 Let me begin with a historical tidbit. You're all familiar with the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl. And the Zionist movement, as it was founded, was designed not as a religious movement, but to solve a problem, the problem of European anti-Semitism. It was understood that if the Jews would have their own homeland, autonomy, independence, they wouldn't be subject to the dangers that were posed by oppressive regimes. So one might have thought that the land of Israel, that particular piece of real estate, would not have been important to the early Zionists. We could have a Jewish homeland anywhere. And in fact, it's a very interesting thing that in 1902, Joseph Chamberlain, who, by the way, is the father of Neville Chamberlain, and at the time was the British colonial secretary, he had a fantastic idea. He had visited the British East Africa Protectorate, which we associate with Uganda. Actually, it is the modern Kenya. And he thought this should be a perfect place for a Jewish homeland. And he suggested this to Herzl. And Herzl presented this to a stunned audience at the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903. And this was at the opening session, which was on a Sunday. And he really thought that the audience would be receptive, because after all, we're not talking about religious ideas, biblical ideas. We're talking about a solution to the problem of anti-Semitism. So what difference does it make where the Jews have their independent homeland? Let it be in Africa, let it be in South America, wherever. The idea was not well received. The audience was shocked. By the closing session on Friday, Herzl had to get up and invoke the biblical verse, if I forget you, O Jerusalem, Tishkah Yemini let my right hand forget it's coming. But he had to acknowledge to the audience that Palestine, Israel, Eretz Yisrael was precious even to him. And at the Seventh Zionist Congress, two years later in 1905, the idea was totally rejected and remains a footnote to history. But it's very interesting that several months after that initial introduction, one of the great leaders of the Zionist movement, Max Nordau, was attending a Hanukkah ball in Paris. And a 27-year-old Jewish student tried to assassinate him. And he said, these were his words as he fired two shats, death to Nordau, the East African. This was considered so outrageous that a Jew should turn his back on Israel and want to establish a Jewish homeland in Uganda or Kenya, wherever, that that was considered something that, at least in one person's mind, called for extreme measures. And this leads us to an amazing insight that even people who are estranged from religious practice, Torah observance, Torah study, nevertheless have a very, very deep passion and deep connection to that particular piece of real estate. And of course, this is a consequence of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of Eratz Israel, the land of Israel, being so central to our identity as a people. So let's explore this tonight and understand, where does it all start from? How was it perpetuated? What is the basis of our claim? And why is Eratz Israel special and different in any other place in the world? Now, we have to have a few ground rules for tonight. Whenever you have a talk, so there are certain unspoken assumptions that we bring to the discussion. Tonight, one of the unspoken assumptions is that the Torah is the repository of all Jewish values. Now, I don't know if everyone that is going to watch this program buys into that assumption. But that is going to be our starting point, that the Torah is divine. It is God's word. And it gives us insight and understanding on all critical issues. If someone has not bought into that assumption, then there are more fundamental issues that have to be dealt with than the value of the land of Israel. But that's our starting point. And our second assumption is something about the nature of God himself. When we think of God, what is God all about? How do we define God? There are certain characteristics that we attribute to him. We attribute to him omnipotence, as being all powerful. Amniscience is being all knowing, his perfection in virtue. And this is very, very important. If God tells us in the Torah that something is so, and he tells us this that it is so for all time, if we assume that God is amniscient and knows the future, and we assume that he's perfect in virtue and isn't saying something merely to pull the wool over our eyes, then we have to take God's word for it, that what he tells us is true for all time is true for all time. And therefore, if he tells us that we have a everlasting claim to the land of Israel, we take it at his word, at his say so. So these are the unspoken assumptions that we're gonna talk about. And let's now start at the beginning. The very first verse in the Torah, Bureches, Barah, Elohim, Eis Hashemayim, Veis Haaretz. