The Significance of Living in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel by Rav Aschi Dick

welcome everybody thank you KH thank you Sam thank you for everybody that's joining us um again as usual we begin with a prayer that should protect that we should see a speed we should see an end to this terrible war and that we should stop seeing Bloodshed in this country should protect our soldiers should bring back the hostages and uh hopefully bring everything back to the way things are supposed to be with the help of Hashem okay so last week we had a little bit of a hectic Zoom session right in middle of the hotel with the entire behind me singing and dancing okay so today we have a little bit of a more quiet setting but we're still thinking about all those people that are displaced should bring them back to their homes very soon I just came from the shook now and I want to say something from Rabbi gold I'm sure many of you have heard of RAB gold he was the founder of my Yesa in Toronto near is he was a r here in harof where I live and he said in the name of one of his teachers that if you want to learn about God look at the T but if you want to see God go to the sh okay so the the the Bounty that has blessed the Jewish people with one time the stud of said that when we go to what are we supposed to be looking at says you don't have to look at anything just look at the stones just look at the mountains you don't have to try to perceive anything deeper than that if you do that's wonderful but just looking at already sanctifies the person is so holy even though sometimes you look at it you don't see what is the Holiness of but it's something hidden it's it's something deep and just the fact that you can look at er Isel just the fact that you can breathe the air of ER is that's already something very powerful according to the P UA in order for a person to draw from the Holiness and sanc VAR Israel a person also should be cognizing that am Bears inate sanctity it's important to bear that in mind first of all we have a disagreement in the Ron in the early medieval sages it's actually a m ready in the gar if a person does a Mitzvah without having intended to fulfill the will of Hashem has he fulfilled a Mitzvah or not so we rule as follows that if we're talking about a the to obligation like BL chauffer in order to discharge the obligation a person has to have the intention that he's doing the will of Hashem when he blows the Sher if somebody let's say blew the schaur just for the sake of music so then he has not discharged his obligation but when it comes to MIT of Rabin origin so we rule leniently that a person discharges his obligation even if he did not have explicit intend to fulfill the will of Hashem living in AR according to the ran is a mitvah a command so therefore we're all living in so we should be cognizant of the fact that we by living in is are fulfilling a Mitzvah fulfilling one of the most important because thear tells us that you're allowed to even tell a nonu to write up a deed in order to purchase a piece of is so the asked that we know that telling AI to do something that is forbidden on chabas is a is there AIC prohibition so what permits us to tell a nanu to write a on the Shabbat so according to the ran and that's the ruling that we Accord with that normally we only permit a let me try to explain if there is something that contains two independent rinic elements things that make the Act only something prohibited on a rabic level so for example turning off a light on Shabbat is a Rabin prohibition because in order for one to uh violate a the right to Prohibition it has to be constructive it has to be something constructive but removing something taking away a certain reality that's not the way the M was performed that's not the way the the work was performed in the Mish so therefore closing a light on shabas is something that's rically prohibited it's called because I'm not putting something in I'm not doing something constructive I'm taking away a certain reality I'm taking away the light in the room so that's why it's only rabic if I tell a n to do it that's another rabic element so there are two rabic elements involved so if there's a a Mitzvah need to have the light closed for whatever reason there's a certain Mitzvah that necessitates that I close the light I'm allowed to tell a NRE to close the light it's called a but says the ran that when it comes to the Mitzvah of sett settling because settling is such an important Mitzvah it's not like other Mitzvah other Mitzvah you need to have two elements that downgrade it and make it only ribic but when it comes to the purchase of ER because the mitz is such a great Mitzvah so therefore you only need one rabic element that's the way the ran explains it so therefore even though normally telling a nanu to write up a deed instructing a n to do writing on Shabbat would have been prohibited even for other mitv but we make an exception for the purchas purchase of er settling is an outstanding mitzvah in fact the tells us towards the end and this is also the ruling of the that if a spouse has a disagreement and one spouse would like to live in atis and one spouse would like to live outside of ER so if they went to the rabbi okay let's give an example the husband would like to live in the five towns he'd like to live in Cedarhurst and the wife would like to move to they go to the rabbi the Rabbi says if you could afford to live in is the husband has to listen to his wife the husband has to pick up and the family has to move to is however there is a was