Come and Inherit 2011

8/6/2019 Come and Inherit 2011

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Come and Inherit

See, I have given the Land before you;

come and inherit the Land that God

swore to your forefathers, Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them

and their descendents aer them.

Deuteronomy1:8


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Gods Will 1

Gods Presence 7

A Desired Land 9

Longing 12

Sacrifice 16

The Future 19


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Gods WillMake His Will Your Will

No factor should guide a persons life decisions more than the Will of

his Creator. And the Creator wills, plainly, that the People of Israel

should live in the Land of Israel. The Peoples relationship to the Land

is one of the main themes of the Bible, and many Rabbinic sources

stress the importance of living in the Land.

H I S F I R S T P R I O R I T YThe Land is the first idea God addresses when He speaks to each

forefather for the first time:

God said to Abram, Go from your land, from your birthplace,

and from your fathers house, to the Land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and

make you great, and You shall become a blessing. I will bless

those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse. All

the families of the earth will be blessed through you. (Gen.

12:13)

God appeared to [Isaac] and said, Do not go down to Egypt.

Dwell in the Land that I will tell you. Live in this Land, and I

will be with you and bless you, for to you and your ospring

will I give all these Lands. I will thus keep the oath that I made


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to your father Abraham. I will make your descendants as

numerous as the stars of the sky, and give them all these Lands.

All the nations on earth shall be blessed through your descend-

ants. All this because Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept Mycharge, My commandments, My decrees, and My laws. (Gen.

26:24)

- -

Behold, here was God standing over [the ladder], and He said

[to Jacob], I am God, Lord of Abraham your father, and Lord

of Isaac. I will give to you and your descendants the Land upon

which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of

the earth, and you shall spread out to the west, to the east, tothe north, and to the south. All the families on earth will be

blessed through you and your descendants. Behold, I am with

you; I will protect you wherever you go and bring you back to

this soil. For I will not leave you until I have fully kept this

promise to you. (Gen. 28:1315)

Likewise, the Land is a major point in Mosess first prophecy, Joshuas

first prophecy, and so on.

T H E H O M E O F T H E M I T Z V O TThe essence of the commandments is fulfilled only in Israel. Many

commentators infer this from Deut. 11:18, including Rashi:

,

, . ) ( :

You shall set these words of Mine: Even aer you are exiled,

distinguish yourselves with My commandments; lay tefillin

and make mezuzot , so that they will not be new to you when


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you return. And so it is said, Set up markers for yourself (Jer.

31:20).

Ramban adds the Sages explanation (comm. Lev. 18:25):

,

.

They explained the reason as being so that they will not be

new to us when we return to the Land. For the essence of all

the commandments is for those who live in the Land of God.

Moreover, over two hundred of the 613 commandments do not applyat all outside the Land of Israel, such as those involving agriculture or

the Temple service.

??

?

,

.

Rabbi Simlai interpreted: Why did Moses our teacher yearn to

enter the Land of Israel? Did he wish to eat of its fruits or be

satiated from its bounty? Rather, thus said Moses: Many

mitzvot were commanded upon Israel which can only be

fulfilled in the Land of Israel. I wish to enter the Land so that

they may all be fulfilled by me. (BT Sot. 14a)

Some of these commandments still apply in Israel today.

A M I T Z V A H I N I T S E L FThe majority of authorities hold that seling the Land of Israel is a

positive commandment, even today ( Encyclopedia Talmuditvol. 25,

p. 676). Ramban expresses this most strongly (Shikhehat Ha-Asin 4):

-

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.


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),,

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.

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The fourth mitzvah: we were commanded to inherit the Land

that God, may He be blessed and exalted, gave to our fore-

fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and we should not aban-

don the Land in the hands of another nation or in a state of

desolation. Thus He told them, Clear out the Land and live in

it, since it is to you that I am giving the Land to occupy; and

you shall sele the Land (Num. 33:53). This maer is reiter-ated elsewhere, as He said, may He be blessed, come and

inherit the Land that [God] swore to your forefathers

(Deut. 1:8). [. . .]

And I say that the mitzvah the Sages distinguish is that of

dwelling in the Land. They go so far as to say that anyone who

leaves Israel to live in the Diaspora is viewed as an idolater, as

it says, For they have driven me out this day that I should not

cleave to the inheritance of the Lord, saying: Go, serve other

gods. Moreover, they made many great distinctions about

this; these all come from this positive commandment of

inheriting and seing the Land.