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Now we're accustomed to the idea that this is an appropriate beginning. And where else would you wanna start the Torah? But interestingly, there's a rabbinic teaching which is cited in Rashi, the classic commentator to the Bible, that question is this assumption. Why does the Torah begin with that? If the Torah is fundamentally a book of laws, it should begin with the first laws, which not introduced until well into the second book of the Torah. Why do we begin with the creation story? And the rabbinic insight says the following, that God wanted to establish our claim to the land of Israel. And God said the following, that the time is going to come that the nations of the world are going to contest our claim. And they're gonna say that the Jewish people are thieves. There were people that occupied these lands previously, and the Jews came along and stole them, and they have no right to be in the land of Israel. So to that, God responds, I created the world, it's fundamentally mine, and I have the license to give it to whoever I choose. So for a time, I may have given it to other peoples. After a point in time, I gave it to Abraham, I gave it to the Jewish people. The validity of their claim is based on the fact that God created the world, and the world is his to dole out as he sees fit. Now this is an amazing thing. Imagine the scene. We have a meeting of the General Assembly in the UN, and resolutions are introduced, anti-Israeli resolutions, that the Jewish people are imperialists, they've stolen the land from the indigenous peoples, and the Israeli ambassador gets up with a Bible. I have here a Bible with Rashi's commentary, and we have this verse, and this is what Rashi says, and that proves our point. Is that going to be a winning argument in the UN? Think now. So what is Rashi telling us? Rashi says that when the nations of the world can test our claim to Eretz Israel, this is our response. Our response is that God created the world, the Torah says so, and therefore he can give it to whoever he wants. Who's going to buy into that? Rashi is saying something very deep over here, very profound. Rashi is not telling us how we are meant to respond to their arguments. Bringing a verse in the Bible with Rashi's commentary is not going to persuade the nations of the world. The danger over here is the danger of the big lie. When something is repeated again and again and again and again, we begin to buy into it. We begin to think, you know, maybe they are right. Maybe there is some validity to the point they're making. Maybe our claim is not so legitimate. Maybe we really are imperialists and we don't like to be there. So God tells us that when your own faith begins to waver, take out that Bible, take out that Torah, read that first verse, read Rashi's commentary again and again to impress this truth upon yourself. Is it a winning argument in the halls of justice? Perhaps not. And therefore, that's why there's going to be another class one week from tonight, which is going to address the issue from that angle. What are the legal responses that will be accepted in the political diplomatic realm? And I'm going to leave that for someone who's more qualified than I am to discuss. We're dealing with something else. What do we tell ourselves? How do we enforce our own belief? And for that, we only have to open the first page of the Torah, the first verse of the Torah, Rashi's commentary, and this legitimizes our claims to the land of Israel. It's important to understand that the land of Israel is not nearly something which is peripheral, it isn't merely a side aspect of Judaism. It is something which is so fundamental and so central. Now, if you look at the Torah, you can divide the Torah in many ways. You know, there are five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. That's one way of dividing it. There's another way of dividing it. You can take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as one section, and the rest of the Torah as a second section. Why? Because there's an amazing thing which happens in the Torah. The first 11 chapters of the Torah are a universal history of all mankind. We talk about the creation story, the nations that populated the world in early historical times, the great flood, and so on and so forth. In the beginning of chapter 12, the focus of the Torah narrows. No longer is the Torah a history of the world, it is a history of a single family, a single nation. It begins with the story of a single person, Abraham. And how he establishes the Jewish nation and everything that follows from that. So this is really a transition point. Until that point, it's a universal history of mankind. At this point, the focus narrows. Now it is a history, now it is an account of the Jewish nation. And what is the first thing that takes place? What is the first verse of that second section? And the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house to the land I will show you. This is the very first thing. God does not introduce theological concepts. He doesn't introduce ritual law. He doesn't introduce the idea of a temple and animal sacrifice. The first thing that God tells Abraham is, pick yourself up and go to the chosen land. So obviously our connection to Israel is not something which is merely a side aspect of our Jewishness. It is something which is so fundamental that the history of the Jewish people begins with that. It's been said that our connection to the land is very different than the connection of other nations to their homelands. When we think of any other nation on planet earth and its homeland, the homeland is the place from which they come. This is where our ancestors were born. This is where we absorbed culture and our heritage and this is where our early history took place. To the Jew, Israel is not the place we came from. Israel is the place we are going