So Good, So Good, So Good!!!

When I was a kid, there was a Broadway musical called Milk & Honey (1961) about the young and still struggling Medinat Yisrael. The title song had the following lyrics: What if the land is dry and barren…What if it’s rocks and dust and sand. In other words, the Land may not be as idyllic as we might think. The brazen lyricist has one character sing: Our honey’s kind of bitter and our milk’s a little sour. Then, of course, this mischievous actor mentions the Syrians attacking and our other neighbors having a gun in our back. In other words, whenever we talk about Eretz Yisrael it’s hard to refrain from detailing the downsides.

Nevertheless, I remember being moved by the idyllic thought of Eretz Yisrael and a Jewish State. I didn’t get to Israel for another 22 years after that musical came out, but when I finally made it, I knew that I was home. Well, this week’s Torah reading is about that Zionist feeling of connection to the Land. 

Our parsha states three times that the “land is good (TOVA).’ Last week’s Torah reading also declared that the Land was good, but the focus was less on the Land and more on Jewish history and destiny. So, this week, I’d like to ask the crucial question: What is so good about Eretz Yisrael?

Well, from the context the immediate answer is:

a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and (date) honey; a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper (Devarim 8:7-9).

The Sforno expands on these verses:

A land which is the confluence of numerous good, desirable qualities not found together in other districts of the globe…The waters are not from polluted or stagnant sources…There are products which are basic, and also products fit for the table of a king…a land in which money can be found cheaply, a land full of treasures as per Isaiah 2,7 “the land is full of silver and gold and there is no end to the treasures it hides.”…a land whose stones contain iron, i.e. a useful metal, or whose stones are strong as iron, providing excellent building materials.

Rabbeinu Bechaye emphasizes the good NOF of Yerushalyim. He explains NOF to mean climate rather than ‘view’, and adds, ‘However, Jerusalem enjoys such a good climate that anyone moving there will not experience any problems but will be healthy and never get sick.’ Ahh, if only that were true.

 So, it is objectively a country with adequate, perhaps abundant, resources for a society to grow and flourish. But we know that our Tanach is much more than a travelog for sightseers. What is the deeper meaning of TOVA?

I think the best way to approach that question is to go back to the first use of the term TOV, Breishit 1:4: God saw that the light was TOV. The Radak explains that the light would be good for the creatures of the world, that is useful. That’s pretty utilitarian. 

The Rashbam compares this to the words of Yocheved when Moshe was born. He explains that she saw that Moshe was good in the sense of healthy, a viable baby. Shadal (R. Shmuel David Luzatto), also, explains the TOV as useful and adds that God makes these statements with full knowledge that the TOV is eternal.

So, too, Eretz Yisrael is TOVA for the inhabitants. It will always be a viable land for habitation. 

Rebbe Nachman, on the other hand, sees TOV as a spiritual designation. He sees the OHR as the goodness for every generation, and that can only be the ZADIK, who brings TOV to the universe. The S’fat Emet agrees, but declares that the TOV is really the Torah (also called ORAITA, the Light). TOV is more the source of good, rather than the ‘good’ itself.

Maybe the ‘good’ is less objective. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik disagreed with most Torah scholars on the topic of the KEDUSHA (sanctity) of Eretz Yisrael. He famously stated:

Kedushah, under a halakhic aspect, is man-made; more accurately, it is a historical category. A soil is sanctified by historical deeds performed by a sacred people, never by any primordial superiority. The halakhic term kedushat ha-aretz, the sanctity of the land, denotes the consequence of a human act, either conquest (heroic deeds) or the mere presence of the people in that land (intimacy of man and nature). 

Perhaps, the TOVA of Eretz Yisrael is like the KEDUSHA of Eretz Yisrael. It derives from the connection of our ancestors to the Land. The Rav added that ‘objective KEDUSHA smacks of fetishism’. In other words, the greatness of Eretz Yisrael was always a result of thousands of years of Jewish connection to the Land. 

Maybe, there is no objective answer to the question: What is TOVA about Eretz Yisrael? I think that’s the opinion of David ben Gurion, a person I profoundly respect but not someone I usually quote on a Torah topic. He wrote:

Since I invoke Torah so often, let me state that I don’t personally believe in the God it postulates…I am not religious, nor were the majority of the early builders of Israel believers. Yet their passion for this land stemmed from the Book of Books…The Bible is the single most important book in my life.

The Land must be TOVA, because God told us so in the Torah. There isn’t an objective approach to what is so good about it. It’s an ineffable reality. Maybe it stems from God; maybe from our ancestors. Who knows?!?

But as that song from 1961 concludes:

This is the place where the hopes of the homeless, and the dreams of the lost combine. This is the land that heaven blessed and this lovely land is mine. 

It’s good because it’s ours. Always has been; always will be.