HaRav Dov Begon is Head of Yeshivat Machon Meir.
In this week’s Torah reading, the Blessed One promises Israel that they will conquer the Land of Israel. However, the process of conquest will be gradual:
“I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the Land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the Land. And I will set your borders from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the Land into your hand, and you shall drive them out from before you" (Shemot 23:29-31).
Indeed, Joshua the son of Nun conquered the Land, but not all of it. He left foreign peoples dwelling within it, and they caused Israel great distress during the period of the Judges, until the time of King David, may his memory be a blessing, who conquered the entire Land from the foreign nations residing there. Only in the days of his son Solomon did we merit respite from war, when each man sat beneath his vine and beneath his fig tree.
At present, our generation resembles and parallels the generation of Joshua son of Nun, who ascended from the wilderness to conquer the Land. Our generation has ascended from the wilderness of the nations after two thousand years of exile, in order to conquer and settle the Land of Israel. Just as in the days of Joshua they did not dispossess all the inhabitants of the Land, and the verse “Little by little I will drive them out from before you" was fulfilled, so too in our generation a foreign people still remains in our Land of life.
And just as in the days of the Judges the foreign nations caused Israel great suffering, so too today the Arabs cause us much distress and threaten the existence of the State of Israel. And just as in the days of the Judges when leaders arose who fought the wars of Israel and infused the people with a spirit of heroism - such as Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and others - so too in our time we are in need of leaders who will strengthen the spirit of the nation and fight with might and courage against our enemies who plot evil against us.
Just as the Blessed One conditions the conquest of the entire Land upon our becoming fruitful and multiplying - “Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the Land" - so too in our day the imperative of the hour is to be fruitful and multiply. From within and from without. From within, through natural increase. As is well known, the family that preserves the traditions of Israel is generally a family blessed with many children.
Thank God, we merit to see more and more people returning to their roots and to tradition, and the day is not far when the entire people will return to its roots, and through this we will be fruitful and multiply from within.
And from without, through a great aliyah. Millions of Jews still remain in exile, and the State of Israel must invest enormous effort and great financial resources in encouraging immigration, in educating toward aliyah, and in absorbing new immigrants. Through internal growth and a great aliyah, we will fill our Land with Jews. Thereby we will merit that the Divine Promise be fulfilled in us:
“You shall be fruitful and inherit the land; and I will set your borders from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River."
From one who eagerly awaits our complete Redemption. Shabbat shalom.