Why Is the Entire World Obsessed With Israel? Rabbi Mordechai Becher & Rabbi Sokol - Living Inspired

[music] Rabbi Becker, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us. If you open Tanakh, it's impossible to ignore that Erit Israel, this land is God's signature issue. And for the history of the Jewish people, we've been in exile, not by choice until today. So why is it that Judaism needs to have a land? And furthermore, why does Messiah have to come to this land? So maybe if you could expand on those two questions. Thank you. Okay, these are very broad but also very fundamental questions. What's the role of uh the land of Israel in Torah, in Judaism, in our lives? Um what's so to speak Hashem's idea, plan, desire for the land of Israel? These are important questions and you are correct. Um it's very hard to uh no, not very hard. It's impossible to go through Tanakh, the Torah, prophet's writings, and avoid Israel. It's not it's not possible. Um, Hashem's first words to Abraham was to go to Israel. Um the uh first recorded uh I mean the first uh the the greatest test that Abraham had was to offer his son Yitskak as an offering on Hara Maria land of Israel the site of the future Bamikdash future temples. Uh we know that um that that the Yitsak never left the land of Israel because he was called an olatim, a pure offering. His sanctity did not allow for him to leave the land of Israel. Um and it was with great reluctance. Yakov and his sons went down to Egypt, famine and so on and so forth. Even in Egypt, the Jews, the the the the tribes, Yakov, Yseph, the tribes, all asked to be buried in the land of Israel, take us back to Israel. The Jews left Egypt with a hope, a belief that they'd one day come to the land of Israel. And then you're right, the whole history of the Jewish people until exile was revolving around our uh inhabit our habitation of the land of Israel, our settlement of the land of Israel, conquest, exile, return, exile and so on and so forth. And we are waiting for the uh redemption for the Messiah where one of the key features the Rambam has it as one of the one of the ways in which we can identify that the Messiah was successful is that there is kibbutz golus there is a return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. Uh so uh it does prompt us to ask why is Judaism Torah so focused on a land. I mean you can think there are many religions laavil out there and vast majority of them ones that I know of and not specifically associated with one piece of land. you know, Catholics, they consider Israel holy because their founder lived there possibly. Um, they uh consider pilgrimage to be a wonderful thing. The Vatican is the home of the pope. But, you know, one could be a good Catholic without visiting either place. Live anywhere in the world. Islam has an obligation of Hajj to make pilgrimage to Mecca once in your lifetime. no obligation to live in Saudi Arabia. In fact, I can't imagine Saudi Arabia wants all of Pakistan and Indonesia to come there. It's highly unlikely. Um, so no obligation, no specific attachment to that land. And why is it that we have that attachment? Um, think about it. There there are very there are great people, righteous Jews, individuals, Torah scholars, women of piety and so on who have lived outside of Israel and have lived what we would consider to be amazingly complete lives. But they were not complete according to the Torah. They were not complete lives as far as we can see. They didn't they were not able to fulfill the mitzvah, the commandments of the land of Israel. They did not have that sanctity of the land of Israel in their lives. Uh and out of the 613 mitzvah that we are obligated in according to the Torah say for a in his introduction makes a calculation that because we are in exile the majority of Jews not in Israel we don't have the full infrastructure of the of halaka in the land of Israel. out of the 613 commandments, we're only obligated in 270 270. He says that's hinted at in a beautiful hint in the Song of Songs Shirim where it says an Libby. The Jewish people say we are asleep. I am asleep. I'm in a coma. Valibby, but my heart is awake. It's beating. The word air, beating, awake, ain has a numerical value of 270, so to speak. The Jewish people are like, and when we're out of Israel, we're a nation in a coma. You check our pulse, it's 270. That's probably not good. But but uh for the Jewish people, that's that's a good pulse. 