to. Abraham was not born in Israel. Abraham was born in Mesopotamia. And God told him, let's go forth, leave your birthplace and go to this land. And for a Jew, Israel is not the place where we come from, it's the place we're going to. And that's a very, very critical difference. You know, Brazil was established by the Portuguese. I don't think that there's a mass movement in Brazil to return to Portugal. And there are other countries in South America that were founded by emigres from Spain. I don't think there's a mass movement to go back to Spain. The North American colonies were started by emigrants from England, Holland, other European countries. We don't find a movement to return to go back. There may be some nostalgia for the familiar foods or the familiar lifestyle, but we're very, very entrenched in our new homes. For the Jew, it's not that way. Wherever the Jew finds himself, there always is a yearning to return to go back. Because for the Jew, Israel is not simply the place where we came from. It's the place that we are always going to. And we can be removed from Israel by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. You know, now we have the opportunity to visit. But from much of Jewish history, the idea of going to Israel to visit was unimaginable. And yet, there was this attachment, this connection. We are always going back. We're praying, we're yearning, we're hoping to become connected again to this land, which is the source of our spiritual sustenance. That's a big difference. If we analyze the story of Abraham, we discover that God promises the land of Israel to Abraham four times. And this is a very curious thing, because you wouldn't expect that God should have to repeat himself again and again and again, promising the same thing so many times. And if you look at the verses, we don't read them inside. They're on the sheet. The first time God simply tells Abraham, as soon as he arrives in the land of Israel, to your seed, I will give this land. Very, very simple. To your seed, I will give this land. Then we know, familiar with the biblical narrative, that Abraham experiences a famine in Israel. He travels to Egypt. He returns. His traveling partner is his nephew named Lot. And they have a falling out, and they separate. And after the separation, God appears to Abraham. And he reiterates the promise of the land of Israel. He says, please raise your eyes and see from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your seed to eternity. So we have a reiteration of the promise. Then later, several chapters later, God makes a covenant, a treaty with Abraham. And again, he reiterates to your seed, I have given this land from the river of Egypt until the great river, the Euphrates River. River of Egypt in the southwest, the Euphrates in the northeast. And he lists the nations that currently occupy the land, the Kenites, the Kinesites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, and so on and so forth. And then, when God gives Abraham the commandment of circumcision, he reiterates the promise of fourth time. And I will give you and your seed after you the land of your sojournings, the entire land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be to them for a God. And the question, of course, is, why is this promise repeated again and again and again? So there's a very interesting commentary of the Ramban. The Ramban of Emotio Ben Nachman, great Spanish, Torah scholar in the 1200s. It gives a fascinating interpretation that each of these promises amplifies the divine commitment. First God tells Abraham, to your seed, I will give this land. The land isn't defined. As far as that verse is concerned, the land may simply be the particular area where Abraham was living at the time. Or maybe the lands through which he passed. The second promise is much more expansive. It says, look to the north, the south, the east, and the west. As far as you can see, that's yours. But the borders aren't precisely defined either. In the third reiteration, God tells Abraham the borders of the land. It's from the river of Egypt in the southwest to the Euphrates in the northeast. The land that's occupied by these 10 nations. Here the covenant is well defined. But in the fourth reiteration, there is something which is added, which is new. And he says that Israel will be an everlasting possession. The Hebrew term is achuzat olam, an everlasting possession. That means that even if the Jews, heaven forbid, are exiled to the land of Israel, it will remain their possession and ultimately they will return to it. And this is something new. If we only had the first three reiterations, we would have said, well, as long as we're there, it's ours. If God forbid we are exiled, we are banished, then we lose our claim, we relinquish our claim. The fourth reiteration tells us that, no, that Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, is achuzat olam. It is an eternal possession. That means even if we are banished, even if we are exiled to the four corners of the earth, it remains our land. There was a connection and attachment and a promise that someday we will return and reclaim that possession. Now let's talk about this idea of exile. This is a very important idea. You know, I think there are many that would say that even if we acknowledge that once upon a time, the Jews lived in Israel, but once they abandoned it, it's the free for the