Parshas HaShavua Chukas
Our Mystical Bond to Eretz Yisrael
Parshas HaShavua Chukas: by Rabbi Ephraim Sprecher, Dean of Students, Yeshiva Tfutzot, Jerusalem
The Jewish people's connection with its land can't be compared to that of
other peoples with theirs. No other people has a prior title deed or
promise regarding their country. Theirs is a pure earthly link, one
characterized by neither spiritual nor sacred ties. Their relationship to
their homeland is governed by the fact that their ancestors happened to
settle there. Whenever a people or family moved from one country to
another, they soon became completely divorced from their original homeland.
But, this is not the case with the Jewish people, whose title deed to their
land is the Bible.
The sanctity of Eretz Yisrael is eternal, and for this reason, the
Patriarchs longed to dwell in it even before it was conquered by the
Children of Israel. Abraham only left it in time of famine, Isaac never
departed and Jacob regretted that he had been forced to go down to Egypt.
Jacob and Joseph adjured their family to carry their bones to the Holy Land.
How intensely did Moses entreat the Almighty to allow him to enter the
Promised Land! After the destruction of the First Temple, the Children of
Israel were exiled to Babylon where they sat down and took a solemn oath,
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not…" (Psalm
137). The intensity of the love of our Sages for Eretz Yisrael may be
gleaned from the following examples:
Rabbi Zeira longed so much for Eretz Yisrael that he fasted one hundred
fasts in order to forget the Jewish teaching that he had learned in Babylon
so that he could make a fresh start learning from Rabbi Yohanan, the Sage of
the Holy Land. When he managed to escape the vigilance of his Diaspora
teacher, who tried to stop him leaving for the Holy Land, he was so eager to
cross the river that he could not wait for a ferry but crossed it on a piece
of driftwood.
In 1837, when Mohammed Ali gave permission for the Jews to rebuild the
synagogue of R' Judah He-hassid, all the Sages of Jerusalem personally
engaged in the work, mixing the cement, hewing the stones and putting them
in place, kissing each one before placing it in position. To the
accompaniment of Psalms and Hallel, they rebuilt its ruins.
Never did the Jewish people allow Eretz Yisrael to become completely
depopulated of reresentatives of the nation. In olden times, immigrants to
the Holy Land risked their lives in settling in one of the four holy cities
of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron. They came in frail sailing boats
that hugged the coasts, the journey usually taking about twelve months.
They sailed from coastal town to coastal town and at each one had to wait
for another boat to take them a further stage of the journey to the Holy
Land.
But what is lacking today? That intense longing which burned in the
hearts of the faithful in the Diaspora in ages past. Had the journey or the
entry into Eretz Yisrael been so easy one hundred years ago, or had the
Jewish people of our own times been activated by that same longing for the
Holy Land as inspired their predecessors – Eretz Yisrael would be today for
the most part inhabited by observant Jews, its government completely
dominated by those aware of the religious foundations of our title to the
homeland. There would be no debasement of Jewish values and no
disengagement from our precious inheritance.
Every observant Jew, and in particular, every Rabbi, should learn a
lesson from the history of the waves of immigration to Israel and their
spirit of self-sacrifice in rescuing the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael from its
desecrators. The ancient glory of the Jewish people in the Holy Land will
thus once more shine forth, and day by day, we shall draw nearer to the
redemption and our long awaited destiny.
The Jewish people's connection with its land can't be compared to that of
other peoples with theirs. No other people has a prior title deed or
promise regarding their country. Theirs is a pure earthly link, one
characterized by neither spiritual nor sacred ties. Their relationship to
their homeland is governed by the fact that their ancestors happened to
settle there. Whenever a people or family moved from one country to
another, they soon became completely divorced from their original homeland.
But, this is not the case with the Jewish people, whose title deed to their
land is the Bible.
The sanctity of Eretz Yisrael is eternal, and for this reason, the
Patriarchs longed to dwell in it even before it was conquered by the
Children of Israel. Abraham only left it in time of famine, Isaac never
departed and Jacob regretted that he had been forced to go down to Egypt.
Jacob and Joseph adjured their family to carry their bones to the Holy Land.
How intensely did Moses entreat the Almighty to allow him to enter the
Promised Land! After the destruction of the First Temple, the Children of
Israel were exiled to Babylon where they sat down and took a solemn oath,
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not…" (Psalm
137). The intensity of the love of our Sages for Eretz Yisrael may be
gleaned from the following examples:
Rabbi Zeira longed so much for Eretz Yisrael that he fasted one hundred
fasts in order to forget the Jewish teaching that he had learned in Babylon
so that he could make a fresh start learning from Rabbi Yohanan, the Sage of
the Holy Land. When he managed to escape the vigilance of his Diaspora
teacher, who tried to stop him leaving for the Holy Land, he was so eager to
cross the river that he could not wait for a ferry but crossed it on a piece
of driftwood.
In 1837, when Mohammed Ali gave permission for the Jews to rebuild the
synagogue of R' Judah He-hassid, all the Sages of Jerusalem personally
engaged in the work, mixing the cement, hewing the stones and putting them
in place, kissing each one before placing it in position. To the
accompaniment of Psalms and Hallel, they rebuilt its ruins.
Never did the Jewish people allow Eretz Yisrael to become completely
depopulated of reresentatives of the nation. In olden times, immigrants to
the Holy Land risked their lives in settling in one of the four holy cities
of Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron. They came in frail sailing boats
that hugged the coasts, the journey usually taking about twelve months.
They sailed from coastal town to coastal town and at each one had to wait
for another boat to take them a further stage of the journey to the Holy
Land.
But what is lacking today? That intense longing which burned in the
hearts of the faithful in the Diaspora in ages past. Had the journey or the
entry into Eretz Yisrael been so easy one hundred years ago, or had the
Jewish people of our own times been activated by that same longing for the
Holy Land as inspired their predecessors – Eretz Yisrael would be today for
the most part inhabited by observant Jews, its government completely
dominated by those aware of the religious foundations of our title to the
homeland. There would be no debasement of Jewish values and no
disengagement from our precious inheritance.
Every observant Jew, and in particular, every Rabbi, should learn a
lesson from the history of the waves of immigration to Israel and their
spirit of self-sacrifice in rescuing the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael from its
desecrators. The ancient glory of the Jewish people in the Holy Land will
thus once more shine forth, and day by day, we shall draw nearer to the
redemption and our long awaited destiny.
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