one of the important that's included in the he says that's only if they have a par if they have a source of livelihood because if a family doesn't have a source of livelihood the children are liable to leave the fold of Judaism the explains that it's a common phenomena that if a family doesn't have a way of supporting themselves if the family grows up living in poverty there's a danger that the children might say it's not worth being religious if live if being religious means that I have to live in poverty so I might as well just leave the fold of religion so that's why it's important that even if they move to Israel there should be a source of livelihood now the does say that you have to be careful about the children of poor people because they turn out to be great Scholars so it seems to be a risk right being poor could make the children great Scholars or according to mil Sak could also propel them off the path of Judaism but assuming that the family has a source of livelihood in ER is and the couple has a disagreement right let's say the husband wants to live in outside of let's say the wife wants to move to ver tells us that the SP that the spouse that wants to go to their will is takes priority okay the will of the spouse that wishes to move to AR takes priority so moving into AR is a really a fantastic Mitzvah rash quotes the the ran quotes the that says that all the Mitzvah that we perform in is only so that we should not forget how to perform the Mitzvah which means to say that the intent of the Mitzvah the purpose of the Mitzvah the way the Mitzvah bring out the will of Hashem is by performing them in living in of course we have an absolute obligation to fulfill the mitv but in a certain sense the only reason why we're fulfilling the mitvah outside of is so that when we come back to we should not forget how to perform the Mitzvah so that only demonstrates how important living in is is if a person goes to the right everybody should maybe do this once in their lifetime at least go to the beginning of thees and begin with that begins with creation of the world that you know you have the evil generation of the flood and then after that we see the birth of Abraham ainu and then abrah ainu becomes great he becomes exceptional God promises the descendants of ab ainu that they will receive the holy land that promise is carried on to Y it's carried on to yob something which is of interesting note that if you look at the end of par the Covenant right a covenant means that there's a agreement on two sides each side has a certain uh uh commitment to fulfill so if you look at the end ofu had to circumcise himself that was AB A's commitment what was the commitment of Hashem what would come in exchange for circumcising right giving a the land of erra giving the land of in the says that if you fulfill the Mitzvah [Music] of will give to you and to your descendants that come after you I'm going to give you and your Descendants the land that you're dwelling in right now and also the land of for an everlasting uh plot an everlasting abortion okay and I'm going to be for them as a God right which is another reference to the idea that the only place that who is really our King the only place that we could really connect to hasem is in erit Isel okay so that's really the idea of circumcision and it's really something fascinating that even amongst the secular population in ER Isel in Israel today I think I could be corrected but I I think it's close to 90% or maybe even more they all fulfill the Mitzvah of Brit love circumcision even though logically you would expect Brisa to be a very unpopular Mitzvah because it involves taking an eight-year-old baby an innocent baby and cutting off a piece of its flesh it causes the baby to feel pain it causes the baby to cry you would expect somebody who is secular to not find this Mitzvah very appealing but yet I counterintuitively surprisingly we find that I think close to 90% or maybe even more of the secular population the Jewish secular population in Isel they fulfill the Mitzvah of circumcision the gumar says that circumcision was a Mitzvah that was fulfilled with joy it was a Mitzvah that was fulfilled with happiness and somehow the Jewish Nation feels very attached to this Mitzvah okay so because there really is a strong connection between BR and so there's a few amazing things about ER as we said said the first amazing thing about is is that you can even tell a nonu to write a document on the Shabbat in order to purchase a plot it's the only Mitzvah one of the only Mitzvah that you could tell a non-jew to do a that you can tell a non you to do something that would be the desecration of the shabas had you done it because is an exceptional Mitzvah we see that the entire purpose of fulfilling all the mitv is so that they should be able to be fulfilled in ER is we see that if anybody lives outside of ER is the med says it's like when is living without a God the ramban explains that if you live in arts there's different Pathways there's different um goet I can't explain it very deeply but there's a certain deeper concept that there are certain goet that bring thef that bring God's energy outside of but in there's a direct connection C with Hashem so if you really want to have a direct connection with Hashem it's important to live in the said that the most defining feature about living in is is the fact that you're able to tap into to seeing the hand of hasem he says the the The Hidden Hand of Hashem who from behind the scenes orchestrates things leads people on a certain path we can see