WHAT IS THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF ISRAEL?

God tells Moses: “Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess” (Num. 33:53).

According to Nahmanides, this verse is the source of the commandment to dwell in the Land of Israel and to inherit it.

The centrality of the Land of Israel cannot be doubted. Whatever the subplots and subsidiary themes of the Tanach may be, its overarching narrative is the promise of the land and the journey toward it.

Jewish history begins with Abraham and Sarah’s journey to the land. The four subsequent books of the Torah – from Exodus to Deuteronomy – are devoted to the second great journey, in the days of Moses. The Tanach as a whole concludes with Cyrus, king of Persia, granting permission to the Jews exiled in Babylon to return to their land – the third great journey (II Chronicles 36:23).

The paradox of Jewish history is that, although promised and pursuing a specific territory – the Holy Land – Jews have spent more time in exile than in Israel, more time longing for the land than dwelling in it, and more time journeying than arriving.

Hence the tension. On the one hand, monotheism understands God as non-territorial. The God of everywhere can be found anywhere. He is not confined to this person or that place, as pagans believed. He exercises His power even in Egypt. He sends the prophet Jonah to Nineveh in Assyria. He is with another prophet, Ezekiel, in Babylon. There is no place in the universe where He is not.

On the other hand, it must be impossible to live fully as a Jew outside Israel; otherwise, there would have been no command to go there in the first place, nor to return there subsequently.

Why is God, who is beyond place, to be found specifically in this place?

The Sages articulated this tension in two striking propositions. On the one hand: “Wherever the Israelites went into exile, the Divine Presence went with them.” On the other: “One who leaves Israel to live elsewhere is as if he had no God.”

Can one find God, serve God, and experience God outside the Holy Land?

Yes and no. If the answer were only yes, there would be no incentive to return. If the answer were only no, there would be no reason for Jews to remain in exile. Upon this tension, Jewish existence is built.

What, then, is special about Israel?

Different environments possess different ecologies. Just as certain countries, climates, and soils are particularly suited to growing vines, so there is one country – Israel – particularly suited to growing prophets, indeed an entire divinely inspired people.
“No other place shares the distinction of the divine influence, just as no other mountain produces such good wine.”

Nahmanides offers a different explanation:

“God created everything and placed the power over those below in those above, and He appointed over every people, in their lands according to their nations, a star and a specific constellation…. But the Land of Israel, in the middle of the inhabited earth, is the inheritance of God…. He has set us apart from all the nations over whom He has appointed princes and other celestial powers, by giving us the land [of Israel], so that He, blessed be He, will be our God, and we will be dedicated to His name.”

Though every land and nation lies under the overarching sovereignty of God, only Israel is governed directly by Him.

But why Israel, specifically?

Because it has always been a key strategic location, where three continents – Europe, Africa, and Asia – meet. Lacking the vast fertile plains of the Nile Delta or the Tigris-Euphrates Valley (or, in modern times, the oil fields of Arabia), it could never become the base of an empire. Yet precisely because of its location, it was continually sought after by empires. Thus, it was politically vulnerable.

It was- and remains – ecologically vulnerable as well. Its water supply depends on rain, and rainfall in the region is famously unpredictable, hence the frequent famines recorded in Genesis.

Its survival could never be taken for granted. Time and again, its people, overcoming adversity, experienced their continued existence as nothing short of a miracle.

Small in both geography and population, Israel depended on exceptional political, military, and economic achievement. In turn, this required morale and a profound sense of mission. Thus, the prophets understood – both naturally and supernaturally – that without social justice and a sense of divine vocation, the nation would inevitably fall and suffer exile once more.

These realities form, as it were, the empirical foundations of the mysticism of Halevi and Nahmanides. Their insights are as true today as they were in ancient times. There is a directness and naturalness to the Jewish experience in Israel that exists nowhere else.

History teaches that constructing a society under divine sovereignty in a vulnerable land is among the highest-risk strategies imaginable. Yet, across forty centuries, the Jewish people have known that the risk was worth taking.

For only in Israel is God so close that you can feel Him in the sun and the wind, sense Him beyond the hills, hear Him in the inflections of everyday speech, breathe His presence in the early morning air, and live – dangerously yet confidently – under the shadow of His wings.

With Love in the Lord, 
Stella Kamenova