are farmers living by the seasons and the soil. So when the border burned, their livelihoods did too.
A dominant part of Israel’s agricultural yield is grown in the Gaza envelope community and in the Negev area. Places like this one took a direct hit by terrorists. Fields were torched or left empty and unworked. Tractors ruined. Greenhouses shredded. Entire towns evacuated in the northern parts of Israel along the Lebanon border. Orchards burned and communities emptied under constant fire. Tens of thousands displaced and jobs were frozen.
Against that background, Israel’s long tradition of feeding the hungry met a new challenge. Supply chains were disrupted just as the need exploded. Leket, which in English means “gleaning”—the biblical call to leave crops for the poor—is now a nationwide rescue and relief network that gathers surplus from farmers, from markets, and from restaurants, and delivers them to the families in need. In this season, many of the same farmer families who used to donate became the ones needing the help, and Leket stepped into the breach.
Today we will see how a nation under fire keeps bread on the table. Where courage tills the soil and hope fills the basket, because Israel’s biblical call to glean, feed, and lift the needy is how this nation survives and thrives.
Yair Pinto:
Good morning. It’s 6:30 in the morning. Having my coffee and we’re about to get ready for a ride along. Spend a full day together with an amazing organization called Leket Israel. On my way to meet with Raymond Macdonald from Leket. It’s going to be a very, very good day. So in the meantime, make sure to like, share, and subscribe.
First of all, it’s just amazing to be here with you in the land of Israel. We at TBN Israel, we’ve been working with Leket for quite a while now. And today, we want to really understand who you are. What’s the vision of Leket?
Raymond Macdonald:
My name is Raymond Macdonald.
Rosalind Macdonald:
And I’m Rosalind Macdonald, his dear wife.
Raymond Macdonald:
Yeah. So, we’re going to head down to a place called Pri Gan. It’s a small farming Moshav. We’re going to meet with Yosi. He’s got a powerful testimony and it’s going to be great.
Yair Pinto:
I’m here at Moshav Pri Gan. This community was first founded in the Sinai in 1978. After the 1979 peace treaty, its land was handed to Egypt, and in 1982 the Moshav moved to this spot on Israel’s southern border. Since then, its farmers have grown just about everything: sweet potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, leeks—as you see around me—and more. For years, they partnered with Leket Israel, gleaning surplus for the poor. Then after the war, Leket turned around and supported them when they were the ones in need. I’m meeting one of those farmers today.
Raymond Macdonald:
Yosi Naim, please meet Yair.
Yair Pinto:
How you doing, Yosi?
Yosi Naim:
Much better.
Yair Pinto:
So share about this farm and what do you grow here? Where do you send it?
Yosi Naim:
What you see is a very small part of my farm. I grow on 200 dunams [approx 50 acres]. This is like one dunam, this field. First of all, if you want to be a farmer, you must be a believer. You need to be the most optimistic guy on earth to be a farmer. Whatever I do, no matter what, it’s only 50%. 50% is from Him.
Yair Pinto:
I want to take you back to the morning of October 7th. Every Israeli knows where he was at that exact time and that day. Where were you and share the experience.
Yosi Naim:
In my house, sleeping. Like most of the country. Yeah, I think it was like 6:29. My wife—when I sleep, I sleep very deep—my wife, she was shaking me. “Wake up. There is [missiles].” I told my wife take the kids to the shelter room and I open the front door just to… I’m like this, you know, to check it out.
Oh listen, this was crazy. This is like Star Wars. You want to see what’s going on and there is a ceiling above me [rockets overhead]. My neighbor, he drove this street maybe 150, 160 kilometers per hour. Okay, you have speed bumps! He was like flying. But this is like in the first minute I just woke up. And then I hear maybe M16s, maybe I don’t know what… but in a roar, not like a single one. And I hear the shouting from all around you. I told my wife… I told her, “Wait, close yourself.”
I was outside. She closed the door and I opened… I said, “Wow, we cannot lock the door.” That’s how we realized you cannot lock the shelter room door. It’s not built to be locked, it was built only against rockets. I go inside, I hold the handle. My four kids are all awake, my wife, and the electricity fell down. There is no electricity. So, she was on the telephone. And she showed me the video of the road, the pickup trucks. And then she said—they have a WhatsApp group for all the women in the Moshav—and she told me, “Listen, the terrorists are in [Sil’s] house,” she’s my cousin. And another house.