270, the midspot that we still do. So we see from this clearly that Israel is central central. So what is it? Why? So a few things a few points that need to be made and each one really requires an entire our seminar. Who knows? One point made by Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirs uh and Rabbuda Halevi earlier in the Kuzari. Start with Rabbuda Halevi. Rabbi Alvi says the Torah is about building a society of Torah. Building a an entire world, mini world of based on Torah. The only way that can be accomplished is ultimately in our own land, with our own government, with our own independence. Because then we can build a country where the agriculture is going according to the rhythm of the Schmidita cycle, Truma and Marer and all of the sbatical all of all of the laws of agriculture where the the the the justice system is the holy Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, the Batein and so on and so forth. where there's a monarchy based on the laws of the Torah regarding a monarchy has a safer Torah with him and so on and so forth. He says all of that is a way to to build a society based on Torah. So you cannot do that. You could live a good Jewish life in Boro Park or Williamsburg or Golders Green, but you you're not building a Torah society there. you're living in the society around you with various degrees of interaction and at the end of the day though you're not building your country or society. So, Israel, Rabbi Alvi would put it, one aspect of that is that it's it's the opportunity to fulfill our task which is building an entire life, individual, communal, social, political, military, industrial, all based on the Torah. Rabbi Samson says a very similar idea much later in which he asks why Hashem divided the Jews into 12 tribes. I it's not like, you know, we're not we're we're argumentative enough without us actually having to be divided into 12 different groups. What? So, Rabbi Hersh says the idea is that Hashem wants the world, the world as a whole, the the non-Jewish world to be educated by the Jews. And he wants the Jewish people to be an example to the world that you can be of any character type, any talent, trade, profession, and still be a devoted servant of God. He says, "So if all the Jews were just one type, that wouldn't indicate that. If all the Jews were in a yeshiva, that wouldn't help the rest of the world. They wouldn't see that you can be a plumber, an accountant, a physicist, a soldier, a storekeeper, an architect. They and still be a devoted servant of Hashem. They wouldn't see that. So Hashem made the Jewish people as a diverse people. with every tribe, every one of theatim with different talents, different character traits, different professions, different and and yet all of them could be united in the common cause of serving Hashem. And that's an amazing lesson. So, so um that's an important point to make as well. The Sheamish is says a similar idea. He says that the spies when the Jews sent not the Mossad way before but the first Mossad when the Jews in the desert down there when they sent spies to Israel they sent spies to Israel and the spies uh came back with negative reports and and it it was clear they didn't want to go to Israel and there were many Jews who apparently in the desert did not want to go to Israel and Hashem is the great kidic master Rebber of Sachov He says why didn't because he says in the desert they were living in this perfect bubble that's they had the clouds of glory surrounding them climate control they had no agriculture to worry about because the man's falling from heaven they didn't have to worry about plumbing because the water's coming out of the out out of the stone of Miriam and so on they had no they didn't have to work they were just studying Torah it was it was paradise but he said and they wanted to stay there they knew that when they go to Israel, they have to get their hands dirty. They have to do agriculture and they have to create an army and a government and all the stuff that goes with living a normal life. And they were reluctant to do that because they were living in this wow this bubble. She says, "Hashem did not want the Jews to live in a bubble. He wants us to live in the real world, get our hands dirty, both figuratively and literally. and and and within that to bring kadusha holiness to life and to the world. That's our goal. To do that, you need a land. You need a country. You need independence. So that's the rebuty rahershamish. That's one aspect of the land of Israel. And a very important aspect, not the only aspect. Ribbut Alvi also points out as do others that Hashem did not make all creatures equal, all places equal or all times equal. There are times where Hashem's, look, we know that Hashem fills all of as the Zohar says Mak. He he he um permeates all of all of all of space, all of the worlds and he surrounds all the worlds. If so, what do we mean when we talk about the the divine presence? I mean, the divine presence is everywhere. It's explicit in the words of the great Jewish philosopher Uncle Moi. Hashem is here. Hashem is there. Hashem is truly everywhere up up down to we all know that right? Who would have the to argue with uncle Moshi, right? So what do we mean when we talk about divine presence the schina? So um Ibanzra and others point out that what is meant by schina is that there are places and times when you can perceive Hashem's presence