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Thus, this is a positive commandment for all generations

obligating every individual, even during the exile, as is known

from many places in the Talmud. In the words of the Sifre

(Reeh 12:29): R. Judah b. Beterah, R. Matyah b. Heresh, R.Hananiah b. Ahi, R. Joshua, and R. Nathan were leaving the

Land; they reached the border and recalled the Land of Israel.

They lied their eyes and their tears streamed down; they rent

their clothes; and they read this verse, You shall inherit it, and

sele it; and be sure to keep all the mitzvot that I am

commanding you today (cf. Deut. 11:3132). They inferred,

The selement of the Land of Israel is equal to all the mitzvotof the Torah.

C O D I F I E D L A WThe Rambams codification (MT Hil. Mel. 5:912):

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[9] To ever leave the Land of Israel is forbiddenexcept for

learning Torah, marrying a woman, or safety from Gentiles;

and aerward one must return to the Land; and likewise one

may leave for trade. But residing in the Diaspora is forbidden,

unless there is intense famine and inflation to the point that

the worth of one dinarof wheat costs two dinar. This applies

only if money is available but produce is expensive; but if

produce is cheap and money is not available, one should go

wherever he can earn money. Nonetheless, the way of piety is

not to leave even when permied, as Mahlon and Kilyon were

leaders of their generation who le due to great crisis, yet were

deemed for annihilation by God.

[10] The greatest of scholars would kiss the borders of Israel,

kiss its stones, and roll in its earth. And this is as it says, Your

servants desired her stones, and yearned for her dust (Ps.

102:14).

[11] The Sages said that the sins of one who resides in Israel

are forgiven, as is said, The inhabitant shall not say: I am

sick; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven theiriniquity (Is. 33:24). Even one who walks four cubits in the

Land merits the World to Come. Likewise one who is buried

there has his sins atoned, as though his location is an atoning

altar, as is said, He expiates His Land, His People (Deut.

32:43), and regarding retribution it says, You shall die on an

impure land (Am. 7:17). There is no comparison between

absorption in life and absorption aer death, yet the greatest ofscholars would take their dead there; take this lesson from our

Father Jacob and Joseph the Righteous.

[12] A person shall always live in the Land of Israel, even in a

city of mostly Gentiles, and shall not live outside the Land,


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even in a city of mostly Jews. For anyone who leaves the Land

is almost like an idolater, as it says, For they have driven me

out this day that I should not cleave unto the inheritance

of God, saying Go, serve other gods (Sam.I

26:19). Andregarding retribution it says, They shall not enter the Land of

Israel (Ez. 13:9).Gods Presence

I Have Set God Before Me Always

Nearness to God is the greatest aspiration of man. The Land of Israel

is where our relationship with God is strongest. It is the home of

prophecy and the land of direct Providence.

H I S C O N S T A N T A T T E N T I O N - -

A Land that the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of God are

continually upon it, from the years beginning to its end.

(Deut. 11:12)

H A V I N G A G O D-,

][-.

While you are in the Land of Canaan I am your God; when

you are not in the Land of Canaan [some versions: it is as if] I

am not your God. (T AZ5:2)

-

- ) (

-.


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Our Rabbis taught: One should always live in the Land of

Israel, even in a town most of whose inhabitants are idolaters;

but let no one live outside the Land, even in a town most of

whose inhabitants are Israelites. For whoever lives in the Landof Israel may be considered as one who has a God, but

whoever lives outside the Land may be considered as one who

has no God. For it is said in Scripture, To give you the Land

of Canaan, to be your God. (BT Ket. 110b)

E X C L U S I V E H O M E O F P R O P H E C Y

.

Rabbi Abba began [his eulogy for R. Nathan]: Our Master

said that he was worthy of the Divine Presence resting upon

him, but his being in Babylon prevented it.

R. Nahman, son of R. Hisdasome say it was R. Hanan, son

of R. Hisdaresponded with the verse: The word of the

Lord was expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in

the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar (Ez. 1:3). His

father slapped him with his sandal, saying to him: Have I not

told you not to bother everyone with this point? What ismeant by the double expression Hayoh hayah , was

expressly? That [the prophecy] had been before [he went to

Babylon and was still in Israel]. (BTMK25a)

D I R E C T C O N N E C T I O NThe Ramban describes the Lands unique providence (comm. Lev.

