Babylonian Jewry’s Sin
“I am the L-rd, your G-d, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt to give you the Land of Canaan, to be your G-d” (Leviticus 25:38).
On this verse, the Tosefta (Avoda Zara 5:2) states, “As long as you are in Canaan, I will be your G-d. If you are not in Canaan, I am not your G-d.” Commenting on the same verse, the Talmud (Ketuvot 110b) adds, “Whoever lives in Eretz Yisrael is like one who has a G-d, and whoever lives outside Eretz Yisrael is like one who has no G-d.”
Israel’s refusal to cling, with faith and trust, to the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisrael – a mitzvah of equal weight to all the other mitzvot combined (see Sifri, Re’eh 80) – is what has brought about and, G-d forbid, will bring about national calamities.
The Rabbis (Yoma 9b) relate: “Reish Lakish was bathing in the Jordan, and Rabba b. bar Chana [who had come from Babylonia to study Torah] approached and extended his hand. Reish Lakish said to him, ‘I swear I hate you!’” Rashi explains: “By not moving to Eretz Yisrael in Ezra’s day, the Jews of Babylonia prevented the Divine Presence from returning and resting on the Second Temple.”
Reish Lakish continued: “It says, ‘If she be a wall, we will build upon her a silver turret, and if she be a door, we will enclose her with cedar boards’ (Song of Songs 8:9). Had you come up to Eretz Yisrael like a wall [en masse] in Ezra’s day, you would have been compared to silver, which cannot rot. Now that you have come up to Eretz Yisrael like doors, you are like cedar, which can rot.”
Babylonian Jewry’s shortsighted refusal to leave the Exile blocked the path to the final redemption already during the Second Temple period. And this same sin is being repeated today as Exile Jewry sits tranquilly in foreign lands – heaven help us – in a blind lack of faith and vision. Behold the words of the spiritual giant Rav Yehudah HaLevi in his great philosophical work, the Kuzari (II:24):
“You have shamed me, O king, for it is due to [the Jews’ refusal to return to Eretz Yisrael] that the great goal G-d had planned for the Second Temple was not fulfilled…. For the divine event was destined to be for them as in the First Temple if they had all responded to the call and returned to Eretz Yisrael with a willing soul, but only a part went up. The majority and the important ones among them stayed in Babylon, agreeing to the Exile and the servitude as long as they were not separated from their dwelling places and businesses.”
Had the whole nation gone up en masse when G-d arranged matters so that Cyrus, king of Persia, gave permission for the Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael, G-d would not have destroyed the Temple. Rather, the Divine Presence would have rested there forever, and G-d would have brought the Messiah by virtue of the Jews’ faith. But the Jewish people in Babylonia had settled down and did not wish to return, and so only a minority did so – 42,360 to be exact (Ezra 2:64). This is the pitiful sum that returned to Eretz Yisrael while the vast majority chose to settle down in the depravity of the Exile and scorn the Desirable Land.
We are descended from people who turned their backs on Eretz Yisrael, preferring the defilement of the Exile so that they could live tranquil lives. Our generation, as well, has exchanged the glory of the Desirable Land for the worship of gluttony and drunkenness in the Exile, and there is no one to take up the insult to Eretz Yisrael. Quite the contrary, the prominent people of this generation express their approval. As the brilliant Rav Yaakov Emden writes in the introduction to his Siddur Beit Yaakov (Sulam Beit El, 3:6):
“Not one in a thousand is aroused to take hold of it and settle in Eretz Yisrael; only one per country and two per generation. No one pays it any heed or seeks to love it. No one seeks to know its welfare or looks forward to seeing it. We imagine that since we live in peace outside it, we have already found another Land of Israel and Jerusalem like the first. That is why the Jews in Spain (and other countries) – dwelling in peace and great honor for almost 2,000 years, since the destruction of the First Temple – were beset by so much misfortune and then banished until no remnant of Israel remained there.”
These words were written by Rav Yaakov Emden in cursed Germany several hundred years ago. Who listened? Who took his words to heart? Rav Emden continues, answering those hypocrites who raise empty claims regarding risks and hardships involved in settling in Eretz Yisrael:
“Risks posed by desert and sea crossings surely do not suffice to exempt one from such a great mitzvah…. Consider your path through valley and glen, upon every mountain and hill. Rich and poor alike run swift as steeds to acquire possessions…. What great danger we put ourselves in every day! For a crust of bread you take long strides that dim the luster of your eyesight and shorten your life, yet when it comes to the glory of your Maker and the immortality of your soul, you say, ‘A lion blocks my way!’ (Proverbs 26:13). How long, sluggard, will you lie on the bed of laziness?… Why don’t you find a way to flee for your life while you still can?”
All of us, great and small, should feel ashamed.
The Jewish Idea