This past Shabbat’s
Torah reading, Behar-Bechukotai, has three major concepts, that
relate directly to events of the day, and without delving deeper into
them, they might be completely missed.
PM Netanyahu in
forming his new government coalition, has conditioned participation
on full acceptance of the Trump peace plan, including the possibility
of Palestinian statehood.
Shas and United
Torah Judaism, the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Haredi parties, have joined
on. Rafi Peretz has jumped the sinking Yamina ship of opposition, to
swim ashore onto Netanyahu’s beachhead attack on Religious Zionism.
In true
Machiavellian-style, Netanyahu, after having successfully
disemboweled the Blue and White party to his left, turned rightward,
and torpedoed Yamina.
Peretz agreed, that
the Jewish Home faction would leave Yamina, and join up with Likud,
in the government. He will back Netanyahu’s application of Israeli
sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. He has also agreed, to
support Netanyahu’s other positions related to the Trump plan,
including potentially, Jewish Home support for Palestinian statehood
in part of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).
How could three
“religious” parties agree to such a thing?
In this past week’s
Torah reading, the whole Jewish world learned, “The land shall not
be sold permanently, for the land
belongs to Me, for you are sojourners and residents with Me”
(Leviticus 25:23).
And, Rashi says
there, “Permanently: irreversibly. A permanent, irreversible sale.
Although this is
referring to the right of redemption of the land, after a sale
between Jews, is there anything more permanent, than the setting up
of an enemy state in our midst?
In the parsha,
talking about the Jubilee year, the Torah says, “For the
land belongs to Me: [God says,] Do not be selfish about the
land [hesitating to return it to its rightful owner at Jubilee],
because the land does not belong
to you” (Torat Kohanim).
If Eretz Yisrael
doesn’t really belong to the Jewish people, but to God, then no
one, no prime minister, no Israeli government, no one, has a right to
give away part of it to some other “nation.”
Yet, in his speech
to the Knesset, about the incoming government coalition, Netanyahu
reiterated his pledge to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and
Samaria, “It is time to apply Israeli law to the territories in
Judea and Samaria. This step will not push off peace, but will bring
it closer. Hundreds of thousands of settlers will not be moved from
their homes.”
Its important to
keep stressing ad infinitum, that applying Israeli sovereignty to
Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria, opens the way for the
rest of Judea and Samaria to be given away to the “Palestinians,”
and violates God’s Rights to the Land.
A little later in
the Torah reading we learn the second major concept, the value of
Jews living in Eretz Yisrael.
“I am the Lord,
your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land
of Canaan, to be a God to you” (Leviticus 25:38). He took the Jews
out of Egypt, and brought them to the Land of Israel, to live there
and keep his Torah there.
And on this verse
Rashi comments, “...To be a God to you,” I am a God to everyone
who lives in the land of Israel, but anyone
who leaves it is like one who worships idols” (Torat
Kohanim; Ketubot 110b).
Concerning the value
of Jews living in Eretz Yisrael, Rashi’s source can be found in
Ketubot 110B. There, the Sages of the Talmud, taught in the context
of a husband or wife wanting to force the other spouse to leave
Israel, or make Aliya, and go up to live there, “A Jew should
always live in Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly gentiles,
and should not reside outside of Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that
is mostly Jews.”
“The reason, is
that anyone who resides in Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who has
a God, and anyone who resides
outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who does
not have a God. As it is stated: ‘To give to you the land of
Canaan, to be your God”’ (Leviticus 25:38).
“The Rabbis then
ask: Can it really be said, that anyone who resides outside of Eretz
Yisrael has no God? And answer: Rather, this comes to teach you that
anyone who resides outside of
Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship.
And so it says with regard to David: ‘For they have driven
me out this day, that I should not cleave to the inheritance of the
Lord, saying: Go, serve other gods’ (ISamuel 26:19). But who said
to David: Go, serve other gods? Rather, this comes to tell you that
anyone who resides outside of
Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship”
(Ketubot 110b).
The Rambam brings
this down as Halacha, in his Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Kings and
their Wars, Chapter 5, Halacha 12: “At all times, a person should
dwell in Eretz Yisrael even in a city whose population is primarily
gentile, rather than dwell in the Diaspora, even in a city whose
population is primarily Jewish. This applies, because whoever
leaves Eretz Yisrael for the Diaspora is considered as if he
worships idols as I Samuel 26:19 states ‘They have driven me out
today from dwelling in the heritage of God, saying: Go, serve other
gods.’ Similarly, Ezekiel’s (13:9) prophecies of retribution
state: ‘They shall not come to the land of Israel...’”
