It’s Our Land!
Our claim to the Land of Israel is not political, International law or even historical. It was given to us by G-d. Observing the agricultural Mitzvos regarding the Land is our way of highlighting and maintaining our connection to the land. BECHUKOSAI BECHUKOSAI
The Centrality of the Sabbatical Year
This week we read the twin portions of Behar and Bechukosai. Between the two, many varied themes are discussed. There is one subject though that seems to be the link that ties the two portions together. It is the subject of Shemitah, the requirement of relinquishing ownership of our land and ceasing our agricultural work during the Sabbatical year which occurs—as the name Sabbatical suggests—every seven years in Israel.
In the first portion of Behar, the Torah speaks of the importance of this Mitzvah and of how G-d would perform the incredible miracle that the land would produce enough food—in the sixth year of the seven year cycle—to last them for three years.
In the second parsha—Bechokosai—the Torah admonishes the Jewish people against
BECHUKOSAI neglecting the observance of the Sabbatical year.
Indeed, the Torah predicts that if they will not respect the law that requires the land to rest during those Sabbatical years, the Jewish people will be exiled from their land.
Alas, as the prophets affirm, this was indeed the case. The predictions materialized, and the sin that contributed to the destruction of the first Temple and the exiling of the Jewish people from their land was the abolition of the Sabbatical year.
Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?
The question has been raised, how can the failure to observe the restriction of work on our fields be considered such an egregious breach of our covenant with G-d that it would bring about the horrible consequences of the exile? Why would a merciful Father so punish his children for a breach of contract? The punishment of exile—and all the suffering it has brought in its wake—does not fit the crime!
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And although, G-d’s ways are unfathomable to the human mind, nevertheless, the Torah requires of us to make some sense of its teachings. And since the correlation between the two—failure to observe the Sabbatical year and the exile of the Jewish nation from their land—must have some conceptual basis. And even if it does not satisfactorily explain all of Jewish suffering, it must give us some insight as to the mechanism by which G-d operates and more importantly it must furnish us with some guidance as to what G-d expects of us and what do we have to focus on to reverse the exile.
Cause and Effect
One way to look at the punishments of the Torah in general is to not really view them as punishments, but as consequences of our actions. For example, if a person cuts his finger and blood will drip, no one will say that the loss of the blood is a punishment for the crime of cutting a finger—it is a natural consequence.
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G-d also set up a system of cause and effect. The great moralist, kabbalist and Talmudist, R. Yeshaya Halevi Hurvitz (of the seventeenth century, in his classic work known as the Shelah) writes that negative actions generate commensurate negative consequences. They are not simply acts of revenge—tit for tat— on G-d’s part.
Some, therefore, explain the punishment of exile for failure to observe the Sabbatical year not as a punishment, but as a natural and direct result of not respecting the sanctity of the land.
This can be explained on two levels:
Our Claim to Israel
First, our attachment to the land of Israel is first and foremost a spiritual one. The Midrash uses the analogy of a tailor-made garment that is made to fit one person; and one person only. Similarly, the Land of Israel was fashioned by its Creator to be “worn” by one people, and one people exclusively. No other people could succeed in colonizing the Land of Israel as history has demonstrated. In BECHUKOSAI fact, so many nations suffered immensely because they sought to colonize the land.
However, we can take the analogy of a garment a step further. Even a tailor made garment can that was made to fit one person will not fit him or her either if he or she gains or loses weight. The same would hold true if the garment is abused in one way or another.
Thus, when we fail to appreciate the sanctity of the land and deplete it of its true character—exemplified by the lack of respect for the land itself by working on the Sabbatical year—the land can no longer contain its inhabitants, and the exile ensues.
On a somewhat different plane, the correlation between exile and the Sabbatical year observance can be understood in light of the very first comment of Rashi on the Torah—written at the time of the Crusades. He refers to a Midrash that addresses the charge of the nations that we stole their land from them. The answer, Rashi says, is the story of Genesis, which declares G-d as the Master of the entire universe and of the Land of Israel in particular. He is therefore the One BECHUKOSAI who decides for whom it is suited. He willingly gave to it the Jewish people.
If our claim to Israel is based on our own theories as to what constitutes ownership of a land, there can be many arguments that would render our claims irrelevant. If it is the U.N. or the Balfour Declaration that represents our claim to the Land, then it can as easily be rescinded. The same U.N. that gave us the land can declare Zionism to be racism and can ultimately delegitimize Israel.
Our ultimate claim to Israel is based not even on historical grounds. Possessing a land for 4,000 years is a strong point in our favor, but it is not the history that makes the land ours; it’s the fact that it is ours—by Divine fiat— that gave us and the land our history!
Demonstrating our Claim to the Land
How were we expected to show that the land we inhabited was given to us by G-d and therefore unequivocally ours? When we observed the Sabbatical year and declared the land ownerless so that everyone was free to avail themselves of our land for that year, that BECHUKOSAI demonstrated that the land was G-d’s; not the people’s as in a Socialist and Communist system, and not the corporations and private citizens as in a Capitalists system. And it is G- d who gave us the land, to be its eternal guardians.
When we failed to observe the sanctity of the land and the demands that it made on us to sincerely express our belief—and back it up with action—that the land was G-d’s, we could no longer dismiss the challenges against our relationship with the land. We were therefore exiled because we dismissed our own claim to the land. It is as if we took the lease we had and hid it so we could no longer prove our claim.
The lesson from all of the above is the realization that our claim to Israel—not just Jerusalem—is not political. Furthermore, our security there and in the Diaspora depends on the way we demonstrate our belief in our own claim to the land as well as our appreciation for our Torah, the source of our claim to the land.
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Return to the Land Proudly and Humbly
Our return to the land in the Messianic Age will be one recognized by all the nations of the world and will no longer be contested. Meanwhile, we have to proudly and humbly assert our claim to the land:
Proudly, because it is ours and will remain ours forever.
Humbly, it is ours not because we are stronger and militarily superior. It is also not because we are smarter and more politically astute. It is ours simply because G-d decided to give it to us so that Israel becomes the place from which light will emanate to the entire world.
And as the prophet predicts, all of the nations will stream towards it, and will join us in our capital Jerusalem and assist us in building the Third Temple that will usher in a period of peace—not the false peace that denies the truth and reality of the Jewish nature of Israel and Jerusalem—but the genuine and permanent peace promised us in the Torah in this week’s parsha.
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From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Behar-Bechukosai by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