that Hashem is leading us on a certain path in life is there for us he helps us so the explains that specifically do we bear that capacity to be able to see The Hidden Hand of hem it's much more difficult for people to see the hidden of Hidden Hand of hem according to the outs of as opposed to in in fact of WR a beautiful work deep cabalistic stuff but he said all that he wrote on was only after he visited the inspir ation that he drew he said that all the Torah the higher Torah that he was able to espouse only came from his being in a Israel okay so the gr the G of VNA at the end of his life gave up everything he left his family and he came to his love for was so all consuming that he was able that he was propelled if you'd like to make great personal sacrifices so that he could live in AR Israel and this was what many great tus SES did the ramban at the end of his life he says it seems illogical what I'm doing at the age of 70 right to make the voyage to come to such a bar Land There was very little settlement in Isel but the ramban felt that it was worth it in order to come to is because the ramban really appreciated and he understood the deeper meaning of what kazal said that living outside of ER is like living without a God only in could one really tap into the deeper and more intimate connection that one could get with Hashem okay so therefore since living in is according to the ran and even according to the r who doesn't list in theah the ra has a where he lists all 613 mitv the r doesn't mention so some wanted to say that according to the r there's no there's no the right obligation to live in ER Isel but most commentaries maintain that's the opinion of the if I'm not mistaken that the ran didn't live list living in because it's what we call a mitvah there are certain MIT that are so Central that they underly the entire purpose of all the mitzvot so they're not counted as one of the 613 mitv because it's really the way the Fulfillment it's the way to fulfill every single one of the 6133 mitas in its complete form so therefore living in Isel is not one of the 6 613 Mitzvah it actually manifests the proper way to perform every single one of the 613 Mitzvah so on the contrary some understand that the rambam's reason for not listing living in is is one of the 63 Mitzvah is not because it's less of a Mitzvah on the contrary it's because it's more of a Mitzvah but in any case Theon all of the poim including the Kish and many others ruled like the ramban that certainly there is a to live in the r as well in does rule that if a couple has a disagreement as we mentioned previously that one spouse would like to move to the other spouse would like to stay that the spouse that would like to live in has to give way to their desire and has to move to is okay so that's and as we said according to the mil s that's un condition that the couple will have a source of livelihood in is so because living in is it's certainly preferable that we should have the intention to be fulfilling the Mitzvah whenever we do aah the priority is to have the intent that what you're doing is in order to fulfill the will of Hashem so therefore a person from time to time should remind himself that I'd like to live in because this is what God wants this is what Hashem wants and that will certainly enhance the performance of the Mitzvah according to the P Yeshua if a person lives in ER but denies the sanctity ER according to Thea one does not fulfill the Mitzvah of living in is so some people use this P to answer a very of often question that's often asked the the says you should not misbehave in do not go in the ways of the Canaanites do not go in the ways of the MIT in the end of par and the end of so the says there if a person misbehaves then the land is liable to spit people out so there was the the was a cabalist he was the grandfather of the and he said that if you see any person living in a is and the land has not has not spat him out in other words he has successfully settled in says Grand he must be a because if the Torah testifies that if somebody misbehaves then the land will split him out and he has not been spat out he continues to live here he must be at that was the ruling of the others disagree and others say well we see that there are some people that are terrible Ram some people that are very Wicked and they successfully settle in the land of is so there must be some sort of explanation as to why the land has not sped them out so according to some the explanation is like the PESA that if somebody completely denies the Holiness denies the sanctity of er Isel so it's not like he's living in ER is some went so far to say that was the opinion of the SB he said something very controversial something very provocative he said that if somebody is a rash then the kadha then the sanctity of isra leaves him wherever he walks in Israel now that's a very diffult difficult explanation and I'll tell you why because the Torah said that that that the Torah spat out the Egypt egyp spat out the Canaanites the Canaanites were spat out of AR Israel the land vomited them out because they misbehaved I can guarantee you that the Canaanites denied the sanctity of AR isra the Canaanites did not intend to live in a Isel because of the sanctity and yet the T and yet the Torah testifies that the land vomited out the C ites so you see that the is presumably absolutely correct that if somebody lives in Isel that is an attestment to his righteousness because if the land has not spat him out then certainly he's righteous so some might ask how could that be so the