more than other space places and times. Hashem's presence permeates everywhere. True. And all times true. But yon kipur in the afternoon at nilu as the sun's setting I can feel Hashen's presence more than I can Monday morning as I'm pressing the alarm to shut off right um and uh there are also places where we can feel perceive Hashem's presence more than other places and within Israel the city of Urusim and within Urusim the harabayas temple mount and the temple mount now each of those places. Of course, Hashem is everywhere, but I can feel Hashem's presence more in certain places. So, Israel is a place of revelation of Hashem's presence. Now, you would ask why don't as the rebut asked, why does Hashem make it all the world like that? He says, well, why don't you ask why doesn't Hashem make all creatures intelligent with free will? Why only humans? and of the humans. Why does Hashem only make the Jews with the Torah, giving us the Torah and our commandments? So he says, Hashem's plan is that he wants the whole world to reach a certain level of spirituality and of morality. And in order to do that, he has places, times, opportunities, and a people whose job it is to raise the world to those levels by themselves having an even higher level and a deeper level of divine revelation. And that is that is Hashem's plan. So the land of Israel is this like window. It's a place where and and the truth is that window is open not just to Jews. We know that Gomorrah tells us that every everyone any any person not just Jew but non-Jews can offer offerings a corban in the temple in Jerusalem. We are told my house is a house of prayer for all peoples. When Schlomahamel, King Solomon built the first temple in Urusim, his speech in the book of Kings 18, his speech talks about the purpose of the Basa Mikdash and he in the speech he mentions that it's for the non-Jews when they turn to it, when they come here, when they pray here, their prayers should be accepted. So, so you need you need people most people cannot live in a situation of incredible intensity all the time. will just burn up. You need places, you need times, you need moments of inspiration. The land of Israel is that because of that, as Rabbuda Halevi says, and obviously I'm heavily quoting him because the quizer is one of the great great sources regarding the land of Israel and its and its special nature. He says because of that prophecy was always only associated with the land of Israel. Either the prophets prophesied in Israel, started in Israel and continued when they left, or exclusively prophesied about Israel. Israel is the land of prophecy. And and we look through history even after prophecy ended. So at the beginning of the second temple era, 2,500 years ago when we became a nonprofit organization. So, so we had after that still there was tremendous levels of inspiration, divine inspiration in the land of Israel. There are the the the cidur was written by the men of the great assembly. Granted, albeit there were a number of prophets still amongst them. That was the last vestigages of prophecy that was written in the land of Israel. The the the oral Torah, the Torah Shabb, the Mishna written in the land of Israel in the north. The Zahar we just celebrated Lag Zahar written in the land of Israel right some of our greatest works of Cabala the code of Jewish law theor also all written in the land of Israel it's a place where it's clear that there's inspiration there it's like a some put it I once heard from my fisher shalom that it's like a spiritual magnifying glass it magnifies and intensifies spirituality that's why it's very difficult to have casual conversations about anything of substance in Israel. Just nothing's casual. Everyone's like, everyone's like very intense about it. But that's part of the greatness of Israel as this intensifying im image like an image intensifier. The third idea I just wanted to mention is the geographical location of Israel. You know, if you look at old maps from 14, 1300s, 1200, it's old old maps, they always had you have Israel in the middle and there's this like um this this uh this football shape of Europe on one side and of Africa underneath and and uh Asia, et Israel's in the middle and um you know, America's tucked away in the corner. Australia doesn't exist on these maps, etc. But but the those are not completely inaccurate. In other words, Israel is at the crossroads of the trade routes from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, etc. And it was a place where nations, empires throughout history have battled over to take control of it. as recently as the British and the Ottoman Empire and before then the the various like the Mumlukes and and the Mongols and and and and you had the crusaders and the Muslims and the uh and and just the the Persia and and and Greece and Rome and Rome and Greece etc etc Babylon it was like this was and and you know the fact that Israel is located