Jewish Genes

Give this week’s Torah portion, “Lech Lecha,” to an eight-year old to read, and ask him where G-d wants the Jewish People to live, and he will answer “the Land of Israel” right away. Give it to a gentile to read and ask him the same question. “The Land of Israel” he will answer without batting an eye. Give it to a Jew in the Diaspora and ask him the same question, and you’ll get a dozen different answers:

“Well, it depends….”

“It’s not the same for us today….”

“What was true for Avraham isn’t a general rule….”

“In Brooklyn, New York….”

“In Australia….”

“Until the Moshiach comes, he can live anywhere he wants….”

But the fact is that G-d starts off His relationship with the Jewish People by telling our first forefather, Avraham, “Get thee forth to the Land that I will show you.” G-d doesn’t tell him to keep Shabbat. He doesn’t tell Avraham to keep kosher. He tells him to live in Israel. This is where a Jew belongs. This is the only place where a Jew can truly serve G-d. The Holy People are to live in the Holy Land. This is G-d’s plan for the world and for the Jewish People. This is the very first lesson that G-d teaches us. “Get thee forth to the Land.” Ask any eight-year old. Ask any gentile. If a monkey could read, he would reach the same conclusion. Living in the Land of Israel is the foundation of the Jewish Nation. #1 on the list.

"In the Land of Israel, for sure."

To live in the Land of Israel, we need to keep the Torah, yes. But the first, basic understanding that G-d wants us to know is that just as every nation needs a land, the special holy Nation of Israel needs a special Holy Land. The Land of Israel is a part of our national identity. It is a part of our spiritual being. It is not something extra to Judasim. Just another extra mitzvah, or a nice place to visit. It is not something external like every other place on the globe. It is a part of who we are. We cannot be the Nation of Israel without the Land of Israel. We can be scattered individuals, in scattered Jewish communities around the world. We can be advisors to gentile presidents and assimilated novelists and famous pop singers, but we can’t be a nation with our own land unless we are congregated in the Land of our forefathers, the Land of the Jews. For a Jew to be true to himself, and to G-d, he has to be in the Land of Israel.

If you don't believe me, look what Rashi says: "There, in the Land of Israel, I will be your G-d,  but a Jew who lives outside the Land of Israel is like someone who has no G-d" (Bereshit, 17:8).  

This is the very first lesson to Avraham: “Get thee forth to the Land.” And it’s a part of our genetic make-up as the children of Avraham.  Just as Avraham left his birthplace to start a new life in Israel, we can too. It’s in our blood. It is a part of our psycho-historic heritage. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it is difficult. But as the children of Avraham Avinu, we have what it takes.

During the 2000 year exile from the Land of Israel, we didn’t have a choice. So the Torah became our principle connection to G-d. But now that G-d has re-opened the gates to our homeland, now that He has brought back millions of Jews to Israel, and given us a Jewish airline, and thriving Jewish communities, and a re-built Jerusalem, and more yeshivot than anywhere else in the world, it is time to remember the very first lesson He taught us: “Get thee forth to the Land.”     

Medinat Yahoo

Good thing there wasn’t Internet in the days of our forefather Avraham. If there had been, he may never have come to Israel. He may have decided to stay in Ur Kasdeem, and settle with being a vicarious Israeli via the Internet. That way he could enjoy the best of both worlds, rubbing shoulders with all of the wealthy and high-ranking idol worshippers in Ur Kasdeem, while at the same time sending in Talkbacks critical of the way things were being run in the Holy Land.

After all, in Avraham’s time, there were savage Canaanites living in Eretz Yisrael. And there weren’t any kosher supermarkets back then, nor religious neighborhoods, nor Jewish Day Schools and yeshivot for the kids. In fact, there weren’t any Jews living there at all. Avraham would be the first. Who needed the hassle? It made a lot more sense to stay where he was, where everyone knew him, enjoying the good life with the goyim, and pretend, via the Internet, that he was actually involved in building the Jewish State.

Lucky for us that INN Talkbacks didn’t exist back then. It could have been a test that even Avraham might not have had the strength to overcome.  

The Black House

Let’s face it. It doesn’t matter whether the President of the United States is Black or White. Blacks hate the Jews, and Whites hate the Jews. What’s the difference? And it doesn’t matter if the President of the United States is a Moslem or a Christian. Moslems hate the Jews, and Christians hate the Jews. What’s the difference?

The White House Ain't White No Mo

A prophecy in the Book of Daniel describes the four gentile kingdoms that will rule over the world after the destruction of Jerusalem, until the Kingdom of G-d is established by the revitalized holy Nation of Israel (Daniel, 7:1-28).

In Daniel’s nocturnal vision, he sees four frightening beasts, one after the other, which take center stage in the parade of world history. The first three represent the empires of Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The final and most terrifying of the creatures, combines all of the previous kingdoms and engulfs everything in its path:

“After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceedingly strong, and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and crushed its adversaries into pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet…and it had ten horns with another small horn….” (loc. Cited).

This fourth monstrous beast represents Edom/Esav – the Roman Empire , including Christianity and all of its metamorphoses, up to the German, Russian, and American superpowers of modern times. Commentators differ in explaining the horns. The Abarbanel identifies the small horn as the Church, while Rav Sadia Gaon connects it to Islam. The Rambam explains it as Christianity, describing it as a new religion that copies the Divine religion with a so-called prophet who declares many haughty things.

At the end of the vision, the blasphemy and falsehood of the arrogantly speaking horn evokes G-d’s anger for having led mankind astray from the one and only true path, and the “high holy ones of the Most High” (Israel) are called forth to vanquish the raging beast. The blasphemy and falsehood which has led mankind away from G-d by denying the Torah and rejecting its commandments must be brought to an end. The anarchy where every man decides for himself what is right and what is wrong has shrouded the world in a plague of darkness and immorality. The world is to be revolutionized not by a beast, but by a nation possessed with the holiness of the Torah and its Divine truths.

In an essay based on this vision, Rabbi Kook calls the deceitful leaders of this last bestial culture “forgetters of G-d in their hearts, carrying His Name on their lips, upon their mouths and tongues” (Orot, 2:8).

Rabbi Kook writes:

“The total annulment of all of today’s cultural machinations, with all of their lies and deceit, with all of their evil pollutions, and their venomous poisons, is sure to come. This entire culture, which praises itself with melodious lies must be erased from the world, and in its stead will be established the kingdom of the high holy ones.”

Rabbi Kook is not coming to negate all of world civilization. Science, technology, literature, and art all have their place. But when the world’s advancements are not lifted up to the service of G-d, they fall into material and moral corruption (See the book, “War and Peace,” Teachings of Rabbi Kook, commentary by Rabbi David Samson and Tzvi Fishman, Ch. 8).

Tolerance is indeed a Jewish concept, but there can be no tolerance for widespread evil. The G-d of the Jewish People is a zealous G-d, abhorring falsehood, idolatry, adultery, and the evils of Western culture. There is no room for tolerance when speaking about cultures that turn their backs on G-d’s holy law. They are enemies of G-d whose cultural roots are founded in evil. For the word of G-d to be established in the world these false cultures must be erased.

Rabbi Kook continues:

“Israel will see with its own eyes the retribution of the wicked, and will march upon the destruction of those who boast of new forms of paganism, just as we trampled upon the remains of Babylon and ancient Greece. Then it will be known and proven that only in Him, in the G-d of Israel, is there salvation. And the salvation of G-d will certainly come” (Ibid).