truth is nobody knows what Mitzvah a person had done nobody really has the eyes and the intelligence to determine who is righteous and who is not righteous for example there was a one of the Kings one of the Israelite Kings was was Amon um and he was apparently very Wicked he took a saer Torah and he raised the name of Hashem and he replaced it with a name of an idol but on the other hand he had a very great mid the med says thear and sanedrin says because he built cities in ER Israel so we don't really know we don't really have the eyes and the intelligence to determine who is righteous and who is not righteous and certainly if somebody settled in ER certainly if somebody is successfully building ER that goes without saying all the more so if somebody's sacrificing and making great sacrifices in the defense of er he risks his life to defend ER that is no question that is certainly an attestment to the person's greatness okay but despite the opinion of the P Yeshua that says that if somebody does not acknowledge the Holiness and the sanctity of Isel he doesn't get the Mitzvah he doesn't get the credit for having lived in Israel but it still could be a testament to his righteousness the fact that the land isn't spitting him out but right we want to fulfill every mitzah in the most opal in the most Optimum way optimal way we certainly will strive to fulfill the mits of by also acknowledging the Holiness of acknowledging the sanctity of says the is superior over all the other Torah that's learned in fasted 40 days so that he should forget all the Torah that he learned in B and that when he comes to is he should start fresh that all the T that he's learning should only be from the to of ER so not only is er a place where a person could really connect to hasem is also the optimal place to learn Torah and as I said quite a few times already that certainly wherever we go we should have the intention that we intend to draw from the sanctity of is and that even if a person doesn't feel love of at any given point it doesn't matter as long as you acknowledge as long as you believe in unique sanctity you you are fulfilling a Mitzvah that is equal to all the others okay that in other words collectively if you put all the mitzvas on one side of the scale and you put the Mitzvah of on the other side of the scale the Mitzvah of living in of obviously with the desire to get close to Hashem is equal parallel as all the other mitv okay also another point about living in a is which is very important is not to fall on the Trap of the morum the morum the spies they came back from the report we all know the story they said bad things about ER Isel and this uh drew a lot of Anger from Hashem the punishment for this sin is greater than the punishment of any other sin because God already forgave us for the sin of the agle of the golden calf which was idol worship and Hashem still has not forgiven for the sin of the morum of having spoken negatively by so therefore it's very important that if you do go to don't come back to ER and say oh this kind of beauty doesn't exist in ER oh is isn't pretty don't say anything like that because that's a repeat of the sin of the morum right so aside from the Mitzvah living in ER it's absolutely Paramount that we only talk positively about ER Sal the of or it could have been zel he used to tell the visitors of do me a favor when you go back to don't say anything negative about that's what the says see the goodness of of of okay another important element of living in is to bring Unity okay there are many denominations in every single one has their strong points many of them have things to work on to improve to enhance right we're not saying any everybody's perfect we're not saying that we're living in in a in Utopia we're getting there but not yet we're not saying everything is perfect but it's very very important to bring unity in Isel because the Mah of prag says that the real definition of aahil right of a kahal is in because the in says that there's no we don't make public fasts in B in fact even the fasts that we and these in fact are okay it's a custom that's fulfilled but the real definition of a where the would get up and enact a fast 24-hour fast with additional prohibition something that resemble Tish of or yum that's something that's not in acted in B so Rashi explains the simple understanding that it's because B has enough rain but the morale of Prague says something deeper he says there's no Tiber in B the only place that true Jewish Unity could be achieved is in and what's really curious about this whole thing is that unfortunately we see a lot of of infighting in okay we're going to fix it but theara the SAT he really wants to get at us and he tries to get us to fight with each other so I want to put a positive spin it says where do people fight the most siblings at home okay when you're living at home and you have lots of siblings in the living room the siblings like to fight with each other because when you're home and you're living in the same place and he's your brother and she's your sister so you feel secure you feel safe to fight and to express your grievances against one another as opposed when you're going to go for dinner you know so people put on a certain facade people put on a certain show and they pretend to behave so that's the LI that's the way of finding married in some of the infighting is because we're brothers and we're sisters and we're at home so we fight with each other but that's a good Li that's a good way of of being of finding favor finding something positive about the