taken. And it was occupied by the Muslims and the Turks and the modern Arabs, and now the Jews want to come after the Holocaust and reclaim it, they have a right to it. They've forfeited their claim, now the new occupants have the right to it. What is this idea of exile? Jews going to exile. Now this is an intriguing thing. There is a verse in the Torah which tells us an astounding thing. There's a long section in the Torah which talks about moral law specifically in the area of sexuality, through prohibitions of adultery, of incest, and so on and so forth. And the Torah says that you have to be very careful and observe these laws. Why? Because the nations that lived in Israel, the ancient peoples that were there before us, they reached these laws and the land expelled them. The land vomited them. Like a person who eats something spoiled and his body rejects it, the land rejected them. So God tells us beware, beware, lest the land reject you as well. Now, what does this mean? The land would reject us. I mean, these prohibitions, the prohibition of adultery and incest is not specific to the land of Israel. I mean, these things apply worldwide. If North America will tolerate it and South America will tolerate it and Asia will tolerate it, why does this little piece of land in Israel not tolerate it? So the Medrish, the rabbinic teaching says a very interesting thing. It says this is analogous to a situation where a group of people were taken captive. Most of the people there are regular people. Among them, there is one prince, one prince. Now the regular people, they were accustomed to eating all sorts of junk food and this and that. So if they're given something which is a little greasy or a little heart digest, it's not gonna affect them badly. But the prince who's used to a very, very refined diet, you give him something to eat like that, he's repulsed, he'll become sick. So says the Medrish that all the other lands of the world can tolerate adultery, incest, promiscuity, sinfulness because they're coarse. They're not holy in the same sense. But the land of Israel, this is God's land, this is a holy place. It is very sensitive. You can't do these things there. The land will reject you, it will repel you. And therefore it says in the verse that the nations that were previously there were vomited out. God says, be careful, let's do be vomited out. And what happened? I can't necessarily say we committed those sins. But in rabbinic tradition, there were sins that were committed, and as a result, the Jews were banished from the land. So one would say, well, that's it. You've lost it, you've lost it. That's not true. Because we know there is a concept of teshuvah. Teshuvah means repentance. That even if we go astray, even if we sink into depravity, there's always a way to come home. There's always a way to repent. There's always a way to become reconciled with God. And this is not simply a possibility. This is a promise. God says for his love of the Jewish people, he is going to see to it that the Jewish people repent. And return. And he guarantees they're coming back to the land of Israel. And there's an amazing thing. There's a verse, it's on the sheet, where God talks about what is going to be in that interim. What is going to be during that time of exile. And there's a very cryptic verse. It says, I will make the land desolate. God is gonna clean the land out. All the Jews will be banished. But it says, and it will become desolate for your enemies who live in it. That not only will it be desolate of Jews, but it will even be desolate when it is occupied by their conquerors. And this is a very cryptic thing. What does that mean? Okay, the Jews are banished. But if new occupants move in, what does it mean it'll be desolate? And this is an amazing thing. This is an observation that historians have pointed out that in all the years of the exile, the diaspora, over 1,700 years since the destruction of the Second Temple and the scattering of Jews across the face of the earth, nobody has been able to settle the land of Israel successfully. We have accounts, ancient accounts, modern accounts that the land always remained desolate, that the biblical fertility was never restored, nothing grew, everything was barren. You may have stumbled across the famous description of Mark Twain in 1860s, traveled to the Middle East in his book, Innocence Abroad, where he talks about the utter desolation, the emptiness of the land of Israel, often quoted. And the Torah foretells that. So that the Jews will be banished, but the new occupants are not gonna be able to make a go of the land of Israel. So is this good news or bad news? Listen what the Ramban writes. He says, these are good tidings. This is good news. That during all our exiles, the land will not accept our enemies. This is actually a great proof and gives us confidence in the veracity of the Torah. For there never was such a land, fine and expansive and historically settled, and yet so utterly desolate as today. And the Ramban, by the way, was a firsthand eyewitness to this. With the last years of his life, he spent in the land of Israel. For from the time that we left it, it accepted no nation. All tried to restore it, but without success. What does that mean? That means that even when the Jews are absent, even in exile, it is still our land. It's not their land. And therefore they can't do anything with it. They can't