Parshat Pinchas  19 Tammuz 5762, June 29 2002

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - What is the magical quality of the Land of Israel, which has caused it to intoxicate the Jewish people for 4,000 years? Why did the overwhelming majority of Zionist delegates to the World Zionist Congress vote against Uganda and for Israel at the turn of the 19th Century - even though Uganda was available for Jewish settlement and Israel was (and still is) in a "bad neighborhood" for Jews, fraught with neighbors who would murder us in cold blood before they would welcome us into "their" region?! And even now, when Herzl's vision of a Jewish homeland which was to make the Jews a nation among nations and finally solve the problem of anti-Semitism has been proven a delusion (much the opposite, the State of Israel has been turned into the blackest expression of Jewish cruelty by the blatantly unfair anti- Semitic world media), why does the Jewish State still remain the only magnet around which world Jewry continues to rally? Why is it the spiritual and cultural center to which Jews continue to send their children for significant periods of study and celebrations despite the dangers of drive-by shootings and suicide attacks?

I believe the answer is to be found in a striking request - even reminiscent of a feminist demand - made by the daughters of a gentleman named Zlofhad in this week's Torah reading:

“Our father has died in the desert…. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed (literally, be lessened) from the midst of his family because he has no sons". Give us (women) a possession together with the brothers of our father." (Numbers 27:3,4).

I believe that the most striking words in the argument of the daughters are that, if their father's possession of land in Israel cannot be passed down to his progeny, his name will be lessened - or removed, erased - from his family, he will lose his place and portion in Jewish posterity. They maintain - and their position is confirmed by Divine law (G-d says that"the daughters of Zlofhad spoke correctly" - Numbers 27:7) - that Jewish eternity is linked to the land, specifically the land of Israel.

This fundamental truth is the primary message of the Scroll of Ruth, which we read just a few weeks ago on the Festival of Shavuot. If the Festival of the Giving of the Torah eternalizes the Jewish religion, the Scroll of Ruth with its emphasis on the Land of Israel eternalizes the Jewish nation; if Torah guarantees the continuity of Jewish law, the Land of Israel guarantees the continuity of Jewish history. Elimelekh, Mahlon and Kilion exited from the drama of Jewish history when they left the Holy Land for the fields of Moab; Naomi, Ruth and Boaz entered Jewish eternity - and even redeemed Elimelekh - when they restored the possession of land to its original familial owners. It is the joint and joined heritage of the Torah of Israel and the Land of Israel, which brings redemption and guarantees eternity.

The cardinal place of the land - as explained by the daughters of Zlofhad and confirmed by the Scroll of Ruth - has both historical as well as existential significance. The Talmud (B.T. Horayot 3b) insists - and proves with a Biblical text - that only in the Land of Israel are the Jewish people to be called a community (Kehal). I believe that is because only in Israel is there a continuity of Jewish history, from Hebron the City of our patriarchs and matriarchs, to the Galilee where our Mishnah developed, until Jerusalem, where King David's descendant will eventually bring peace to the entire world. Babylon, Iraq may have produced great Yeshivot of Amoraim and Geonim, Jewish Spain may have experienced a Golden Age - but barely a trace of these achievements are in evidence today and neither country can lay claim to a contemporary robust Jewish Community. Only the Land of Israel has the Divine guaranty that"it will never be bereft of a community of Jews," no matter what or when - and G-d has kept this promise for the past 4,000 years! (Maimonides, Book of Commandments, Positive Commandment 153).

From an existential perspective, when an individual is buried in a parcel of land, his physical remains eventually merge with the very earth in which he lies. If that land is the Holy Land of Israel, then the body merges with sacred Jewish eternity. Is it any wonder, then, that the first parcel of land acquired as a Jewish possession was Abraham's purchase of a burial site for Mother Sarah, the Maarat ha'Machpela (Cave of the Couples) - and that a vital community of Jews live around the Ma'ara and pray in it thrice daily to this very day! That is why burial in the Land of Israel does not require a coffin. No foreign element should serve as an obstruction - partition between the sacred holy and the sacred earth. The Talmud urges every Jew to be buried in the Land of Israel even if he/she had not been privileged to live in it. (the end of Tractate Ketubot).

The daughters of Zlofhad understood that the desert generation - including their father - would not be privileged to enter the Promised Land. However, they realized that if his progeny had a share in the eternal land, he would have a share in it as well;"as long as his descendants participated in the eternal land, so would he participate in the eternal land." Those of us privileged to live in the land bring with us the generations, which prepared the way - but were not so privileged. In the words of the Talmudic Sages:"the inheritance of land in Israel is different from every other inheritance in the world; in every other inheritance, the living inherit the dead, but, in the case of Israel, the dead inherit the living." (B.T. Bava Batra 117a) By means of the eternal land, the daughters of Zlofhad brought their father into Israel together with them.

Shabbat Shalom.

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