And in the Emergency Squad of all this Moshav, only two M16s. This is the second person living in the street where the terrorists came. So he took the security car, the Toyota pickup, and he went to take them on in his car. Eight motorcycles… and there is a video of that. Eight motorcycles, maybe 12 or 13 terrorists in the line. Like, on his car. If you see the car, you see God’s protection. The minute he get outside from the car—I call him “No fear”—so that’s why he said I need to see if I’m not wounded. It’s unbelievable. He didn’t even get a scratch, nothing.
October 7 happened Saturday. Monday I left the Moshav with the army. Wednesday I came back. And we try to save as much as we… we didn’t know nothing. I mean you don’t know where it going, for how long. And in the second week, the army asked from us to harvest whatever you have, because in the supermarket there was nothing. You know what the army did? They came. If you told him I had a cabbage field, they bring soldiers, they scan all the lines really… they check, you wait in the side. Think how everything changed, right? And then they put four soldiers in the corners, an army car with the commander, and me. My father came with me and the Thai workers was working and I had my M16 the army gave me, and we stay there to protect them. And then there was a rocket—you know we have Iron Dome right behind this greenhouse, if you go in the back you will see Iron Dome.
And this is the first days. And then during that time Leket called me and she told me, “Okay, daily we’re going to send you US volunteers.” The same volunteer… these are students. The students work here for a month, they clean the field. But then I had tomatoes and they sent volunteers from the US, England, Canada. Came, put a hand on your shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, we’re in the back. We take your back. Just keep on going, keep on moving, keep working no matter what. You have a problem, call us. We try to do the best we can to help you.” So it’s even stronger than the government.
Yair Pinto:
You give them the leftovers. They give you whatever they can. What did you feel when you saw people from around the world that are not Jews and not Israelis coming here?
Yosi Naim:
Unbelievable. You cannot even… the word “Thank You,” it’s very hard to pronounce because it’s not enough. How can you say thank you for that? You know, they buy their own ticket to come to Israel to work, volunteer in agriculture. They really work hard, you know, with everything they got. Doesn’t matter the age. Young people, old people, doesn’t matter. And I was amazed. You’re amazed. I mean, it’s overwhelming. It’s like, wow.
You know, so in the Bible there is three Mitzvah [commandments]. Me as a farmer, I must do. Although one it’s Leket and Pe’ah. Leket means if I harvest my field and there is a few left, I’m not supposed to go back and take it. This is Leket for the poor people. Pe’ah means the four corners you don’t harvest, you leave it to the poor people. And let’s say in old times they didn’t have boxes, so if you put on the dolly whatever you harvest and something fell down, you’re not supposed to take it back. This is… God made it fell down. God made a decision for the poor people. God make all the decision. You just act by that. You just react to that.
Yair Pinto:
I want you to teach me how to do it. We need to… I need to learn something here in this field.
Yosi Naim:
So, first you need to clean it. You need to, you know, to convince the housewife that I’m the nicest on the shelf. You know, give him a haircut. And that’s it. So, first of all, I need to take out all the dead leaves. Yes. Show his beauty. To show… to make it look nice.
Yair Pinto:
So, you’re probably wondering where all the surplus of food goes. And now we’re heading to the Chabad of Ofakim soup kitchen to show you firsthand what is Leket.
Raymond Macdonald:
Leket is a Hebrew word. It’s a biblical word. It’s a commandment to assist those in need. Now we’re all familiar with that Moabite lady by the name of Ruth. And Naomi explains, “I’ve got this relative, this fellow by the name of Boaz, and perhaps he will assist us.” Do you remember Boaz saying to his men, “Intentionally draw for her”? And this is a key word depending upon the translation: Do not embarrass her. She may be embarrassed because someone is recognizing the need. But the idea of Leket is that those gleanings that drops to the ground, by law, belong to the needy.
Yair Pinto:
That’s cool. So it’s not charity, it’s part of the law.
Raymond Macdonald:
It’s justice and charity combining. We’re kind of a modern adaptation of this ancient biblical commandment. We know that majority of people in this country dwell in cities. They can’t go to the farm. It’s an organization. We have about 800 farms that will give us a portion of their land. In the last year, we’ve had 100,000 volunteers. We rescued and redistributed 71 million pounds of produce for Israel’s needy. The resilience of the Israelis is something that also attracts the volunteers to come, because they know that they can tap into that courage.
