“Revealing Hidden Praise”[1]
Parshas Bechukosai/Yom Yerushalayim 5782
לרפואה שלימה אסתר תהלה בת אריאל ציפורה[2]
Written by Rabbi Dani Staum
Parshas Behar speaks of the inextricable connection between Klal Yisroel and Eretz Yisroel. During Shemittah and Yovel, farmers must give up control over the land, in a poignant testimony that the Land belongs to Hashem Who ‘leases’ it to the Jewish people. Our bond to the Land must never be forgotten.
The haftorah of Parshas Behar details Yirmiyhau purchasing an ancestral land, even as the Babylonian siege around Yerushalayim was underway and destruction and exile were imminent. Yermiyahu’s deeply rooted faith in Hashem’s promise of our eventual return, as well as his love of the Land and its people, remind us that our connection with the Land is eternal.
Parshas Bechukosai warns us of the dire consequences of forgetting this vital premise. The Torah warns that if we neglect to observe Shemittah, we will be exiled from the Land, and the Land would “make up” its neglected rest.
In the tochacha, “the rebuke” which contains the frightening curses that result when we don’t properly adhere to the Torah, it says, “וַהֲשִמֹּתִי אני את הארץ, ושממו עליה אֹיביכם הישבים בה – I will make the land desolate, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled by it”[3].
Rashi quotes Sifra who explains that this was actually a hidden beracha for Klal Yisroel. The enemies who try to conquer the land will never find tranquility in the Land. Without the Jewish people, Eretz Yisroel will remain desolate and will not produce[4].
Rabbeinu Bechayei similarly notes: “The desolation will be experienced by your enemies who will never feel comfortable in your land. This pasuk is good news for the Jewish people. G-d promises this in order that Jews in exile should never have to lament that seeing that they have been exiled from the Holy Land, others will now experience the pleasures to be experienced in that land.
“As a result, the peoples who will dwell there will not engage in civilizing the country which they took over as desolate; they will not wall their cities. Any nation attempting to rebuild this country will find themselves lacking in strength to do so. This is a tremendous source of encouragement for exiled Jews that the land awaits their eventual return to it before it will begin to bloom again.”[5]
Similarly, Ramban[6] writes that during the years of Jewish exile Eretz Yisroel will not be hospitable to our enemies. That itself is a proof to our eternal connection with the Land.
“And that which it says, ‘the land will be desolate for your enemies is a good tiding and teaches that in all of the Exiles, our land will not receive our enemies. And this is a great proof and promise for us, that you will not find anywhere a land that is as good and open…and it is now as desolate as it is, because from when we left, It does not accept and nation or language, and they all try to settle in it and they do not succeed.” [7]
When Ramban wrote those words during the middle of the thirteenth century, the Land had recently experienced the Mongolian invasion (of 1259-60), which itself followed the constant wars of the Crusaders. It left the country in total ruin.
Ramban arrived in Yerushalayim exactly 700 years before the Six-Day War marked the beginning of a seven-century Jewish presence in the holy city. To this day, the Ramban shul still stands in the same location as when it was founded centuries earlier. Ramban and Rabbeinu Bechayei taught that when the Jewish people would return to Yerushalayim, Yerushalayim would return to the Jewish people.
In 1867, Mark Twain visited Eretz Yisroel. He later published his book “Innocents Abroad,” details his account of his journey. The book contains a description of the desolation of the landscape. He writes that most of the country is “a silent, mournful expanse,” dotted with “nasty” villages of “miserable huts” and “the usual assemblage of squalid humanity” — disfigured wretches “fringed with filthy rags” and “infested with vermin,” and “sore-eyed” children “in all stages of mutilation and decay.”
“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.”
Twain could never have imagined that exactly 100 years after he visited the Temple Mount in 1867, Jewish soldiers would stand there to claim it as their capital of a flourishing land.
The gemara (Sanhedrin 98a) says:
ואמר רבי אבא אין לך קץ מגולה מזה שנאמר (יחזקאל לו, ח) ואתם הרי ישראל ענפכם תתנו ופריכם תשאו לעמי ישראל וגו’
Rabbi Abba says: You have no more explicit manifestation of the end of days than this following phenomenon, as it is stated: “But you, mountains of Israel, you shall give your branches, and yield your fruit to My people of Israel, for they will soon be coming” (Yechezkel 36:8).
Rashi explains כששתתן ארץ ישראל פריה בעין יפה אז יקרב הקץ ואין לך קץ מגולה יותר – When produce will grow in abundance in Eretz Yisrael, it is an indication that the Messiah will be coming soon.
Maharsha adds that when the Jewish people are not living in Eretz Yisroel the Land will not produce fruits. When the Land again begins producing fruits that is a clear indication that the nation will imminently be returning to the Land.[8]
Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Hakohain Kook similarly wrote that the underpinnings of redemption began when the Land again began to produce fruit after centuries of being desolate.[9]
My rebbe, Rabbi Berel Wein, relates:
“Jews have always placed a special premium and importance on wine produced in the Land of Israel. The great Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin[10], was one of the founders of the “Lovers of Zion” organization of that time. When Baron Rothschild’s Carmel Winery produced its first bottles of wine, one of those bottles was sent as a gift to the great Rabbi in Volozhin.
“Rabbi Baruch Epstein[11] relates that he was witness to the actual moment that the bottle of wine finally arrived at its destination in Volozhin. He records that as a sign of love, respect, and pure emotional joy at having in his hands, an actual bottle of wine, produced by Jewish vintners living in the Land of Israel, (the first holy wine to be produced in Eretz Yisrael for 2,000 years), Rabbi Berlin first went into his bedroom and put on his Shabbos garments, in order to greet the bottle.
