the land of hashem
sholem aleichem,
Moshe is about to die. He comes to the Tent of Meeting with his successor, Yehoshua, and haShem appears in a pillar of cloud, standing at the entrance of the tent (Devarim 31:14-15).
HaShem tells Moshe that he is soon to lie at rest with his ancestors. And then? “This people will rise up, and follow their desires, after gods that are foreign to the land.” They will forsake haShem, and break haShem’s covenant (Devarim 31:16).
There’s a difficulty here, the Or haChaim notes. Why does haShem say “This people will rise up”? Isn’t it a descent, a falling, to follow their desires after other gods?
He suggests that we should understand “rise up” as referring to a purely material, this-worldly ascent. It is precisely because of this material ascent that the people will descend spiritually: following their desires, forsaking haShem.
The Or haChaim describes this material ascent as “a rising up in the world with the yerushah [conquering or inheriting] of the land, and wealth and glory…”. And so it is the yerushah of the land (part of haShem’s covenant with Avraham!) that is the first step towards forsaking haShem.
Is this inevitable?
This isn’t an academic question for me. I am a settler born on Turtle Island and a Jew born after the founding of Medinas Yisrael. I live yerushah (broadly understood) twice over, having inherited the fruits of conquest. So is it inevitable that I myself will forsake haShem, as the Or haChaim describes? What is the right path, for someone in my place? Living after yerushah, what should I do?
It seems that there are two spiritual paths forward after yerushah. In one path, a person maintains the mindset of yerushah. And a mindset of yerushah requires a person to remain mindful of either a bequeath-er of the inheritance or (may the compassionate one have mercy on us) a victim of conquest. In either case, she must remain mindful that the land she lives in is not really hers. Others lived there before her, and others will live there after her. And this is what Hashem said: “the land is mine, and you are but strangers and sojourners with me” (Vayikra 25:23).
In the other path, a person forgets or denies the mindset of yerushah. She begins to think she is neither an inheritor nor conqueror of the land, but the rightful authority over the land. She lives in cities she did not build, drinking from cisterns she did not hew, eating from olive groves she did not plant. And she eats and is satisfied (Devarim 6:10-11). She denies not only the people who came before her, but also the One who said “the land is mine”, the One who brought her out of Mitzrayim (Devarim 6:12).
Indeed, authority in Hebrew is רשות/rashus. Moving from a mindset of ירושה [inheritance/conquering] to one of רשות [authority] exchanges the letters י and ה for the letter ת. The letters י and ה together form a name of haShem; the letter ת, which is gematria 400, corresponds to the 400 years in Mitzrayim. And so a person who moves from a mindset of ירושה to one of רשות replaces the One (יה) with Mitzrayim (ת).
Such a person will “forget haShem, who brought [her] out of Mitzrayim” (Devarim 6:12) and so “will not dwell in the land of haShem” — because she thinks the land is hers! — “but … will return to Mitzrayim” (Hosea 9:3). This does not refer to a physical return. By forgetting haShem, the One who brought her out of Mitzrayim, the One to whom the land belongs, she will return to Mitzrayim in her heart. And so she will bring Mitzrayim into her land.
What is the repair? The letter ת is not only Mitzrayim. Tav is one of the double letters (Sefer Yetzirah), and Mitzrayim is only one side of it. As it is written, “I have put before you life and death [מבת] … choose life, that you-may-live [תחיה]”. To flip the coin of ת, choose life. Just keep choosing life. And return from rashus to yerushah, from bondage in Mitzrayim to dwelling in the land of haShem.
And this is an aspect of the binding of Yitzchak. When Avraham holds the knife up to sacrifice his son, the world splits in two before him. In one world, Yitzchak lives. In another, Yitzchak dies. In gematria, Yitzchak is 208. Together, these two worlds make 416: the number of the letter ת spelled out in full as תיו.
As he prepares to kill his son, Avraham has only one of these worlds: the ת of death, the ת of Mitzrayim, the ת of רשות. He is preparing to kill his son, his only one, a boy in his authority. And then, an angel: “Do not raise your hand against the boy.” Not “against your son”. Not “against your only one”. And Avraham chooses to listen, and he chooses the ת of life, and he relinquishes authority.
And so he restores ת to its full spelling of תיו. The ת of death is still there, it is always one side of that coin. But now it is joined to the letters י and ו, which are gematria 16, which is gematria יה+א. By choosing life, by relinquishing his authority, Avraham has restored the missing letters י-ה of yerushah. And in the repair, an א is added: a seed to grow into something brand new.
Perhaps this is what our ancestors were supposed to do, when commanded to conquer the land. They were supposed to come to the land, prepared to do as haShem commanded. To look at the world split in two before them, into death and life, and to listen to the angel whispering “this is not yours” and “choose life”.
I don’t know. Perhaps they weren’t sent an angel, perhaps they didn’t listen. Perhaps I’m entirely wrong. But I know we can choose life, now. We can listen to the angel of haShem, now. Be quiet a moment.
Can you hear it? It is whispering, “this is not yours.” It is pleading, “choose life.”
When haShem said the people “will rise up”, They were only describing the custom of the world (Hilchos Teshuva 6). Each and every person has a choice.
good shabbos,
ada