This Shabbat will mark the last of the 4 special Parshiyot that are read as a buildup to Pesach–the Parshah of “HaChodesh”, in which the Jews are given their first Mitzvah as a people, the Mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh\inaugurating the new month. Rashi comments, on the first Posuk of the Torah [Bereishit 1’ 1’]:
“...Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah which is the Law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto you the first of the months” which is the first commandment given to Israel. What is the reason, then, that it commences with the account of the Creation?
…For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).”
Many have commented on the prophetic message contained within the words of this Rashi; Rashi was born in Europe in 1040, and died in 1105 [approximately one thousand years ago]. At the time, Israel was mostly deserted, and the Crusades would only start towards the end of Rashi’s life. It was not considered realistic for any European Jews to consider making the journey to Israel; several generations later [in 1263], the great Chumash commentator Nachmanides [Ramban] would make the journey to Israel after being exiled from Spain for defending the Jewish faith against the vicious apostate Pablo Cristiani–his exile was considered a “reward” for emerging from the debate victorious. Ramban would go on to found a synagogue in the Old City of Yerushalayim around the year 1267, and the Jewish presence, albeit few in number, would continue for 700 more years until the founding of the state in the embers of the Holocaust.
And yet, Rashi writes as a given that the land of Israel was given to the Jews by G-d; that was never doubted. For 2000 years, since the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash in the year 70, we have prayed 3 times daily for the return to Israel, and we face east, towards Yerushalayim, to beseech G-d for the rebuilding of the Temple. The rationale for this tenet of our faith is not because the UN deemed it so; nor is it because of the British leaving the land. It is because, as Rashi points out, we were given the Land by G-d. This is the appropriate response to those who would accuse our Nation of thievery [aside from the often blatant hypocrisy of those who make this claim]. Israel has been given to the Jews by Hashem, and Rashi, in the early middle ages, when the possibility of Jewish resettlement could not have been bleaker, accepted this as the foundation of our faith–it is our responsibility, living in the generations that have experienced the miraculous resettlement of the Jewish people on our ancient homeland, to maintain the perspective put forth by Rashi, and when challenged by Anti-Zionists and Anti-Semites, we must respond with the simple truth–G-d gave us the land.
In the beginning of the Pesach Haggadah, in the paragraph of “Ha Lachmah Anyah”-- [“this is the poor person’s bread”] we declare:
“Now we are here;
next year in the land of Israel.
Now – slaves;
next year we shall be free.”
The great Gaon of Vilna, in his commentary on the Haggadah [written circa 1775], wonders why we talk about being in the land of Israel before discussing our personal status as slaves–he explains, that the author of the Haggadah is prophetically informing the reader that in the future, the redemption of the Jews will take place in two stages; first the land will be redeemed in judgment, and only then will the full eventual personal redemption of the Jewish people take place with great displays of divine providence. Written 200 years before the rebirth of the Jewish state, we, with the benefit of hindsight, can only be in awe of the divine revelations that were expressed by our great commentators, and how accurately history has borne out the events that were foretold in their writings.
Dedicated in memory of all those who have perished and sacrificed for Am Yisrael.
Have a Great Shabbas.