These are pained and conflicted times for Jews living inside
and outside the Land of Israel. The rupture of the peace process betweens Israelis
and Palestinians has resulted in a state of embattlement unseen since perhaps
the founding of the state in 1948. Israel itself is torn by the terrible attacks
of terror and murder; preventive and retaliatory strikes at the Palestinians
continue to bring censure from so many international voices; and no one has
yet been able to solve this seemingly endless problem. The suffering on both
sides is undeniable.
It is hard to imagine in these trying times the intent of numerous commentators
to the opening lines of our portion, " And it shall be, when you come into
the land." Many read the phrase "and it shall be" to denote joy, meaning that
our greatest joy is to fulfill the mitzvah of living in the Land of Israel.
Some commentators argue that despite the trials and tribulations associated
with living in the Land of Israel, there is always joy. Others argue that
if one merits the privilege of living in the Land of Israel, one has obviously
earned such a favorable lot in life by being rewarded for one's obedience
to God.
To what extent do we view current events in Israel through such interpretive
lenses? Pollsters and demographers offer us dire weekly reports in the Jewish
press of American Jews' increasing distance from events in Israel. In the
midst of the drawn out battle in Israel, the tourism industry has been crippled
by diaspora Jewry's sense that there is no joy in Israel and that existence
there is of a very punishing variety. Diaspora Jewry, so goes the claim, would
rather live a purely religious and ethical Jewish existence without struggling
with the more national dimension of our biblical heritage.
But in the opening lines from Parshat Ki Tavo, we are reminded of the essential
nature of our Jewish religious connection to the Land of Israel. We are also
reminded that ethical religious monotheism and a Jewish national claim to
a homeland are inextricably bound to one another.
In some of the most important verses in all of our Torah tradition, we read,
"And you shall come to the priest who shall be in those days and say to him,
'I profess this day to the Lord your God, that I have come to the country
which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. And the priest shall take
the basket out of thy hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy
God. And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, 'A wandering Aramean
was my father…'" (Deuteronomy 26.3-5)
In other words, our tradition makes quite clear that the offerings of the
land which we make in gratitude for our having come into the land are not
enough; by linking ourselves inextricably with Jacob's descent into Egypt
and our eventual servitude, we gain for all time the obligation to remember
our afflictions, to remember our bondage, and to use the land not only for
our benefit but for the benefit of the "stranger, the orphan, and the widow"
whom we are obligated to feed and satisfy.
The land can never been gained for its own sake alone; it only is acquired
with the expectation of past and continual acts of holiness, kindness and
caring.
In such times of great division and strife, when there is ample pressure
to unite behind the notion of protecting Jewish lives at all costs, the Torah
comes along to remind us that even in times when living in the land does not
bring immediate joy, it retains the potential to inspire us toward performing
joyful actions by safeguarding the rights of those less fortunate than
us. In this regard, Israel remains a light unto the nations. When our hands
are extended to the poor, when we defend the defenseless, and when we remember
our own lot as an oppressed minority, the question is not one of whether any
of these aggrieved groups deserve this treatment, but rather: what is our
delay in fulfilling what God commands of us?
On my own trip to Israel this past January with 40 Hillel students from
NYU, I was deeply moved by the extent to which our searching diaspora Jewish
students grasped the nature of this theological dilemma. They saw Israel cast
in a political and biblical struggle and understood potential solutions as
having religio-ethical and political implications. Unlike so many of the secular
Israelis that they met, these students felt and feared God in the land. They
struggled to grasp the claims on both sides. And then they worked, during
the remainder of the trip and upon their return, to bridge the seeming divide
between the call of God at Sinai to live ethical lives and the practical implications
of building a homeland.
One model for bridging that divide is found in this week's Torah portion.
God's voice is clear as a bell in the utterance that our own oppressed past
has earned us the right for a place of our own on earth; but our habitation
must also be supported by the call at Sinai to meet the needs of all in our
midst-the widow, the orphan, and the stranger among us.