“The Netziv explained that this bottle of wine was the harbinger of the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. So, as we drink our Israeli wine and toast to our life and health, we should also recall the innate history and holiness associated with wine in Jewish life, especially wine made from grapes grown and produced in the Land of Israel. ”
Rabbi Wein also notes that he has made it his custom to drink wine specifically produced in Eretz Yisroel for the Seder on Pesach. An integral part of the seder om Pesach is not only mentioning where we left from, but almost equally important, where we were going. Our homeland is Eretz Yisrael, and we need to explain, teach and demonstrate our Ahavas Eretz Yisrael, our love of the Land of Israel.
Sixty years ago, Israeli wine was unheard of. Today, Israeli wine producers compete at the highest levels in international wine production. He has also suggested to his students that we too adopt this custom of drinking wine produced in Eretz Yisroel at the Seder, and to explain to our children the centrality of and our eternal love for the Land.
Rabbi Mordechai Finkleman[12] noted that his rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Wolfson[13], serves something from Eretz Yisroel with every course during his Shabbos seudah. Along with the gefilte fish is a piece of herring from Eretz Yisroel, some croutons from Eretz Yisroel are added to the soup and a small pickle from Eretz Yisroel is added to the main course.
On 28 Iyar we celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, the day when the old city of Yerushalayim and Har Habayis was recaptured from the Jordanians during the Six Day War in 1967. The events that transpired at that time were truly miraculous. We unfortunately take it for granted that we have access to the Kosel and can daven there freely. Our ongoing uncanny growth in Eretz Yisroel and Yerushalayim is no less miraculous, and we should appreciate it as such. We are witnessing the miraculous rejuvenation of the previously desolate country before our eyes.
Even through the harsh tochacha it is apparent that our connection to Eretz Yisroel is eternal. No other nation has returned to its homeland after millennia in exile. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, Incas, Mayas and the recent Native Americans who were exiled will never regain their losses to become a prominent force in the world. They have been relegated to the history books. But we have come home!
עומדות היו רגלינו בשעריך ירושלים!
ואמר רבי אבא אין לך קץ מגולה מזה!
חזק חזק ונתחזק!
- Hidden Praise is the loose meaning of Esther Tehilla, for whose refuah these divrei Torah were written. ↑
- The original sources for this essay (Rashi, Ramban, Rbbinu Bechayei, Gemara Sanhedrin, Maharsha, and Rav Kook) were quoted by Rabbi Phillip Moskowitz in his parsha shiur, “3 Ideas in 30 minutes” delivered on May 7, 2021, posted on YUTorah. The remainder of the essay are my additions and embellishments. ↑
- Vayikra 26:32 ↑
- “זו מדה טובה לישראל, שלא ימצאו האויבים נחת רוח בארצם, שתהא שוממה מיושביה”. ↑
- ושממו עליה אויביכם. שממה תהיה לאויביכם שלא ימצאו בה נחת רוח, ובשורה טובה היא לישראל, וכן דרשו רז”ל בתורת כהנים זו מדה טובה לישראל, שלא יהו ישראל אומרים הואיל וגלינו מארצנו עכשיו האויבים באים ומוצאים עליה נחת רוח, שנאמר ושממו עליה אויביכם היושבים בה, אף האויבים הבאים אחריכם לא ימצאו בה נחת רוח, עד כאן. ומזה אמר שאף היושבים בה ינהגו שממה עליה שלא יבנו עליה חומה ומגדל, וכל האומות ישתדלו לבנותה ואין להם כח, ויש בזה סימן גדול לישראל שמיום שחרבה לא קבלה אומה ולשון ולא תקבל עד שישובו אפרוחיה לתוכה. ↑
- End of 26:26 ↑
- וכן מה שאמר בכאן) ויקרא כ״ו:ל״ב (ושממו עליה אויביכם היא בשורה טובה מבשרת בכל הגליות שאין ארצנו מקבלת את אויבינו וגם זו ראיה גדולה והבטחה לנו כי לא תמצא בכל הישוב ארץ אשר היא טובה ורחבה ואשר היתה נושבת מעולם והיא חרבה כמוה כי מאז יצאנו ממנה לא קבלה אומה ולשון וכולם משתדלים להושיבה ואין לאל ידם ↑
- לפי שכל זמן שאין ישראל על אדמתם אין הארץ נותנת פירותיה כדרכה אבל כשתחזור ליתן פירותיה זהו קץ מגולה שקרב לבא זמן גאולה שיחזרו ישראל על אדמתן ↑
- אתחלתא דגאולה ודאי הולכת ומופיעה לפנינו, אמנם לא מהיום התחילה הופעה זו, רק מאז התחיל הקץ המגולה להגלות, מעת אשר הרי ישראל החלו לעשות ענפים ולשאת פרי לעם ישראל אשר קרבו לבא, החלה אתחלתא זו (אגרת תתע”א) ↑
- Head of the famed yeshiva of Volozhin in nineteenth century Lithuania, better known as the Netziv ↑
- Author of Torah Temimah ↑
- The Mashgiach of Ohr HaChaim, Queens, NY, and a rebbe of mine from his years at Camp Dora Golding. ↑
- Rav of Emunas Yisroel in Boro Park and Mashgiach in Yeshiva Torah Voda’as ↑