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TORAT MIZRACHI

Rabbi Doron Perez

The Obsession

with Land

was not born into a religious family and promises the whole Land to him I also noticed that in the book of Bere-
but grew up in a warm and tradi- and his progeny once again. G-d ishit, one city in the Land – Chevron
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i
t
I onal South African Jewish home. makes two distinct and dramatic cov- – stands out more than any other,
To the great credit of my dear parents, enants with him, promising that his in three distinct ways. First, it is the
and through the influence of a young children will return after Exile and site of the first legally purchased part
dynamic Rabbi, we began going to shul that the Land will be an ‘Eternal Inher- of the Land, the Cave of Machpelah,
on Shabbat on a regular basis, which itance’ for them. 3 which Avraham acquires to bury
sparked the beginning of a spiritual Sarah. Second, despite our forefathers’
transformation. I was 12 years old when G-d forbids Yitzchak from leaving the many travels and sojournings, Chev-
this family odyssey towards more seri- Land, despite famine, and he spends ron is the main area in the Land where
ous Torah observance began. his entire life there. G-d promises the all three of them lived. And third, it is
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Land to him and his children. 4
A good place to start studying Torah where all three sets of our forefathers
was from the very beginning, so I To escape his brother, Ya’akov has and mothers are buried. 9
began with the book of Bereishit. As I no choice but to leave the Land, but Therefore, Chevron – more than any
began learning about Avraham, I was his whole life revolves around it. In other place – represents our founding
totally perplexed. The very first time his dream on departure, G-d assures fathers’ and mothers’ extraordinary
G-d speaks to the very first Jew, He him he will return and 20 years later connection to the Land.
commands him to leave wherever he is commands him to do so. Upon his
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and to journey to another land to ful- return, Ya’akov is promised the Land As I was finishing high school, I made
fill his destiny. This baffled me. After for him and his children. Then after a further amazing discovery. One of
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all, was this really the most important being pushed into Exile once again, the world’s leading historians, Paul
thing for Avraham to do in order to to reunite with his son Yosef in Egypt, Johnson, had just published his mon-
begin his mission? What about study- Ya’akov asks Yosef to swear to bury umental work, “A History of the Jews,”
ing Torah, keeping mitzvot, commit- him in the grave of his forefathers in in which he highlighted the very same
ting himself to total obedience to fulfill the Land. 7 reflections about the Land in general
the will of G-d? and Chevron in particular.
The book of Bereishit ends coun-
Incredibly, the more I studied the terintuitively with Yosef, despite his In his opening chapter, he emphasized
book of Bereishit, the more I realized meteoric success in Egypt, making the remarkable centrality of the Land
that this original encounter between his family promise to bury him in from the dawn of Jewish history: “The
G-d and Avraham was not an excep- the Land of his fathers. Remarkably, election of Abraham and his descen-
tion but rather the rule. It seemed as if the last verse of the book conveys his dants for a special role in G-d’s prov-
G-d had some type of obsession, so to death, embalming and placing him in idence, and the donation of the land,
speak, with this Land. It was clear that a coffin. No burial is mentioned. The are inseparable in the Biblical presen-
the new spiritual mission of Avraham message is clear – he is waiting, no tation of history.” 10
and his children was somehow inextri- matter for how long, to return to the
cably linked to this tract of land. Land with the Children of Israel and to Strikingly, Johnson traces the very
be buried there. beginning of Jewish history to Chev-
This conclusion is inescapable. As ron itself: “The Jews are the most
soon as Avraham arrives, G-d prom- The singling out of a person, a family tenacious people in history. Chevron
ises to give the Land to his children. and a people for a unique mission is is there to prove it. It lies 20 miles
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As he returns from Egypt after the interlocked at every stage with the south of Jerusalem, 3,000 feet up in
famine, G-d commands him to walk singling out of the Land. They are Continued on page 4
around the Land, look in all directions inseparable.

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