[1] From time immemorial – almost two millennia – we felt confident when we would read the well-known Midrash about our undisputed claim to at least three specific places in Eretz Yisrael.
According to the Midrash, Jews would not be accused by the nations of the world of being treacherous, illegal occupiers of these three places since the record would show that these areas were purchased by Jews, each for a good price (Bereishit Rabbah 79:7).
The earliest purchase was the one we read about in Parashat Chayei Sarah where Avraham Avinu insisted on purchasing the Cave of Machpelah from Efron, the Hittite. While initially Efron offered the piece of land gratis to Avraham, our patriach insisted on paying for it. And pay he certainly did. Four hundred shekels of silver could very well be worth in the many tens of thousands of dollars these days.
The second purchase of land in Eretz Yisrael was made by Ya’akov Avinu. We read about that in Parashat Vayishlach (33:18-20) when Yaakov returned to Eretz Canaan from Padan Aram. He acquired a plot of land from the children of Chamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 kesitah. That plot of land, in Shechem, we are also told at the end of the book of Yehoshua (24:32), was where the Jews who conquered the land of Canaan under the leadership of Yehoshua buried the bones of Yosef. In Yehoshua, the fact that Yaakov purchased that plot of land is quoted directly from the original reference in Parashat Vayishlach.
The third plot of land that was purchased outright was what we call today the Temple Mount. David ha-Melech purchased that from Aravna, the Yevusi who owned a silo on what was to be the future site of the first Bet ha-Mikdash. The cost was 600 gold shekels where each of the twelve tribes contributed 50 shekels (Divrei haYamim I, 21:22-26 as well as Shmuel II, 24:24). Here, also, when David approached the original owner, the gracious offer was made to gift the plot of land. But David, like Avraham, refused the gift and paid royally for the spot where he built an alter.
One would think that these three places would have been undisputed territory based on these biblical sources. But the reality is that these three places, especially in our times, have become points of contention and conflagration with the Palestinian Muslim population.
The Cave of Machpela needs massive protection in order for the Jews to use it as a hallowed place for prayer and for Torah study. There are times when Muslims will desecrate the places within the cave that are considered to be holy to the Jews even though the Muslim population considers areas in the Cave of Machpela as holy prayer halls.
The traditional grave of Yosef was destroyed in October 2000 by Palestinian thugs when the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the area under intense fire. As I write these shared lines, by arrangement with the IDF, bus loads of all sorts of Jews come to the destroyed tomb of Yosef in the middle of the night to offer their prayers and supplications as well as to return for Torah study.
As for Har haMoriah, the mountain on which David built an alter to be incorporated into the first Bet ha-Mikdash, that is probably the most contentious of all the areas.
Most important, in these three places as well as elsewhere, the nations of the world, shamefully joined by substantial numbers of our Jewish brethren in Israel and America, believe that the Jews of Israel are criminal settlers and occupiers of these areas.
[2] When the modern return to Eretz Yisrael from Europe became a widespread movement in the last decades of the 19th century, among the many talmidei chachamim who worked tirelessly to see that Jews made aliyah rather than flock to America, was the distinguished rav of Bialystock, Rav Shmuel Mohilever. He dedicated much of his life to the backbreaking task of organizing plans and maintaining endless contacts with Jewish leaders and communities throughout Europe. He spared no effort on behalf of the Shivat Tziyyon movement which was the precursor to the Zionist efforts of Dr. Theodore Herzl and his World Zionist Congress.
Mohilever, a consummate talmid chacham, was not only a visionary but labored with specific plans and programs on behalf of the Chovevei Tziyon movement and groups. His contract with the Bialystok community allowed for him to be absent from his many duties in that Jewish metropolis for several months a year so that he could travel throughout Europe and work on behalf of the resettlement mission he championed until his dying day in 1898.
Mohilever, considered to be one of the founding fathers of what came to be known as religious Zionism, commented on the length to which the Torah describes the negotiations that Avraham entered into with Efron and his Hittite people over the purchase of the Cave of Machpela. He repeatedly reminded his generation that this episode in the Torah comes to teach us that in modern times, as in the days of Avraham, in order to reclaim the land promised to Avraham’s descendants, every step of land would have to be purchased for hefty sums (quoted in A.I. Greenberg, Itturei Torah, 1:183).
[3] The reclamation of the land would not only take massive amounts of money. All of the early leaders, known as precursors of modern Zionism, wrote about the necessity of the Jewish magnates – Montefiore, Rothschild, and dozens others –to lead the efforts to reclaim the land step by step. It would take a huge infusion of cash. “Cash” in mishnaic Hebrew is “damim.”
At the same time, all of the major talmidei chachamim who led the movement of return to Eretz Yisrael also realized, and clearly wrote, that a Jewish protective police force to defend the legal acquisitions we make in reclaiming the land is absolutely necessary since it will also cost us “damim,” the same Hebrew word which means blood. True, without the philanthropists, the land could not be reclaimed. But without the defenders of our legally acquired land, that would cost us the ultimate human sacrifices they would be ready to make, Avraham’s descendants could not hold on to the land that they purchased.
It would take damim (money) as well as damim (blood). Follow the whole of sefer Bereishit and you will see that this follows a pattern reflecting the facts of life for us, since our return to our Promised Land was the identical pattern of life for our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Our rabbis taught that “ma’asei avot siman la-banim.” What happened with our forefathers is surely a sign of what can be expected of life by their descendants.
Shabbat Shalom.
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