Jewish History Supersedes Jewish Geography

No land should be identified

as if it were a nation’s god.

Some loyal Jews who’ve misidentified

the holiness of Israel’s sod

with God about this holy land, enthuse

as if it were a geo-divinity,

misled by their mistaken views

regarding Israel’s affinity

with its geography, although its stones

will never come to life, a process

applicable to their dead bones,

as was predicted not by Moses

but by Ezekiel, who’d announce

that dead bones made alive would bounce

like balls to Israel, their goal,

refilling Israel with souls

by God made glad and glorious,

by history revived, victorious,

to this religious region restored

by the God Jews have adored

for more than three millennia, a mystery

recorded by their history,

which is the explanation for

the goal they geographically adore,

not as their God but for the nation,

the most holy destination

for “as if” but not actually reaching

God, according to the Torah’s teaching

regarding land He promised to

a people whose bones He would renew,

fulfilling prophesies God gave

to undead bones whose life He’d save.

BKetubot 110b states:

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: לְעוֹלָם יָדוּר אָדָם בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲפִילּוּ בְּעִיר שֶׁרוּבָּהּ גּוֹיִם, וְאַל יָדוּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ וַאֲפִילּוּ בְּעִיר שֶׁרוּבָּהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל, שֶׁכׇּל הַדָּר בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל דּוֹמֶה כְּמִי שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ אֱלוֹהַּ, וְכׇל הַדָּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ דּוֹמֶה כְּמִי שֶׁאֵין לוֹ אֱלוֹהַּ. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״לָתֵת לָכֶם אֶת אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לִהְיוֹת לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים״.

In relation to the basic point raised by the mishna concerning living in Eretz Yisrael, the Sages taught: A person should always reside in Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly populated by gentiles, and he should not reside outside of Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly populated by Jews. The reason is that anyone who resides in Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who has a God, and anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as one who does not have a God. As it is stated: “To give to you the land of Canaan, to be your God” (Leviticus 25:38).

וְכֹל שֶׁאֵינוֹ דָּר בָּאָרֶץ אֵין לוֹ אֱלוֹהַּ? אֶלָּא לוֹמַר לָךְ: כׇּל הַדָּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ כְּאִילּוּ עוֹבֵד עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה. וְכֵן בְּדָוִד הוּא אוֹמֵר: ״כִּי גֵרְשׁוּנִי הַיּוֹם מֵהִסְתַּפֵּחַ בְּנַחֲלַת ה׳ לֵאמֹר לֵךְ עֲבוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים״, וְכִי מִי אָמַר לוֹ לְדָוִד לֵךְ עֲבוֹד אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים? אֶלָּא לוֹמַר לָךְ: כׇּל הַדָּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ — כְּאִילּוּ עוֹבֵד עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה.

The Gemara expresses surprise: And can it really be said that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael has no God? Rather, this comes to tell you that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship. And so it says with regard to David: “For they have driven me out this day that I should not cleave to the inheritance of the Lord, saying: Go, serve other gods” (I Samuel 26:19). But who said to David: Go, serve other gods? Rather, this comes to tell you that anyone who resides outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as though he is engaged in idol worship.

The word דּוֹמֶה not only means “is considered” but “resembles,” and its use in these texts seems to me to oppose identification of the land of Israel as if it is our God, conflating  absence from the land of Israel with godlessless. It is as if the Talmud text is a polemic against Jews who falsely believe that God can be reached by performing a geographic process and that defective geography can prevent a Jew from reaching God. While the tannaitic text implies that to live in the land of Israel should be the  goal of every Jew because Jews cannot reach God unless they live there, the use of the  word דּוֹמֶה implies that awareness of this geographic goal is less important for them than their awareness of Jewish history, a history which is based on the recognition that we are descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. and that God brought all our ancestors out of Egypt when we were Pharaoh’s slaves.

In “How the Jews Remain an Eternal People: We Jews are the blue and white in the red, white, and blue,” MosaicMagazine.com, Dec. 18. 2024, Ruth R. Wisse writes:

When it comes to Israel, words fail. The establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, three years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was the most hopeful sign of restored civilization since the dove returned with the olive leaf to Noah’s ark. Jesus is believed to have arisen after three days, and since Christianity adapted much from the Jews, I suggest we may in brotherly fashion consider the recovery of sovereignty three years after the Holocaust our national resurrection. About that restored sovereignty, my friend, the late Israeli literary scholar Gershon Shaked, wrote that there was no place for the Jewish people—Ein makom aḥer—other than in the Land of Israel. I agreed that sovereign Israel was the indisputable eternal center of the Jewish people, but tried to persuade him that since diaspora is also an enduring part of Jewish history, we should appreciate our interdependence: that most Jews now live in the Jewish state, and that the United States is the largest diaspora community, makes ours together the best circumstance we have ever enjoyed. Let that sink in—this is the best it has ever been.

But here is the corollary of this bounty. When enemies now strike at the Jews in Israel and here in America, we have no place to run. If we want to break through to eternity, we are going to have to do it—territorially—within existing boundaries. Many people, concerned by the rise of local anti-Semitism, have been asking, “Is it time for us to move to Israel?” We also hear from Israelis who tell us that family members are thinking of leaving the country. I reply, “If they’re selling their apartments, please let me know because I know people planning to move there.” There are Yiddish stories—bitter comedies—about Jewish communities fleeing to a neighboring town and meeting its Jews running in their direction. This impulse to flee—a natural instinct in times of danger—just reinforces the realization that as a people, we are done with running. Individual Jews may try to change their luck by changing location, in accordance with the talmudic dictum m’shaneh maqo, m’shaneh mazalo (“whoever changes his place, changes his luck”). But migration is no longer a national option.