This is Our Land

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

In his book The Future of Israel, historian Devin Sper writes eloquently about the Land of Israel. He cites ancient writers who confirmed that the Land of Israel had the most excellent and fertile soil, productive of every variety of fruit. Josephus is quoted:

The whole area is excellent for crops or cattle and rich in forests of every kind, so that by its adaptability it invites even those least inclined to work on the land…All their steams are remarkably sweet, and lush grass is so plentiful that the milk-yield of their cows is exceptionally heavy. The final proof of their outstanding productivity is the swarming population of [Judea and Samaria].

Linen from Beth Shean was considered the best in the Roman Empire. Israel was the only source in the world for balsam, the most valued fragrance in the ancient world, sold for its weight in gold. The Dead Sea produced a superior asphalt known as “Bitumin judaicum,” valued for caulking ships and for medicinal purposes.

From the Mediterranean shores of Haifa and Tyre came the world’s only source of the snail from which was produced the purple dye sought by all royalty in the western world, still the color of royalty today. And on these same shores were beaches—“seasonal delights”—and elsewhere hot springs for relaxation and natural mineral baths.

Crowning this glorious land was her capital Jerusalem. Jerusalem was deemed by foreign observers as among the most strongly fortified and most beautiful of cities.

Alas, all this beauty was destroyed by the Romans, and, over the centuries, the Land itself was laid waste by the Arabs.

But Sper reminds us: “In what other land do people, whose ancestors resided elsewhere for almost 2,000 years, on arriving for the first time, kneel down and kiss the ground? ‘For every Jew, wherever he lives, possesses a portion of the Land of Israel.’ What other people, when forbidden the opportunity, to live in its land, has over centuries, insisted on being buried there, consoled by the hope that their remains might yet touch its sacred soil.”

This land is ours. Our law instructs us to mourn for the land as we would mourn for the dead. Rav Avraham Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, teaches us: “The hope of Redemption is the force that sustains Judaism in the Diaspora [and] the Judaism of Eretz Israel is that very Redemption.”

Nahmanides (the RAMBAN) instructs us: “In all generations we were enjoined to conquer the land; and I say, that the precept to which the Sages ascribe such importance, namely to dwell in the Land of Israel … all of it is a positive precept. Consequently this is a positive precept incumbent on each generation, binding upon every one of us even in time of exile.”

The Rabbis taught, “A man should ever strive to live in the Land of Israel, even in a city whose inhabitants are mostly heathens, and should avoid living outside the Land even in a city whose inhabitants are mostly Jews. For he who lives in the Land is like one who has a God, whereas he whom lives outside the Land is like one who has no God.”

Sper reminds us that, “Jews, whose ancestors had resided in other lands for centuries, proved ready to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice when promised even the faintest hope of return to the Land of Israel. In the 17th century, return to the Land of Israel was not only preached but also actualized by followers of Shabtai Zevi, the Gaon of Vilna, and the Baal Shem Tov: hundreds settled in Safed, Tiberias, and Jerusalem.

Most remarkable, the Jews of Yemen, who had resided in Yemen since Biblical times, upon hearing of the reestablishment of the Jewish state in Israel in 1948, simply started walking “home” en masse, across the Arabian Desert!

In every synagogue throughout the world the entire congregation faces the Land of Israel. This land belongs solely and exclusively to the Jewish People. This land is ours.