Parshat Shoftim  6 Ellul 5761, 25 August 2001

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - The "situation" in Israel, which is nothing less than a heartlessly cruel war in which our terrorist enemy chooses innocent women and children as their prime targets, seems to be centering more and more around our "right to be" in Israel in general and in Jerusalem in particular. The Torah readings in the Book of Devarim, and especially the section in this week's portion of Shoftim which deals with the benefits and responsibilities of the King of Israel, shed much light on the separate sanctities of Israel and Jerusalem - as well as on the land which unites them.

The eighth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy features a lyric song of praise to the land of Israel: "Since the Lord your G-d is bringing you to a good land, a land of rivers of waters, wells and cisterns which emerge from valley and mountain; a land of wheat, barley, grape, fig, and pomegranate, a land of olive oil and date honey. a land flowing with milk and honey. a land which the Lord your G-d always seeks (for you), (a land) which are the eyes of the Lord from the beginning of the year until the end of the year" (Deuteronomy 8:7,8; Deuteronomy 11:9, 12). The land of Israel is here pictured as a magnificently fruitful source of sustenance for the people of Israel; it will provide them with food and drink, with natural beauty and natural resources.

>From this perspective, we will understand why our Grace after Meals features a blessing "on the land and on the food." (Deuteronomy 8:10). During our lengthy exile experience, it all - too -often occurred that the Gentile "host" country refused to allow us to benefit from the fruits of the our "host" country. And even more to the point, the Land of Israel - much as an eternally faithful wife - only displays its beauty and provides its sustenance to the children of Israel, during the close to 2000 years old that other nations occupied our land, its valley and mountains remained barren and arid. It was only when the nation Israel returned to its homeland that luscious fruits and blazing flowers returned to the landscape and a "green line" of separation could be easily demarcated.

Hence there are two blessings relating to the land of Israel in our daily amidah: the blessing for prosperity ("And provide blessing on the face of the land and satisfy us with its goodness) and the blessing of the ingathering of exiles. After all, material sustenance must include a homeland which can provide safe borders and which will always take you in despite world condemnation and persecution. The sanctity of the Land of Israel is bound up inextricably with the people of Israel; it emanates from its ability to provide food and shelter - a home - for the nation Israel. And on this basis we can well understand Maimonides position that in the main, when the Jews are no longer living on the land, the land is no longer sacred! (Laws of the Chosen House, Chapter 6, Law 15).

Jerusalem has a deeper sanctity - one which Maimonides insists is an eternal sanctity: "the sanctity of Jerusalem is the sanctity of the Divine Presence, and the Divine Presence can never be nullified" (ibid). In order to attempt to understand what this really means, we must turn again to the daily Amidah. Here there are two blessings relating to Jerusalem - paralleling the two blessings relating to the land. In the first, we ask the Almighty G-d "to return with great compassion to Your city. to restore the Davidic dynasty and to build it as an everlasting building." In the second, we entreat the Almighty to speedily cause the sprouting of the Messiah since we anxiously await salvation!

Although one might superficially suggest that while Israel the land provides the materialistic and geographical infrastructure for the Jewish nation-state, Jerusalem the City constitutes the political and regal slat of the Davidic dynasty. But that is not really what the blessing is saying. After all, the real subject of the first blessing of Jerusalem is not the king or the political leader but is rather the Almighty Himself - "And to Jerusalem Your City may You return in compassion."

I believe we will be able to understand the true meaning of the blessing of the Amidah as well as of the Sanctity of Jerusalem if we investigate the Biblical concept of the function of the King of Israel, as it appears in this week's Torah reading. The Torah records that "when you come to the land. and you say 'Place upon me a King like all the nations roundabout' you shall place upon yourself a King whom the Lord your G-d shall choose' (Deuteronomy 17:14-18). The text goes on to command that "the king dare not acquire a multitude of horses. or a multitude of wives; nor may he amass a great deal of gold and silver. But he shall write a copy of this Torah Scroll which shall remain with him. to observe all the words of this Torah."

The King of Israel was never slated to be the usual autocratic potentate who reveled in the materialistic trappings of monarchy; he was rather supposed to be the representative of the Almighty G-d, of the King of all Kings, whose laws he had to inspire all of Israel and eventually all of the world to respect and maintain. After all, did not Gideon tell those who asked him to rule over them, "I shall not rule over you, my sons shall not rule over you; G-d shall rule over you" (Judges 8:23). The King is G-d's representative, who read the Torah to the assemblage every seven years during the celebration of Hakhel in order to re-enact the Revelation at Sinai (Maimonides, Laws of Hagiga, Chapter 3). And Jerusalem, the City of G-d, is the place from where the world of G-d is to emanate in order to communicate ethical monotheism to the world, that "nation dare not lift up sword against nation, humanity dare not learn war any more" (Isaiah 2). The sanctity of Israel is the sanctity which derives from the sanctity of the nation of Israel: the sanctity of Jerusalem is the sanctity which derives form G-d's teaching of ethical monotheism and universal peace. The name Jerusalem means City of Peace, and one of G-d's names is Peace. Our Temple of G-d is to be a "House of Prayer for all nations". The people of Israel is invested with the Divine mission of communicating G-d's will to the world through Jerusalem - whose sanctity is as inviolate and as eternal as is the sanctity of the Divine Presence itself. The rightful guardians of Jerusalem can never be those who insist upon exclusivity and attempt to prove their mastery by destroying innocent women and children.

Shabbat Shalom.

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