18:25): - -

,

,

, ) (


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,)

( -,

.

Behold, the Honorable Name is the Lord of lords and Master

of masters for the entire world; but the Land of Israel is the

center of civilization, Gods heritance, special to His Name.

He placed no governor from the angels over it when he

bestowed it to his People, the ospring of his beloved who

declare his Unity. Thus it says, You will be a treasure to Me

from all nations, for the entire land is mine (Ex. 19), and it is

wrien, You shall be for Me a People and I will be for you a

God (Jer. 11)there will be no other power over you whatso-

ever. (cf. BT Ta. 10a)

T H E T O R A H O F T H E L A N D.

There is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel, and nowisdom like the wisdom of the Land of Israel. (BR16:4)

.

The air of the Land of Israel makes one wise. (BTBB158b)

A Desired LandThe Land is Very, Very Good

Israel is a land of beauty. Today Israel has 66 national parks, 190

nature reserves and hundreds more proposed reserves, ranging from

majestic deserts to thick forests. Israel has amazing biodiversity for

such a small area, with over 24,000 species of plants and 500 species of

birds (Israel Nature and Parks Authority).

Israel today is also a land of plenty. The Land was barren

throughout the exile, until the start of mass aliyah two centuries ago.


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Since the founding of the Jewish State, the agricultural production of

the Land has increased 16-fold (Israeli Foreign Ministry).

T H E G O O D L A N D H E H A S G I V E N Y O UPraise from Moses:

-

-

-

And you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God,

to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is

bringing you into a good Land, a Land of brooks of water, of

fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a

Land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pome-

granates; a Land of olive trees and date honey; a Land where you will eat bread without scarceness, you will not lack

anything in it; a Land whose stones are iron, and from whose

hills you will mine copper. You shall eat and be satisfied, and

bless the Lord your God for the good Land He has given you.

(Deut. 8:610)

N O R M A T I V E G O O D N E S SDetailed praise of the Land is a sine qua non of the Grace Aer Meals:

Rabbi Eliezer says: One who did not mention a desired, good,

and broad Land in the blessing over the Land . . . did notfulfill his obligation. (BT Ber. 48b)

T H E G R A N D E U R O F T H E L A N D S C A P EFrom Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchiks eulogy for Rabbi Zev Gold:


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I will never forget the evening in 5695 [1935] when I visited

Rabbi Gold in Ramat Gan in Eretz Yisrael. He took me out to

the orange groves near his house. It was a beautiful night, the

sky was a perfect blue and there were endless stars. The brightmoon of Eretz Yisrael shone all over with an enchanted

beauty. From afar we could see the lights of the new all-Jewish

city of Tel Aviv glistening in the dark. The lights were telling

us the thrilling and intoxicating news of the rebuilding of the

Holy Land. Overwhelmed with emotion, Rabbi Gold gazed

toward the horizon and then turned to me and said: Whoever

does not feel the presence of God in Eretz Yisrael on this beau-tiful night while looking at this magnificent moon and at these

beckoning stars, breathing the clear and pure air filled with the

fragrance of blossoming growth, and above all when looking at

all the glistening lights of the city that was built entirely by

Jews, is simply blind. Rabbi Gold continued: Rav Yehudah

Halevi was right when he said that prophecy flows unhindered

in Eretz Yisrael and we need only a proper vessel to receive its

message. As we stood there, Rabbi Gold picked up a small

pebble and kissed it, to fulfill Rav Abbas dictum in the Talmud

that he would kiss the rocks of Akko (BT Ket. 112a). That night,

I thought to myself how insignificant I was compared to this

special Jew who was able to experience the glory of God

through the grandeur of the landscape of the land of Israel.

(Translated from Hebrew by Rabbi Aaron Rakeet-Rothko, in TheRav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, 1999, vol. 2, p. 118.)

N O G R E A T E R M A N I F E S T S I G NAnother statement of Rabbi Abba:

) (

.

Rabbi Abba said: There can be no more manifest sign of

redemption than this, as is said (Ez. 36:8), But you, O

mountains of Israel, you shall send forth your branches, and

yield your fruit to my people of Israel, for they are at hand to

come. (BT San. 98a)


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Rashis comment:

,

.

When the Land of Israel bears produce in generous quantity,

then the redemption will be near; there is no greater manifest

sign of redemption.