where it's located is very significant because we know apostics says from Zion shall come forth the Torah and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. The context of that puk, the context of that verse is Torah coming forth to the non-Jews. The non-Jews will stream to Jerusalem and they'll hear Torah. That's a messianic prediction. But the idea what happened, what has happened is a lot of our Torah has been tasted, distributed, um, stolen, plagiarized, etc. by many peoples who have got a little bits of it when they conquered Israel when they went through Israel and that's an important part of the purpose of Israel is to be a place that will be a beacon of light a place that will there to teach the whole world Torah morality and so on and so forth and some say I think Rolbatic says one of the reasons that there is so much focus on the land of Israel by the world media by politicians by governments. I mean to the exclusion of of countries that have huge populations. There are countries which where where single cities have 10 times the amount of Jews there are or sorry three or four times the amount of people there are in the whole land of Israel and yet they're completely ignored by the media completely ignored by the world. Completely. Why are they focused on Israel? And and I think he said because they're supposed to be focused on Israel. that they're supposed to be learning things from Israel. They're supposed to be learning things from the Jewish people. They're supposed to be learning things from the land. All right? And and to that uh in that sense um Israel also is supposed to be a central focus of the world for to for for it to learn how to be a good human being, how to live. And that's maybe why so many people are focused on uh on the land of Israel, on the state of Israel, and on the Jews in Israel. Um because the truth is they're meant to be focused on it, not in the way they're focused, right? They're focused for criticism and hatred, but to be focused for learning and inspiration, that's where the that's where the focus should be. And that's also another reason we have a land. Um and uh you know uh again Rabbi Alvi points out that he says uh people can people will draw inspiration sometimes from a a poor suffering exile or a porpa who's nevertheless despite being being destitute he's nevertheless moral. But he says he says it's going to have a much greater impact to have someone who is successful in every area and still moral successful in every area and still serves Hashem with humility and with devotion that's going to have a greater impact. So Hashem wants us to be successful. He wants us to have power. He wants us to have wealth because those are vehicles where people will look at us and derive lessons. Abraham Ainu Abraham was given military success, political success, financial success and and the reason he was given those was not to rule people. It was not to be a dictator. No, it was so that people would look at him, admire him and hopefully learn from him, which they did. What is Msiah? Is Mashiach just a way of us focusing on Isis? Meaning, are these things two separate ideas? Is there something about Erit Isol which has nothing to do with end times or is it just one connected thing? You see the distance of the human being from God is such that we could spend our entire lifetime and the lifetime of every human who's ever lived and would still be only approaching not there like an asmtote where the curve approaches the yaxis but never quite hits it. So right now, as the Rambam puts it, I'm basing this on the Rambam primarily. As the Rambam puts it, we spend a lot of energy battling, poverty, disease, anti-semitism, discord, and so on and so forth. So the amount of energy we have left to get closer to God, to have a relationship with him, is less is a lot less than it should be. the the hope, the promise of the times of the Messiah is that the impediments will be removed. We won't have to be battling anti-semites. We won't have to be fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, uh, Islamic, Jihad, uh, etc., etc. We, right, we won't have to battle disease and poverty. Will there still be poor people? Yes. But we'll be in a position that we can help everyone, right? You know, uh the the the times of the Messiah is that we'll have our ideal um life where we can pursue those goals and the ideal place to pursue those goals is the land of Israel because of its spiritual qualities and its history and so on and so forth. And therefore, they are linked. They are linked. But I would say that the purpose of both the land of Israel and the Messiah are both means to an end. They're the means the end goal is to have a relationship with God, with the creator, with Hashem. The means to that is the land of Israel. True even nowadays. And the another means to that is the Messiah. You know, our goal in this world is not bring Messiah. No. Brashia in order