make it grow. They can't coax the natural fertility from the land. It still has this deep connection to the Jewish people for eternity. And the Talmud tells us an amazing thing. The Talmud cites a verse in the book of Ezekiel, where Ezekiel was talking about the messianic age. And when we think of the messianic age, we think of the sounding of the great shofar and we think of battles and wars and conquest and restoration of the temple. You know how Ezekiel describes the messianic age? He says, and you, the mountains of Israel, will produce your branches and you will bear your fruit for my people, Israel, because they are about to come. That what will mark the advent of the messianic age to return to Israel? The bounty, the agricultural bounty of the land of Israel. Because we're coming back. And now that we're coming back, the land itself will provide and produce. And the Talmud, citing this verse says, there is no more certain sign of the imminent redemption than the agricultural bounty of the land of Israel. So when you read in the newspapers of the production of tomatoes and citrus fruits and whatever in the land of Israel, this should fill us with tremendous optimism, tremendous hope that what no people was able to achieve in hundreds and hundreds of years, the returning Jews were able to achieve, this is the sign that the redemption, the ultimate return, the ultimate in-gathering of the exiles is imminent. But this symbolizes the fact that there's a very deep connection that we have and we maintain and therefore no one else can do anything with it. It's only the Jew who can bring out the potential of the land of Israel. Now the question is what is special about the land of Israel? What is really special about it? Now you look at the Torah, from some places in the Torah you simply get the impression that it's a wonderful land, which of course it is. The Torah tells us it is a land flowing with milk and honey. Such a lovely pastoral scene of the fig trees, the day trees, bearing their heavy sweet fruit, the animals eating them and giving their milk to the point that the milk and honey appears to flow as a river. We have another description in the book of Deuteronomy which says this is a good land, the land with books of water fountains and depths that emerge from valleys and mountains, a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land which will eat bread without scarcity, you'll lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose mountains you'll hew copper and you will eat and you'll be saved and you'll bless the Lord your God for the good land he's given you. So we get the impression it's a great place and it is of course. We all know that. Anybody who's visited the land of Israel knows that it's a very, very blessed, endowed land. But there's more than that. The land of Israel is the land where the Jew can realize his spiritual potential. The Talmud says that the land of Israel is higher than any other land, which of course is a peculiar thing. I think that if you go to the Himalayas, you'll discover that the Himalayan peaks are taller than anything you find in the land of Israel. So in what sense is Israel the highest of the lands? So the commentators explain, the earth is a sphere. So what is the highest point of a sphere? The tap. But the question is, how do you decide what the tap is? If you hold the ball this way, this is the tap. You hold the ball this way, this is the tap. How do you decide what the tap is? Obviously the tap is that which is most central and most important. And therefore, if the Talmud tells us the land of Israel is the highest point of the world, that means it is the central point of the world. Why is it the central point? Because it is the place where the Jewish people can achieve their destiny. It says that the air of the land of Israel makes people wise. You breathe the air of Israel, it is matrimonix, a person of wise. A person can achieve spiritual insights in Israel that would be much more difficult to achieve outside of Israel. The Medrish says there is no Torah, like the Torah of the land of Israel and no wisdom like the wisdom of the land of Israel. The Talmud says that a person should live in the land of Israel preferably, even in a city which is devoid of Jews, much better than living in a city outside of the land of Israel, even if it's full of Jews. The person has the choice of living in Barrow Park, New York, Jewish neighborhood, teeming, synagogues and restaurants and all the things you could possibly want, schools. And you have a choice of living in the land of Israel in a place which is desolate. Choose the place in Israel. Why? So the Medrish Talmud says an amazing thing because in some sense, a person that lives outside of Israel, it's as if he has no God. And if a person lives in Israel, it's as if he has a God. And this citation requires his own understanding. But the point is that there are certain spiritual attainments that can only be had there. But I want to speak about one specific thing, the hour is late. And I guess by this point you've come to realize that this is not a topic for a one hour lecture, this is a topic for a 10,000 page book. So we're only scratching the surface. Let me share with you an idea. The Torah seems to tell us that the land of Israel is the greatest land. Remember Lot, the nephew of Abraham, they were traveling partners, they had a falling out. Lot separates