Volunteer:
People just weep and cry and just say we want to just take them and love them with everything that we have because we owe a great deal to Israel. We owe a great deal to Hashem [God] and God bless you for what you do for Israel. Thank you for that.
Volunteer 2:
The Christians around the world stood side by side with the Jewish people throughout this war from basically day one. And this is like in a battle between good and evil that is being fought in Israel. Israel is the front line. If Israel fails, then the West fails.
Yair Pinto:
So, we’re now waiting for the truck to arrive and then we’re going to see everything unloaded and then hand it over basically immediately to the people that need it. Right.
Raymond Macdonald:
In fact, we see there are some people waiting now. I’ve been with our truck driver… where I was with a driver yesterday. They’re looking at harvesting produce early in the morning onto the truck, to the logistics center, and then spread to other vehicles, distributed to the nonprofits, supplied to the people that are hungry. Often produce that is harvested in the morning is sitting on somebody’s plate that evening.
Yair Pinto:
So, what we’re seeing here is that the truck just arrived bringing cooked ready food from a military base and from another factory here in this area. And it’s been placed on this table here and the volunteers of this location are putting it into personal meals. I love this idea of taking the surplus of hotels, of factories, of army bases, because when I go to these places and eat and I think, “What are they doing with all this extra food?” And then you guys came with the ideas of Leket and giving it to the people in need and making the logistical part of it accessible and working. That’s the good part. We just took this food here and then immediately 10 people started packaging it. So there’s no time wasting. This food is not sitting and waiting for anybody.
Leket Israel has always been the lifeline between surplus food and hungry families. But after October 7th and two years of fields and orchards that were torched, communities evacuated, jobs lost, the need is greater than ever. This is Israel’s biblical calling. Leket gleaning turned into action. So join us in turning fallen grain into daily bread. So if you want to support this amazing organization, make sure to hit the link below, blesstheharvest.org, or scan the QR code to make an impact in the land of Israel.
What a day we had today. From going to the farmer, to coming here and seeing the fresh food coming from the army bases and into the people in need.
Raymond Macdonald:
Absolutely. Yeah. And this is not the final stop. As I was preparing and you were thinking too, this is going to be sitting on somebody’s table in just a few minutes.
Yair Pinto:
How can they stand with Israel in prayer and in action?
Raymond Macdonald:
Okay. So, absolutely. The Psalmist said, he wrote Sha’alu Shalom Yerushalayim. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. God has attached His name to this city, to this country, and to this people. So, we can pray for Israel. We can visit Israel. It really is… I’ve had so many people tell me, “I used to read my Bible and then I went to Israel and now it’s in Technicolor.” He’s reading it in 3D. So, the scripture really comes to life. This is a country that has an amazing past. Yeah, it has a miraculous present, but its future is glorious.
Yair Pinto:
Amen.
Raymond Macdonald:
So, praying for Israel, visiting Israel. You can contribute to Israel to an organization just like Leket. You can visit our website, you can make a secure donation. And I encourage Christians: don’t be a student of prophecy only. God wants you involved in prophecy.
Yair Pinto:
Amen. Well, thank you so much. It’s been an amazing day. Appreciate all the support.
Raymond Macdonald:
Absolutely.
Yair Pinto:
And everything that you’re doing. Let’s do it again soon.
If one thing is clear, it’s this. Israel’s strength is in its people. Its farmers who replant burnt fields. Volunteers who glean at first light. Soup kitchens that serve with dignity. Partners like Ray and Leket who turn compassion into meals. And after two years of war, the work of rebuilding doesn’t pause, it deepens. So here’s how you can stand with Israel now. Visit: come, see, and bless the land with your presence. Pray: add your voice to protection, provision, and peace. And give: help keep food moving from the fields to the tables for families in need. Every dollar helps rescue fresh produce, recover ready-to-eat meals like you see behind me, and deliver them fast to the elderly, displaced families, and communities on the front lines. Be part of the hands that hold this nation steady. Be part of feeding the hungry and rebuilding hope. Be part of God’s vision. You can donate at blesstheharvest.org. Again, that’s blesstheharvest.org. Thank you.