to do what? In order to be great humans oem servants of God relationship with God and the messianic times when we have the Messiah that will be the time that we can do that all and the place that we can do it all is the land of Israel. That's the that's the goal. So I would say yes they are uh they are uh somewhat um inter uh interwoven um they're not exactly the same but I think they're very similar but they're interwoven in that sense. They're both the mechanisms by which we will achieve our goals. >> Okay. Now I I watched recently your podcast two rabbis and a podcast with Rabbi. >> Yes. Excellent. And you mentioned there the Ramban about Yeshua and I wanted to just focus on one aspect of the Ramban you mentioned which was that there's aside from you know I think moving to Israel or owning a house there's a mitzvah of of developing and that's something that is a biblical commandment and it's something that anybody regardless of where you are if you can't move but you could promote it you there are things that you can do you I remember my father told me when he was a kid, he lived in California and they had a program. You give a dollar and you're planting a tree in Israel. So, um I wanted to know if you could tell us or the audience some some practical things that they could do to um do this mitzvah because this is this is a serious thing. It's no different than an estraul or you know it's a real mitzvah of building up. >> Yeah. So yeah, nakmanades, so people don't get confused. Rambam, Ramban, yeah, Ramban, Nakmanades, he actually says there's three components to this mitzvah, which applies even today. Uh, number one is living there. Number two, not leaving it in the hands of foreigners. Um and um and and number three, as you correctly pointed out, what what we call Yeshu Harets, which is to um uh make the land of Israel a more habitable place. So if I involve myself in agriculture, that's great. If I build a roads, amazing. If I build a falafel store, also good, right? All part of it. So um so I would say if a person doesn't I mean I'm here I am talking about all this and I'm living in Paic New Jersey >> but you probably sent more people tool than than than anybody. I I did live in Israel for quite a while and my rebi Ramosha Shapiro said I should move to America so I did right I plan on coming back but in any case yes someone who lives in as is the case for me and uh many people I don't know who's watching this but um we can be involved invest in Israel if you buy a house in Israel you invest in real estate in Israel you are contributing to the building of the land of Israel everything we do in Israel. The Kassam Syer in a very beautiful uh piece on his commentary on Suka Lammed Vavan Syfer actually writes that that everything we do in Israel, he says not just agriculture. He says all of that is part of this incredible mitzvah of Yeshu Israel. Um he says to bring out its holy fruits. I think buying Israeli products, the blessed fruits of the land of Israel, uh which we I know we see here in Costco in New Jersey, right? Uh you know, whether it's the cherry tomatoes or etc, etc., bisley, bambber, etc., part of some of the blessed fruits, right? Uh but I think that's certainly a part of it. Um I think that's helping the agricultural uh component of the land of Israel. Um and uh there are many many um many good causes in Israel. There's a I just got a I get a message from some group who's trying to bring to raise the Jewish population. The Galile is being is being overrun by Arabs and uh it's it's in it's it's in danger. So helping people settle in the galile, helping people in the negv, helping people settle in places in Israel where there's a der of Jews. So I think those are all important parts of it. Um and uh you know each person according to what they can afford and what they can do. But I think all of that is you know when people sometimes go to Israel and they volunteer and they help out and that's also great you know whatever we can do there. So, first of all, thank you so much for joining me and I um am so honored that that you came on. Uh this um hopefully will be one of many many talks we do for Dabut. Uh this will be on their channel. Um and I will leave a link to your channel to um the channel that I watched that uh >> wonderful. Thank you very much. so that people will be able to also um see see the continuation of this conversation cuz I I caught you I think in episode 100 or 80 I don't remember what number it was a thousand I don't know so so you look it up um maybe you could lead us out with a braha um to the to the boy thank you >> I mean okay I I'm qualified as a head jot um so I guess I can give a a a braha that uh that people should feel closeness to Hashem people should have success physically and spiritually and uh and use that to create a keshm sanctification of the name of Hashem. Rabbi Becker, thank you for joining us from just outside Jerusalem. Shalom.