himself, he moves away. Where does he go? If you're familiar with the biblical story, he goes through the plain of the Jordan to the wicked city of Sodom, Sodom and Gomorrah. And what enticed them? What won him over? So the verse says that he lifted up his eyes, he saw the plain of the Jordan, it was well watered, it was like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. It's fabulous, he says. This plain of the Jordan is as magnificent as Egypt. I'm gonna live there. Now he already was in Israel with Abraham. And he says, I'm going there, why? And there's that area, the area of Sodom, which of course today is under the Dead Sea, says this place is fabulous, this is just like Egypt, the garden of the Lord, Egypt. So which is better, Egypt or Israel? Well, if Egypt is that much better, then I'd like to raise a point. Then why did God take the Jews out of Egypt to bring them to Israel? God could have driven the Egyptians out and let the Jews stay in Egypt. So we have a problem over here. How do we understand this? So there's a verse in the Torah, where the Torah itself addresses this point. It's a verse in Deuteronomy. It's on the bottom of the third page. It says, for the land to which you are coming to possess, the land of Israel is not like the land of Egypt, out of which you came, where you sowed your seed in which you watered by foot like a vegetable garden. But the land to which you passed to possess is the land of mountains and valleys and absorbs the water from the reins of heaven. A land the Lord your God looks after. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. In other words, Egypt, the cultivated part of Egypt was a plain on the two sides of the Nile River. And this facilitated irrigation. You could dig irrigation canals and transport water away from the Nile to the farms. And for much of history, it wasn't even necessary to use effort to fill those irrigation canals because the Nile would rise and the water would spread through the irrigation canals. Only when the Aswan Dam was built in the 1950s did the flooding of the Nile stop. That's a complicated question, why they did it. But until then, the Nile regularly flooded its banks and irrigated the farms on the two sides. So Egypt was a land where you were not dependent on God at all, or at least you didn't feel you were dependent. If things followed their natural way, the lands would be irrigated, plants would grow, there'd be abundance of food, and that's the nature of the land of Egypt. Israel is different. Israel doesn't lend itself, at least in the olden days, to irrigation because it's a land of mountains and valleys. And nowadays we have modern plumbing, but in the olden days to schlep the water up the mountain and down the other side into the valley was impossible. So what did the land of Israel subsist on? On the rain. When you're dependent on the rain, you know you're dependent on God. You know you're dependent on God. And one of the commentators of the Rajbam, who was the grandson of Rashi, puts it this way, that for those who are on God's good side, there's no better place in the land of Israel. If God is favorably inclined to you, he will send the rain and he will take care of you and he will provide. And if you're on God's bad side, there's no place which is worse. People that don't want to have their relationship with God, they work to guarantee their own success without having to come out to God. Like that fellow, the rice go back mentioned, and said, what do we have to be gotten to this for? To legitimize our claim to the land of Israel. Says, we have laws, international law, and we have courts, and we have diplomacy, and let's do it through our own effort. Says, that was never the way of the Jew. The way of the Jew is to want to be connected to God, to want to have a relationship, to want to have a partnership with God. That's what the land of Israel is all about. And the rain is only one symbol of this. But in rabbinic literature, we have this idea that the land of Israel, this is God's land. This is the land that God oversees. This is the land he takes care of. This is a land where anybody who lives there knows that the level of providence is so much more intense than anywhere else in the world. You know, there are so many coincidences that happened there because God is running things. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, didn't want that. He says, I don't want to be in a land where I always have to worry, what does God think of me? So he saw, ah, what is the ideal? The ideal is the land of Egypt. And that particular plane of the Jordan, its topology, its geography, was exactly like Egypt. He said, this is where I want to be. He says, Abraham didn't want to be there. Abraham wanted to live in those mountains and in those valleys where he was dependent on God for the rain because he wanted to have that connection with the divine. So that's what Israel is all about. Israel is a magnet for the people who want to have a connection with God. Let me end with two stories. There was once a Jew who moved from America to Israel in the earlier part of the 20th century, at least 1920s. And he thought that the land of Israel would be a spiritual oasis, where everyone would observe the laws of the Torah and it would be religious utopia. And they got there and discovered this wasn't the case. There were many Jews that were irreligious. Some were even