LongingLet Me Cross Now and See the Good Land

For most of the last two thousand years the Land was a distant dream

that some risked their lives to fulfill. Today, the Land of Israel is only a

jet ride away for most Jews in the Diaspora; the trip is now short,

comfortable and inexpensive by historys standards. How would our

ancestors have reacted to this reality?

W H O C O U L D A S S U R E M E ?

When Rabbi Zera went up to the Land of Israel he could not

find a ferry to cross the river. He grabbed a rope bridge and

crossed. A Sadducee mocked him: Hasty people, who put

your mouths before your ears [when you said we will do

before we will listen (Ex. 24:7)]! You are still clinging to

your hastiness. Rabbi Zera replied, The place that Moses

and Aaron did not merit to enterwho could assure me that Ishould merit to enter? (BT Ket. 112a)

H O W C A N I S A V O R W H A T I E A T ?Two poems by Judah Halevi, a scholar from medieval Spain:


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?

,

? ,

.

My heart is in the east, and I in the uermost west.

How can I savor what I eat? How shall it be sweet?

How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet

Zion lies in the binds of Edom, and I in Arab chains?

How light in my eyes would it seem

To leave all the good things of Spain

Seeing how dear in my eyes it would be

To behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

.

!

,

.

,

!

,

.

!

Fairest of peaks, joy of the world, City of the King,

For you my soul pines from the ends of the West!

My passions swell as I recall ages past,

Your glory, now gone; your abode, now ruined.

Would I could fly on eagles wings, then

I could moisten your earth with my tears, making mud!

I seek you; though your King be absent, and

Your balm of Gilead supplanted by serpent and scorpion.


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How I long to kiss and embrace your stones

And taste your soil, sweeter to me than honey!

Judah Halevi journeyed to Israel in his middle adulthood and died

close to the time of his arrival.

C O N F E S S I O N O F T H E HAVER From theKuzari, by Judah Halevi (2:2324):

Said the Khazar: If this be so, you fall short of the duties of

your Torah by not trying to reach that place and make it your

home in life and death. You say, Have mercy on Zion, for it isthe house of our life, and believe that the Shekhinah will

return there. Had it no other advantage than that the

Shekhinah dwelt there nine hundred years, this is sucient

reason for mens souls to yearn for it and find purification

there, as is done with the homes of the pious and the prophets.

Is it not the gate of heaven? [. . .] It seems to me that your

bowing and kneeling toward the Land is either flaery orthoughtless worship. Your first forefathers chose to live there

in preference to their birthplaces, and lived there as strangers,

rather than as citizens in their own countries. This they did

even at a time when the Shekhinah was not visible, and the

country was full of immorality and idolatry; your fathers only

desired to remain in it. Nor did they leave it in times of famine,

except by Gods permission; and then they asked that theirbones be buried there.

Said the Haver: You have shamed me, O Khazar king. This is

the sin which obstructed the Divine promise with regard to the

Second Temple, as was said, Sing and rejoice, O daughter of

Zion (Zech. 2:10). The Divine Providence was ready to

restore everything as it had been at first, if they had all willingly

returned; but only a part was ready to do so, while the majorityand the leadership remained in Babylon, preferring exile and

servitude rather than leaving their houses and their aairs.

Solomon may have alluded to this: I sleep, but my heart

wakes (Song 5:2). He compares the exile to sleep, and the

continuance of prophecy among them to wakefulness of the


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heart. The voice of my beloved knocks! is Gods call to

return. My head is filled with dew alludes to the Shekhinah

which emerged from the shadow of the Temple. The words I

have removed my coat refer to the peoples idleness inreturning. [. . .] Our reciting worship His holy mountain and

worship at His footstool (Ps. 99:5, 9) and He who restores

His glory to Zion and so on is nothing but a starlings

chaering; we do not realize what we say, as you observed, O

Khazar king.

O U R O W N P R A Y E R SQuotations fromNusah Ashkenaz:

. .

Bring us to peace from the four corners of the earth, and lead

us upright to our Land.

. .

.

Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise a banner to

gather our exiles, and gather us together from the four corners

of the earth.

.

.

May the Merciful One break the yoke upon our necks, and

may He lead us upright to our Land.

If we do not feel a yearning to be in Israel, something has gone wrong

with our prayer.


