The Land of Israel (2)

 

What mysterious force lies behind the relationship of the People and the Land?  What makes a particular union successful and unique?  Here we enter into theories and models.  Rihal attempts to describe it through a unique approach to the climate of the Land of Israel.  We find a similar approach in the writings of Rambam.  However, he limits the explanation, when he claims that this climate is not unique to the Land but characterizes the entire region.  This is actually stated explicitly by Rihal:

 

"And Ever was the designated progeny of Shem...since his inheritance was the lands of comfortable climates, at the center of which is placed the coveted land, the land of Canaan, the land of prophecy." (1:95)

 

Thus, we find that the climatic condition is necessary but not sufficient.  The Land of Israel is unique in that its climate integrates heat and cold.  In other words, it unites the characteristics of those places lacking the conditions for creating a great civilization and a sophisticated culture.  And indeed, both the inception and the development of civilization took place in the temperate climates.

 

     Beyond the geographical conditions there is a mystical reality, a spiritual uniqueness of the Land, which makes it a place where prophecy can become a reality.  The Land of Israel is the destined location of the ultimate encounter between the Jewish nation and God, the place destined for prophecy and redemption.

 

     This approach to the Land of Israel perhaps can only be understood in categories of love.  A person can consider a prospective mate according to the size of the dowry or other monetary interests, as a means to advance one's career or one's social status, etc.  These are purely rational reasons.  However, we all know that this is not enough, and justifiably so.  Beyond these things we expect something more, something irrational and emotional, something we can only describe as love.  The word love describes the relationship between the People and the Land.  The book of Bereshit describes how the Great Matchmaker, the Creator himself, took Avraham, the father of the Jewish nation, and brought him to the Land of Israel.  There he would found his nation, and there the great encounter between the Jewish people and God will ultimately take place.  The encounter between the People and the Land is also a condition of redemption.

 

     Thank God, for us no contradiction exists between the instrumental approach and what we might term the romantic approach.  We must realize how fortunate we are, to live in the age where, after so much trial and suffering, these approaches finally merge.  The distinction between the two approaches to the People and the Land was illustrated through a historical dilemma: Uganda or Palestine?  The instrumental approach demanded searching for territory somewhere.  This was called the territorial position.  It was opposed by the position that spoke about the Land of Israel.  Both approaches are important, and the Kuzari state and the other Jewish states that arose in the Diaspora were not a crime, but neither did they bring salvation.  There were many Jews who did not think it a crime to live in the Diaspora but who considered the creation of a Jewish state in the Diaspora a betrayal of their allegiance to the Land of Israel.

 

     These issues are important because of their current implications.  We are faced with dilemmas that center around the ideals of the redemption of the People and of the Land.  We will not enter into politics here.  Politics means solving these dilemmas in a particular way.  However, understanding the dilemmas is beyond politics.  We must always be aware of the two-sidedness of our relationship to the Land.  On the one hand, the instrumental relationship to a home, and on the other hand, the relationship to something that cannot be replaced.  This relationship is represented in the Scriptures and in later literature by the classic image of the relationship to a mother.  The Land is perceived as a mother to some individuals, and as a wife to the nation.  We express this relationship through loyalty, love and respect.

 

The Land of Israel

 

     As we have seen, the content of Jewish thought focuses around three central points: Creation, Revelation and Redemption.  History is a process with many twists and turns; however, it ultimately leads us from Creation to Redemption through Revelation. 

 

The Land of Israel symbolizes creation.  The Land of Israel is also the land of prophecy.

 

The sacrifice of Yitzchak connects to the second point: Revelation.  Just as Avraham was called to the Land of Israel from a foreign country, "Go ... to the land that I will show you" (Bereshit 12:1), so too he is called forth after entering the Land of Israel: "Go ... to one of the mountains that I will show you" (ibid.  22:2).

 

Here, too, Avraham follows the call to a place that he does not know, and only when he reaches it does God inform him that this is the place that God had destined for the great drama of the sacrifice of Isaac.  Avraham's going reveals the holiness within the holiness.  Avraham learned to recognize the holiness of the Land of Israel when he reached it.  The holiness of Jerusalem had to be revealed much later, at the final trial.

 

     The mount of the sacrifice, say the Scriptures, is the "mountain where God appeared," the place of revelation, the encounter with God.  On this mountain the Temple will be built, the Temple in which man will encounter the Divine Presence.  The Scriptures themselves are aware of the paradox in this claim.  In king Shlomo's prayer in the Book of Melakhim we read,

"For can it be that God resides on the earth, behold the heavens and the highest firmaments cannot contain You, how can this House I have built [contain You]?" (Melakhim I, 8:27) 

 

However, divine transcendence left room also for the immanence that is connected to "this place...and You will hearken from the heavens" (ibid.  8:29-32).

 

     Revelation is expressed in two ways: in the personal encounter, and in the collective revelation of the Torah.  Next to the Temple sat the Great Court, whose role was to teach Torah to the entire people of Israel.

 

     The third point that is encompassed in Jerusalem is connected to the future: the Redemption.  This idea means the triumph of good in the various circles of human activity: the national, the human-universal and the cosmic.

 

     The national redemption is the return of the Jewish people to their Land.  When the Jew prays for redemption, he prays to the God who "will rebuild Jerusalem," and adds, "may our eyes witness Your merciful return to Jerusalem.  Blessed are You God, who will return His Presence to Zion."  The redemption is the renewed meeting of the three: the People, the Land and the Divine Presence, the divine immanence.

 

     Jerusalem is also the axle upon which the human-universal redemption turns as well.  The mountain that was the center of spiritual heights for the Jewish people will become a center of inspiration and education for the entire world. 

"And in the end of days the mount of the house of God will be placed above all mountains and rise above all hills and all the nations will swarm towards it.  And many nations will go saying, come let us go up to the mountain of God, to the House of the God of Ya'akov, and He will teach us of His ways and we will follow in His paths, for Torah will go forth from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem." (Yishayahu 2:2-3)

 

     The particularism of the choosing of a People and a Land are thus merged with absolute universalism.  The People and the Land preserved the Torah, so that it would spread among all the nations, and whose central expression is universal peace: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war any more" (ibid. 2:4).

 

     In Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is also the center of the cosmic redemption.  Yishayahu's vision, "and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb" (Yishayahu 11:6) is obviously an allegory for the ideal international relations that will reign in the messianic era.  However, it is also a hint at a religious utopia, in which even the natural reality will change.

 

     Various verses in Yechezkel hint at future changes in Jerusalem.  A spring will gush from it, and from it powerful rivers will stream forth, which will even heal the Dead Sea.  Clearly, these are references to the ancient Garden of Eden.

 

     And indeed certain commentators have understood it in this way.  According to their interpretation, the Garden that God planted in Eden underwent a catastrophic change as a result of the sin; however, with the advent of the redemption it will revert to its original state.  The Garden of Eden is the Land of Israel, and its center is Jerusalem.

 

     If this motif exists in the Scriptural tradition, then the symbolism of the Holy Temple can be understood in its light as well.  At its center, as in the Garden of Eden, the Keruvim protected the Tree of Life, which is none other than the Torah - the word of God.

 

(Translated by Gila Weinberg)