Parshat Vayetze
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Returning to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
"אָנֹכִי הָאֵ-ל בֵּית אֵ-ל... אֲשֶׁר נָדַרְתָּ לִּי שָׁם נֶדֶר עַתָּה קוּם צֵא מִן הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת וְשׁוּב אֶל אֶרֶץ מוֹלַדְתֶּךָ"
"...Eternal love You will bring them, and the covenant of the Fathers upon the sons You will remember. May it be Your will HaShem our God and God of our Fathers that You raise us with joy to our Land..."[1] Hebron, city of our Forefathers, is an eternal reminder for ourselves and before God that HaShem eternally loves us, as He loved our Forefathers and chose their offspring as his holy People forever.
No matter how long the exile from our Land has lasted, we know, and our ancestors knew, that Hashem's love and covenant to our Fathers is everlasting, that a day will come, and all our People will be raised to our Holy Land. Indeed, our Sages teach us that "the deeds of the Forefathers are signs for their descendants"[2] - just as Yaakov went into exile for many years and was called by HaShem to return to the Land, as we see in our title quote, so too our People will listen to HaShem's call permeating both through Torah and reality, and return to the Land of the Holy Presence.
This intricacy of listening to HaShem's 'voice' both in the explicit terms of the Torah and through the in-explicit terms of reality is clearly found in Yakov's speech to Rachel and Leah about returning to the Land of Israel, ending with our title quote. To more fully appreciate this speech, it is important to note that Yakov was already explicitly commanded by God to return to the Land, Yakov had already vowed to return and worship God in the Land, and also the Torah, which according to our Sages Yakov was fully aware of [3] mandates that one can force one's spouse to move from the Diaspora to the Land of Israel.[4]
Nevertheless, instead of bluntly telling Rachel and Leah, 'HaShem commanded me to return to the Land', Yakov goes on in a lengthy speech (10 verses long) explaining, with seemingly excessive detail, the background of the need to return to the Holy Land. Yakov doesn't even mention God's command to him till the last verse. Rather, he begins with how reality, the change in Laban's attitude towards him and his personal experience with Laban, 'show' that things are different than what they used to be.
To begin with, we can learn from this speech that even when one has good reasons or even Godly imperatives to do a mitzvah, one should preferably not force the matter on others, but rather explain the matter in a way that will agree with the other person. Secondly, we learn that although we receive explicit messages from God in the Torah we should also be aware of God's 'speaking' to us through reality and Providence, of course with the caution that these function as reinforcement signs,[5] but yet don't dictate, as Torah does, what to do.
Indeed, it is via Hebron, our eternal reminder of our connection to the Holy Land, that we are more greatly aware to the call of God permeating both through the Torah, which is full of the high importance of our People's return to the Land, and through reality, which has shown us the unprecedented return of our People, in the last half-century, to our Holy Land.
Real Stories from the Holy Land #43: "I have been praying and learning in Ma'arat HaMachpela regularly for the past year. This past Shabbos I came to Ma'arat HaMachpela and decided to ask another person who I have seen regularly there, but have hardly ever exchanged words with, if he would like to learn a specific topic with me. Moments later, before I got a chance to ask him, he took the initiative and asked me if I would like to learn with him the exact same topic."
Note: The halachic issues we raise in Leshichno Tidrishu are meant to increase awareness to these issues but not to rule halachic rulings. A competent posek should be consulted in all matters of practice.
[1]Musaf of Rosh Hodesh
[2]Tanhuma, 9
[3]Tana Dvei Eliyahu Zuta, 4
[4]See Ketubot end of ch. 13, Rambam Ishus, 13, 19, and Shulhan Aruch Even Haezer 75, 4
[5]See Rambam Avoda Zara 11, 5