reality but in reality right the are wantes to get us to F and the truth is that shal Shalom peace comes from the root we all know this comes from of shal complete okay so there's no real Shalom when there's no challenge to overcome when two entities have to come together the most famous example you're all thinking about as a husband and a wife right often times the greatest potential of fights exist between a husband and wife because you're trying to take two different realities and you're trying to bring them together you're trying to make them Shalom sh shal you're trying to make them peace Shalom is when you have two different uh elements that come together to become one ho to become one complete hold and that's why in ER is all the different segments of the population have to come together there's the most potential for infighting so how do we counter that the first way to counter the infighting is to speak positively about all the different Den denominations you can find bad things to say about everybody you can say this denomination they don't uh they they they don't they they don't work enough this domination works too you can find all sorts of negative things to say about every single denomination it could even be true but there's no mitvah to talk about it and harp on it and obsess about it if you want to help and it's coming from a place of love so you have aim you have Community activists that work together to improve the plight if it to help bring jobs to people uh to help people integrate there's all sorts of things that you could to do to improve the different needs in AR but just to harp on the bad things and just to say bad things about certain denominations of is that doesn't do any good right so it's very very important number one to bring unity in because as the Mah of PR says that the real definition of of coming together really as one can only really happen in ER Isel okay so we covered a lot of the basis of living in ER is let's just give a quick review number one right the first point that we made that ER is a very unique Mitzvah is the only mitzvah for which you could tell a you can tell a n to do what is would otherwise be the desecration of the shabas because has a greater weight than other MIT the second idea is that the teach us that everything we do in is practice if you would like so that when we come back to we should not forget how to perform the Mitzvah number three living in living outside of is like living without a god living in is the place where one could truly connect to Hashem okay number four as the native explained that the place the location on planet Earth where you can really feel the where you can feel the hand of hm where you can see hm orchestrating things that specifically in ER Isel right number five we mentioned not to speak negatively about ER Israel don't say how bad is let's talk only about the good things of is Jerusalem especially say positive things number six right let's make an effort to bring the different segments of the population together speak only positively because bringing the country together healing the Rifts has to start on a micro level it has to start in an individual level where we only see the good things where we only speak positively about different segments of the population and number seven that's really what we mentioned first is that when you live in AR is have the intention have the constant Cog cognizance that you're drawing from the spirituality of of er that you acknowledge the unique aspects of ER is right that you don't just live here without thinking about why you're living here another point that we mention is that received because of the Mitzvah of Brit that's what we saw at the end of par that there is a deep connection between Brit and Brit is not just the Mitzvah Encompass is more than just the Mitzvah to remove the foreskin to remove some of the flesh the whole idea of Brit alsoo personify is the idea of Holiness okay because the violations that cause am to be vomited out of very relate to MIT relate to a sins that compromise on the H the personal Holiness the kadus right so therefore a person should do what he can to increase kadus in the home right make sure that you have a good filter on your internet make sure that you respect the sanctity of marriage etc etc another that's an idea we see there's a strong connection of Brit and also personal sanctity and also number nine we mentioned that the Torah of is exceptional okay there's no Torah like the T RAB fasted for 40 days so that he should forget all the Torah that he learned in B okay so there's nothing like the Torah of Isel we talk about the sages like the ramban and the gro that at the very end of their life were ready to sacrifice everything just to come here now even RAB explained that His Highest Torah his most profound Torah came from the fact that he visited Isel we also mention that you don't have to even appreciate or understand the Deep cabalistic ideas that underly the sanctity of erisol just by looking at the hills just by looking at the fields and just by remembering that this is the land of Hashem this is the home of Hashem that's also something that will bring you great sanctity and obviously something that we should mention is prayer okay now it sometimes could get discouraging at least for me that we pray and we pray and we pray hasem rebuild the Temple Hashem bring the Jewish people back in fact if you look at the almost a majority of the blessings in the relate to we talk about when we talk about blessing we talk about is okay when we talk about the