Its also brought
down as Halacha in the Shulchan Aruch, “You force her to go up to
live in Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly gentiles, and
you should not reside outside of Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that
is mostly Jews” (Even HaEzer 75:3).
With all the chaos
and crisis taking place around the world these days, the CoronaVirus,
economic collapse, rising anti-Semitism, what will it take, to awaken
world Jewry to move to Israel? When will they fulfill the Mitzvah of
Aliya, living in God’s Land?
Then in Bechukotai,
we find the third major concept. Among the “Tochachah-Admonitions,”
one of the promised punishments for not keeping the Torah, is: “I
will make the Land desolate, so that it will become desolate [also]
of your enemies who live in it. And I will scatter you among the
nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you. Your land will be
desolate, and your cities will be laid waste. Then, the land will be
appeased regarding its sabbaticals. During all the days that it
remains desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies, the Land
will rest and thus appease its sabbaticals,”
(Leviticus 26:32-34).
Rashi, the Ibn Ezra,
Rashbam, and many other commentators say: “‘I will make the Land
desolate’ This is actually a
blessing in disguise, namely, that since the Land will be
desolate of people living in it, their enemies, will not find
contentment in Israel’s Land [and will have to leave]’” (Siftei
Chachamim; Torat Kohanim).
The Ramban,
(Nachmanides) after winning the famous Barcelona Disputation, was
forced into exile, he fled Catalonia for Eretz Yisrael. He described
his travels in 1267, in a letter he wrote to his son, “Many are
Israel’s forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more
sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered.
Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all, where I couldn’t even
find nine other Jews to pray with.”
Similarly, American
humorist, Mark Twain observed 600 years later, while riding through
the Jezreel Valley,“There is not a solitary village throughout its
whole extent, not for 30 miles in either direction. There are two or
three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent
habitation. One may ride 10 miles, hereabouts, and not see 10 human
beings.” He wrote, “We reached Mount Tabor safely...we never saw
a human being on the whole route...” (The Innocents Abroad, 1869).
In his Torah
commentary, the Ramban gave an interpretation to the desolation he
encountered. He saw it as a good
thing for Israel. He wrote that the devastation, “constitutes
a good tiding, proclaiming that during all our exiles, our land will
not accept our enemies...Since the time that we left [Eretz Yisrael],
it has not accepted any nation or people, and they all try to settle
it...This is a great proof and assurance to us.”
And, that’s
exactly the condition the Jewish people found Eretz Yisrael in, when
they started returning in the mid-19th century, a desolate and barren
land. But the early Jewish agriculture projects started to make the
land blossom again.
As is well known
from numerous studies, most of the Arabs who live in Eretz Yisrael
today, are descended from settlers that were encouraged to move here
by the Ottoman authorities, from other parts of the empire, to
balance the influx of Jews, in the late 19th century.
Or, decendents of
migrant workers who came in looking for work, mostly from Egypt and
Iraq, in the early 20th century; as the Jews were building
up an economy, under the Ottomans, and the early Palestine Mandate
period.
That’s why the
Arab states and Soviet bloc wrote the UNRWA bylaws in 1949, to define
an Arab refugee, as anyone who lived in the Palestine Mandate, only
two years, prior to Israel’s declaration of independence. Many,
many Arabs were newcomers to the country. They were used as a
political tool against the fledgling State of Israel. First, Arab
settlers, were redefined as Arab refugees, then overtime, they became
“Palestinian” refugees, in anti-Israel doublespeak.
Now, there is an
Israeli government that has agreed to the possibility of a
Palestinian State, in parts of Eretz Yisrael. That gives an official
stamp of approval to the lie, that there is a “Palestinian”
people, that some other group than the Jews have rights here.
But its God’s
Land, not ours, the Jews are only trustees for God. All the Jews.
Even those who have yet to make Aliya, and come to receive their
rightful inheritance as promised to their forefathers.
I’m waiting for
you to come home, and so is your God, the God of Israel.
Ariel
Natan Pasko, an independent analyst and consultant, has a Master's
Degree specializing in International Relations, Political Economy &
Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on numerous
news/views and think-tank websites and in newspapers. His
latest articles can also be read on his archive: The
Think Tank by Ariel Natan Pasko.
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2020/5780 Pasko
