This past Friday marked the yahrzeit of the great Torah commentator, Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki. Almost everyone is familiar with the famous first Rashi on the Torah. He asks - since the Torah is the Book of Law which Hashem gave to the Jewish People, why does it begin with the account of Creation and not with the commandments? Rashi answers the question by quoting a Midrash of Rabbi Yitzhak which explains that if the nations of the world claim that we stole the Land of Israel from them, we can answer that since the Holy One Blessed Be He created the world, He can give the Land of Israel to whomever He chooses.
Did Rashi have political savvy? Did he foresee the day when the Arabs, the European Union, the BDS, the United Nations, Hague, and the U.S. State Department would call Israel thieves, claiming that we stole Eretz Yisrael from the Palestinian Arabs? Maybe, but I don’t think he was stockpiling ammunition for Bibi to convey to the UN. Rashi didn’t write his commentary for the Gentiles - he wrote it to teach the Jews.
Rashi wants to teach us that without Eretz Yisrael there is no Torah, no Am Yisrael, nor Sanctification of Hashem in the world. Eretz Yisrael is the foundation of the entire Torah. The Torah was given to be kept in Eretz Yisrael. The Jewish People can only be a Nation in Eretz Yisrael. And the establishment of the Kingdom of Hashem - the goal of the Torah - can only be established in the world when the Nation of Israel dwells in its Land, all of the Jews in all of the Land.
Without Eretz Yisrael we are scattered Jews, not a Nation. We struggle to survive but assimilation eats away at us, threatening Diaspora Jews with extinction. Without Eretz Yisrael, the Jews are defenseless minorities in other peoples’ lands, dependent on the non-Jew for everything.
Rashi teaches that Torah is meant to be kept in the Land of Israel, the only place it can be observed in all of its fullness, with its many laws relating to the Land of Israel, the Kingship of Israel, the army of Israel, the justice system of Israel, and the Beit HaMikdash which you can’t build in Moscow, Berlin, of Brooklyn. He reminds us that we perform mitzvot in the Diaspora only so that we remember how to do them, for the commandments were given to be performed in the Holy Land (Devarim, 11:18). In several places in his Torah commentary, Rashi cites the Gemara which states that a Jew who lives in Israel is like someone who has a God, and a Jew who dwells outside the Land of Israel is like someone who worships idols (Vayikra 25:38).
If anyone still clinging to the Diaspora doubts that Hashem wants His children to dwell in the Chosen Land, he or she only glance at the upcoming Torah portion as we begin the Book of Devarim:
“‘Moshe began to explain the Torah, saying, ‘The Lord our God spoke to us in Horev, saying, You have dwelt long enough in this mountain - TURN AND TAKE UP YOUR JOURNEY - go to the Land of Israel! BEHOLD, I HAVE SET THE LAND BEFORE YOU, GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND THAT THE LORD SWORE TO YOUR FATHERS, AVRAHAM, YITZHAK, AND YAACOV TO GIVE THEM, AND TO THEIR SEED AFTER THEM” (Devarim, 1:6-8).
Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook explained to his students at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem: “The Torah wasn’t given to be kept in Sinai, nor in Russia or America. The Torah isn’t a ‘religion’ like Buddhism or Christianity, God forbid. The Torah isn’t some abstract spirituality floating like a cloud in the sky. The Torah has an EARTHLY BASE. Not Sinai. Not Europe. Not the United States. The Torah is the DIVINE CONSTITUTION of the NATION OF ISRAEL, and every NATION needs its own LAND. And the holy CHILDREN OF ISRAEL have their own unique HOLY LAND.
“What is the first and fundamental message that Moshe explains when he teaches the Torah to Am Yisrael? Not Shabbos. Not kashrus. ‘Do you want to know what Torah is?’ Moshe asks them. ‘If you really want to keep it, GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND! That’s the basis of Torah. Only in the Holy Land will you be able to understand what the Torah is all about and only there can all of the Torah be kept.’”
That’s what Rashi is coming to tell us at the very start of the Torah. Hashem created the world and gave the Land of Israel to the Jews. Hashem wants His Children to live in the Holy Land and not scattered around the world.
May Rashi’s memory be for a blessing.