in gathering of the Exiles it obviously relates to is reinstate the judges that's going to happen in is theen is going to be reinstated in Isel okay um okay I don't see any explicit reference to but obviously the righteous are going to reunite in we talk about bringing us back to Jerusalem at you see a lot of blessings relate to and we've been praying this for thousands of years and many people may have given up and thought that this would never happen but right we have a strong reason to feel encouraged because we are seeing with our own eyes how those pray ERS are actually coming to fruition the people are coming back to ER Israel the land is being settled there are many uh bumps in the way there are many painful incidents along the way of settling AOL um this nation was even the early settlers that came from Russia and from Europe had to drain the swamps and lost their children to all sorts of diseases and malaria and you know they had to sacrifice uh enormous sacrifices the many wars that have been fought in AR Israel in 48 we lost many lives and again in the War of Attrition and in ' 67 and 73 we all know the history and we've lived to see the suffering that was involved just in this in our in our in our in the recent times that we saw what happened in so there's a lot of sacrifices that are made to settle ER Israel but the but the but the the encouraging point is that we're actually seeing all of the visions of the prophets come to fruition it's coming to life we see the children playing the elderly walking in the streets and the children playing every time you look at children playing in the streets right don't get annoyed right don't get the shabas afternoon if you get woken up by kids playing I know could be quite frustrating you do e your shabas afternoon nap but if you want to make yourself happy think about the fact that for 2,000 years people were only thinking about that Vision that prophecy of of of Isaiah of that the children would one to be playing in the streets of so that will lighten up your mood that at least that uh Vision has come to fruition it's we're living it we're seeing it and as we mentioned many times in the framework of this sheer that all the the loss of life is only temporary there will come a day as we say then our fa our mouths will be filled with laughter right say that that describes children reuniting with their deceased parents formerly deceased parents by people will reunite with their children the soldiers that lost their lives defending AR so they're going to come back they're going to reunite with their fathers and with our mothers so all the suffering that we're experiencing is temporary it's passing it's painful it's it's challenging it's overwhelming at times no question about it but you can still remember that it's all temporary but the Salvation that we're seeing unfold is permanent promised that we won't go into Exile again right there there are four Exiles there's a fifth minor Exile but there's only four Exiles we're not going to go we're not going to be exiled from this land again this is the Final Redemption whatever we're seeing now is final right all the resettling of the land and in fact we are going to see Miracles that will make the Miracles of C of of the Miracles of leaving Egypt seem like Small Miracles okay the Miracles of Egypt will pale in comparison to what we're going to see okay so we have a lot to look forward to we have a lot to anticipate we're going to see great Miracles okay and those of you who live in okay come come to it's about time okay my grand my great-grandfather was hiding from the Nazis in a bunker and he promised that if he ever got it alive he would only go to one place ER is unfortunately he died from starvation he didn't make it here right but now is the chance right we don't have to come to a Barren land like the like the ramban we don't have to come and drain the swamps and risk the lives of our children God forbid okay we have the entire is on a silver platter so for those of you that are living in please come those of you who have relatives living in politely give them a budge right nudge them a little bit not too rudely right don't push them too much because it could backfire but once in a while mention to them say listen right ER is in a silver platter come over I tell my relatives I said look if you have a business and you don't know how you're going to support your family I'm not going to judge you but don't buy houses in in don't buy houses in the five towns in New York and in borrow Park and in Flatbush buy buy a house here right buy a house here so this way you'll be ready to come right when you have the opportunity right your focus right your isight should be set in air okay so we have to be grateful to Hashem we have to be um we have to thank hasem every single day every time we look at the hills ofam every time we walk around the streets every time we go to the sh you turn to hem put your eyes up to the heaven and tell hmm thank you for the Bounty thank you for the goodness that exists in thank you thank you for your endless kindness as I began the gold used to say that if I want to learn about hem I open up the but if I want to see hasem I go to the sh I look at the Bounty every time you go to the supermarket thank you hasem for the thank you Hashem for the Bounty Hashem please expediate the process Hashem please bring more Jews to Hashem please end the suffering that we're experiencing in Hashem bring Unity to erem protect the residents of thank you everybody for joining us it was really a pleasure thank you so much