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Is the Land Holy?

peace_parsha_logo186x140.jpg By Rabbi Alana Suskin

About them, the words of Jeremiah ring as true today as they did when they were spoken--"You entered and defiled My land."

Judaism has always been about both recognizing the connection between the holy and the mundane (for example, there is even a blessing for going to the bathroom!) and about maintaining the separation between them.

This week's portion, Matot-Masei, gives us an opportunity to apply the division between the holy and the mundane to the Land of Israel.

The question that the portion raises is whether the Land of Israel, in itself, is holy.

We can start seeking an answer at the end of an extended passage dealing with the mundane details of punishment for killing. God warns there: "Do not, therefore, defile the land which you will inhabit, wherein I dwell; for I, God, dwell among the Israelites."

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (z"l), an Israeli Orthodox Jew, considered by many one of the greatest modern-day scholars of Judaism and Torah, commented that the deeper understanding of this verse is that God doesn't dwell in the land, but among the Israelites, and only if their behavior warrants it. Leibowitz's point: Behavior trumps land. The Prophet Jeremiah, whose words we also read in synagogue this Shabbat, says, "You entered and defiled My land, and made My inheritance an abomination."

Leibowitz points out that Jeremiah's rebuke only makes sense in the context of sacredness inhering not in the land, but in the actions of the people who inhabit it. If the land itself were holy, it could not become defiled. Leibowitz says, "Jeremiah did not speak only to his own generation... that verse is directed at us as well. There is nothing more dangerous than cloaking defilement in the garb of holiness. The land itself does not have any inherent quality which sanctifies everything done in it, but only that which is done in it has the potential of imparting holiness to the land."

There is no denying that the West Bank, in which more than a hundred Israeli settlements were built since 1967, is historically significant to the Jewish people. Yes, it is the land of the bible. Indeed, many of the West Bank settlers frame their choice to settle the West Bank in terms of the holiness of the land. And too often, in the name of the land's holiness, extremist settlers engage in acts of terror, whether it be cutting down olive trees, depriving others of their livelihoods, or defacing mosques and churches.

About them, the words of Jeremiah ring as true today as they did when they were spoken--"You entered and defiled My land."

Those settlers who engage in such terrorism, or in retaliatory "price-tag" actions toward other Jews in the form of death threats and other intimidating actions, defile the land.