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SacrificeHe Only Gave Them Through Suering

Our opportunity to live in Israel would not be as it is today had it not

been for the self-sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the past

two centuries. The early pioneers who sought to cultivate the Land

faced poverty, hunger, disease, and hostile neighbors. About half of

the 30,000 immigrants of the First Aliyah (18821903) returned to the

Diaspora because the conditions were unbearable.

22,867 sons and daughters have fallen defending the Land ofIsrael since 1860 as of Israels 2011 Memorial Day. They were people

like you and me; they laid down their lives so that Jews could live in

their homeland.

R A V Y I S R O E L O F S H K L O VRabbi Yisroel ben Shmuel Ashkenazi of Shklov was one of the Vilna

Gaons closest students. He brought his family with the third group of

the Gaons students to make aliyah in 1809. He joined the

impoverished community of Safed, but was soon sent on a mission to

collect funds that kept him traveling across Europe for three years. He

returned to his family in 1813, but before he could rest, a plague of

malaria drove them south to Jerusalem. His wife died on the way, and

soon aer that he lost in succession a son-in-law, a daughter, a son,another daughter, another son, and his parents.

He returned to Safed again, where he took on the leadership of

the community, began a new family, and continued to suer. He

endured destructive rains that destroyed his house, aacks by local

Druze, imprisonment by the Oomans, and a major earthquake that

killed over 2,000 people. Inspired by his hardships, he undertook to

compose a work on the laws of agriculture in the Land of Israel, whichhe titledPeat ha-Shulhan. The work still influences how these laws are

kept in Israel. Rav Yisroel wrote in its introduction:


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.

,

.

The Land of Israel is very dear to me, for I have withstood

much suering to aain it. I have merited aaching myself tothe inheritance of God and adorning myself in its dust for

twenty-seven years. I have suered and endured much pain in

trying to sele it; multiple episodes befell me from the day I

returned: fear, plague, bloodshed; I tasted hunger; I sat in

dicult captivity in prison; my enemies enveloped and

encircled me. But what can Man do to me? I asked, and I

trusted in God; God is with me to help me, and upon Him I

am cast from my birth. I did much to save and help the Holy

Land and its people, with Gods help. I worked with all my

strength, and led the pure community with all my strength,

and I established the labor of Torah study among the masses. I

have laid the foundations of selement in the Holy Land from

within and without.

With simple faith, Rav Yisroel viewed his suering in the context ofthe rebuilding of the Land. His foremost feeling was gratitude for the

contribution he was able to make.

A V R A H A M B U M I A V R A M O V I T Z Avraham Bumi Avramovitz was born in 1927 in Koice,

Czechoslovakia. He received both a Jewish and secular education and

continued his studies in yeshiva. The Nazis arrived in the beginning of1944. Aer several months in a gheo, the deportations to Auschwitz

began in May. Both of Avrahams parents were killed in the gas

chambers. He worked in the camp until the end of the war.


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Avraham then lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany for

two years, where he received military training from the Irgun. On the

day of the approval of the UN Partition Plan, he wrote the following to

his relatives in Herzliya (from Gevilei Esh , ed. Reuven Grossman,1952):

,29.11.47

!

..

...!

..

..

?

.,

.,,

.,

..

?

November 29, 1947My dear relatives!

First of all I want you to know that I am all rightsomething I

also want to hear from you. I dont know why we stopped

exchanging leers. The last thing I received from you was a

Happy New Year wish in September. It still sits on my desk.

There is also thankfully a photograph of Herzliya. How

beautiful! The image has not le my head from the time I was

a child among your children. You have certainly forgoen

those days. I look at the picture and the signature of the

children is upon it. Childhood went by so quickly. The time is

not distant, but how great is the distance between us? At age


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20 it is not so great, but someone has placed a great iron wall

between us, a wall that is dicult to break. But the hope of the

Jews has not ceased, for even in the cale cars that brought the

Jews to Auschwitz there was hope; we will break through thiswall as well. When I will finally be with you and visit beautiful

Herzliya, my hope will be realized. You will definitely be

shocked to hear that my hope is the Land of Israel and not the

United States. For why would I go to a place that is not my

home when I can go to my homeland?

Avraham finally made aliyah soon aer Israels independence, using a

friends papers as his own. He stopped in Herzliya as he promised andthen quickly joined the Givati Brigade to fight in the war. He gave his

life at Ivdis, in a pivotal bale for the control of the Negev.

