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        Orchard of Delights                                                                                                                                                   Va’eira
                              £Elevating the Land of Israel £Elevating the Land of Israel Elevating the Land of Israel   recorded  prayer in the Torah  takes place as  Abraham  prays  to
                                                                                                          save the wicked people of Sodom. His prayer seems to go virtually
                              £
                                  and the Entire Worldorldorld
                                  and the Entire W
                                  and the Entire W                                                        unanswered – God will save the city if there are ten righteous men,
                                                                                                          which there are not – and the verse states that Abraham “returned
                                                                                                          to  his place” (Genesis 18:33).  But  what should interest us is the
                                                                                                          following: what does Abraham do after he has reached the heights
               The Torah  concludes the story  of  Abraham’s  purchase of  Sarah’s
               burial plot by stating that the field with its cave “rose up … unto                        of prayer and seen his prayers essentially rejected? A literal or peshat
               Abraham for a purchase” (Genesis 23:17-18; 23:20). Rashi explains                          reading of the verse would teach us that Abraham gave up, leaving
               that the phrase  “rose  up”  literally means “entered the possession                       the place where he had been talking to God, but a deeper reading
               of.” However, he also explains the phrase metaphorically, citing the                       taught by Rabbi Carlebach sheds  further light on the  matter:
               Midrash from Bereishit Rabbah 58:8: the land was elevated because                          Abraham, despite his seeming failure, returned to his original stance,
               it left a commoner’s possession and entered a king’s. On a sod or                          “his place,” and continued to pray. Though the text seems to indicate
               mystical level one might say that Sarah’s burial elevated the land as                      that Abraham’s prayers go  unanswered, Abraham’s prayers not
               her soul was raised to a higher level of being: although she was now                       only helped save his nephew Lot, but even the eventual spark of the
               in a different dimension, her soul was still connected to this world                       Mashiach, who is descended from Lot through Ruth. Furthermore,
               and to the land itself; thus, she raised them up.                                          in  this  first  recorded  prayer,  Abraham  modeled  for  all  time  what
                                                                                                          prayer means to us as individuals and Jews: Abraham implanted in
                 When Abraham bought the cave and field to bury Sarah he began                            the Jewish people the importance of praying for the rectification of
               the process of not only acquiring the land but of elevating it as well.                    the world, even when it appears to be so far away.
               While the land certainly possessed great holiness long before Abraham
               first set eyes upon it, like a “fountain sealed up,” its real spiritual                      Indeed, even though God sent angels to save Lot before Abraham
               depths had not even begun to be tapped (Song of Songs 4:12). Thus,                         prayed, it was Abraham’s prayers that saved the spark of Mashiach
               the Torah states that when Abraham took possession of the Cave                             within Lot. For Abraham wanted to believe that nothing was beyond
               of Machpelah, “it rose up, the field of Ephron which is Machpelah,                         redemption, nothing was so broken that it could not be repaired,
               which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was in it, and                        even the evil Sodom. This core optimism and faith that good will
               all the trees that were in the field in the borders around”(Genesis                        ultimately triumph is the very energy of Mashiach.
               23:17).                                                                                      But how did Abraham know this great secret – that he should
                                                                                                          constantly pray for others? The Torah itself answers this question in
                 This “rising up” is the  key  to the  spiritual connection between
               the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. For the Land provides                            a remarkable series of verses that reveal God’s actual thoughts:
               the Jewish people with their own rightful place in which to ascend                           And God said: “Shall I conceal from Abraham what I intend to do.
               in holiness and produce physical as well as spiritual fruit, while the                     And Abraham surely will become a great nation, and all the nations
               Jewish people elevate the Land by providing it with their tender love                      of the earth will be blessed through him. For I know him that he
               and the care it needs to bring forth its holy bounty. This relationship                    will command his children and his household after him and they will
               is alluded to  by the numerical equivalency between the Hebrew                             keep the way of God to do justice and judgment, that God may bring
               letters comprising the phrase “and it rose up” and the word “Zion”:                        upon Abraham that which He has spoken of him.” (Genesis 18:17-
               both are 156. This mathematical remez, is a beautiful example of how                       19)
               “the actions of the fathers are a sign to their children” (Sotah 34a).


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