anti-religious. There was public violation of the Sabbath, public raking of the kosher laws. And he was shocked, he couldn't, he decided he's moving back to America. But he had established a relationship with Raf Cook. Raf Cook was one of the great rabbinic leaders. Ultimately, he became the first chief rabbi. This is before the state of Israel. The chief rabbi is older than the state, little known fact. And he was a devotee of Raf Cook. He decided that before he makes this big move and returns to America, he's going to speak to Raf Cook. So he goes to Raf Cook and he tells him his plan. He wants to move back to America. He says, what's the problem? He's like, I can't take it. I came to Israel thinking it would be such a religious utopia. It's not the case. So Raf Cook says to him, he says, tell me, where are you from in America? He says, I'm from Denver, Colorado. He says, Denver, Colorado. He says, I was always curious about Denver. You know, I understand there are many people in Denver that have lung ailments, tuberculosis, et cetera. Is there something which is not helpful about the air in Denver? Is there something that's harmful, it causes disease? So he says, no, no, no, the opposite. He says, Denver is very high. The air is very clean. So all the people that have lung ailments, right, they all come to Denver to be healed. It's so therapeutic. So Raf Cook said, the land of Israel is the same thing. He says, the land of Israel, all the people who need a spiritual cure, they find themselves here. Some people are already healed. Some people are in the middle of the process. Some people are beginning their process. That's what the land of Israel is all about. This is the place where we all come back to, we all return, we all feel nourished when we're there. Let me tell you another story. There was a great Hasidic rebel. He wrote a book called Bass Ayan. His name was Rabbi Avraham Dove of Average. He was a disciple of the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. He passed away in 1840. The last nine years of his life, he lived in Israel. 1831 to 1840. He was the rabbi of the Hasidic community in Svaas, in northern Israel. How did he come to Israel? And in those days, there was no economy in Israel. The Jewish population was very, very small, but European Jewry had a great interest in supporting the fledgling settlement in Israel. So people used to scrimp and save and they put money in the pushka to support the people living in Israel. And there used to be people that would come from Israel from time to time and they would travel around Europe, collecting money, telling stories, inspiring the people to greater devotion to the land of Israel. So there was once the Ayid, one of these collectors came, and he spoke in Average, and he said in the land of Israel, if you pick up the soil, there are diamonds in the soil. Diamonds. You can see the diamonds. So this Ram Dovah of Average, when he heard this, that there are diamonds in the soil, was so inspired that he decided he's moving to Israel. And he moved to Israel. When he got there, he discovered there's no diamonds in the soil. So he figured this fellow was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. Anyway, after a while he ran into him somewhere in Israel and said, you know, when you came to Average, you said that the soil in Israel has diamonds in it. And that's why I came, no diamonds. So this person said to him, just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they're not there. So he was taken aback. And he says, you know, maybe he's right. So he secluded himself in his private room. Spent a lot of time studying Torah, praying, meditating, reflecting, and after three months, he sponsored a su'udah, a feast. Like a kiddish and shul shabbos. And people asked him, what's the occasion? He says, when I came, I couldn't see the diamonds. And now I'm able to see them. That calls for a celebration. The land of Israel has diamonds, perhaps not of the jewelry type, but there are diamonds. And the Jewish people all understand this. Sometimes it's hard for us to see them. So if we work hard, we can find those diamonds. Because we should pray that God should give us all the opportunity and the insight to be able to see that, to connect to the land of Israel. That should be precious to us, valuable to us. That we should have the fortitude to stand up to those who want to take it away from us. And next week, you're gonna hear exactly what to say to those people. Because those people aren't going to be inspired by Rashi's commentary on the Torah. They're certainly not gonna be inspired by a Hasidic legend. This is for us. This is to strengthen our attachment to the land. This is when our attachment is as strong as it must be, then we are ready to take the information we're gonna learn next week and use it in the marketplace to win this debate. But it's critical that we do win this debate. We live in a time that so much is at risk. The dangers are so great. If we don't become advocates, if we don't become the defenders of land of Israel, we are going to surrender it, and God forbid, without a supernatural divine intervention, the possibilities are too painful even to contemplate. So let's all take these ideas to heart and let's all come back next week and learn what we have to learn and join those who will be the staunch defenders of our heritage and our homeland. Thank you for listening.