The Givati took control of the position at Ivdis during the night

preceding July9, 1948. The Egyptians returned in the morning with

heavy artillery fire and air support, causing dozens of casualties;

twenty-five Jewish soldiers lost their lives, including seven Holocaust

survivors. The Givati withstood the counteraack and the bale

ended July12.

Avraham was twenty-one years old when he fell on July10 , the

third of Tammuz. He was one of about 1,000 Holocaust survivors to

die in the War of Independence.

The FutureAnd It Shall Be on that Day

There have been three mass immigrations to Israel in history; the first

two eventually led to a Temple, and the third is still ongoing. Today,

with the rise of the Yishuv and the decline of the Diaspora, we are

nearing the halakhic status of rov yosheveha aleha (most of its

inhabitants are upon it), which we have not had since the exile began.

The future of the Jewish People is in the Land of Israel.


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T H E C U T T I N G E D G EProfessor Gerald Blidstein, in Tradition18:1 (1979):

The juices of Jewish history do run towards a restoration of Jewish peoplehood in Israel. Or more carefully: the Jew who

loves his people wishes to experience its fullness, and the

adventure, the challenge, of Jewish fullness today is in Israel.

The Jew who identifies with his people wishes to be at the

cuing edge of its history and that, today, is in Israel.

T H E G R E A T M O M E N TRabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik,Kol Dodi Dofek, 1956 (tr. David Gordon,

1990, p. 26 .):

What is the essence of the story of the Song of Songs, if not the

description of a paradoxical and tragic hesitation on the part of

the love-intoxicated, anxiety-stricken Lover, when the oppor-

tunity, couched in majestic awe, presented itself? What is it, if

not the deferral of a great and sublime opportunity pregnantwith a possibility of which she dreamed, for which she fought,

which she sought, and for which she had searched with all the

fervor of her soul? The delicate and refined Lover, passion-

driven to her fair-eyed Beloved, who in days resplendent in

brightness wandered the paths of the vineyards, the mountain

ridges, through wheat fields and orchards, and in evenings

bathed in the pale light of an enchanting moon or gloomy withdarkness passed between the walls in search of her Lovershe

returned one rain-stormy night to her tent, tired and weary,

and fell asleep. The paer of quick-moving, light footsteps was

heard in the stillness of the tent. In that mysterious and strange

night, the Beloved for whom she had so hoped and kept watch,

suddenly appeared out of the darkness and beckoned at the

entrance of her tent. He knocked and pleaded that she openthe door for Him. Listen! My Beloved is Knocking, saying,

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for

my head is drenched with dew, and my locks with the damp of

the night (Song 5:2). The great moment for which she had

been waiting with such longing came at a time of inaentive-


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ness. The elusive and secretive Beloved, weary of wandering

and tribulations, appeared with His curly locks, black eyes,

powerful build, and shining countenance. He stood in her

doorway and thrust His hand through the hole in the lock,seeking shelter from the dampness of the night. He wanted to

recount to her His mighty love, His longing and yearning for a

life together filled with desire and joy, and of fulfillment of

expectations and realization of dreams. A simple extension of

the hand to turn the lock separated the Lover and her

Belovedthe great dream from its complete fulfillment. With

one leap the Lover could have aained all her lifes desires.Draw me, we will run aer you. . . . We will be glad and rejoice

in you (Song 1:4). Deceitful is the heart (Jer. 17:9), however,

and who can explain it? That very night, sloth, the result of a

strange inertia, took hold of the Lover. For one small moment

the flame of yearning that burned within her was buried, the

mighty desire withered, and her feelings and dreams were

silenced. The Lover refused to leave her bed. She did not open

the door of her tent to her handsome Beloved. A cruel

confusion swept her into forgetfulness and apathy. The Lover

become lazy and stubborn, she poured forth countless excuses

and pretexts to explain her strange behavior. I have removed

my cloak, how shall I put it on again? I have washed my feet,

how shall I soil them? (Song 5:3). The Beloved continued to

beckon, and as His beckoning became more persistent, so too

did the insanity that chilled and tainted the Lover.

We face an awesome opportunity. An opportunity to fulfill Gods Will

for the Jewish People; to experience Gods immediate Presence; toenjoy a wondrous Land; to realize the hope of two thousand years; to

honor selfless martyrs; to take part in the Jewish future.


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Come and Inherit 2011