What Israel Means To Them Now: The Gift

In the days following October 7, when the scope and horror of the Shemini Atzeret massacre became clear, I felt my mother’s experiences during the Holocaust come to life before my eyes. I felt overcome with grief and fear. 

Yet, in the days that followed, something else became abundantly clear, and I was overwhelmed by its power. 

I saw and heard how, on that terrible day, people put their lives on the line—and indeed many gave their lives—for fellow Jews they had never met before; how a divided Israel and a fragmented Diaspora Jewry came together in love and unity. I saw a new Jewish consciousness emerge, a realization that Jews share an essential bond with Israel and with each other that transcends all our differences.

To quote the Tanya, “It is on account of this common root, shared by all the Jewish people in the One G-d, that all of Israel are called siblings—in the full sense of the word.” Like siblings, we can disagree but the unbreakable bond is always there.

But this new consciousness has come at a terrible price. A passage from tractate Brachot has come to mind more than once these last months: “Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: The Holy One, Blessed be He, gave Israel three precious gifts, all of which are obtained through suffering [yisurim]: Torah, the Land of  Israel, and the World to Come.”

The Talmud then brings a proof text: “As a man rebukes his son, so the Lord your G-d rebukes you” (Deuteronomy 8:5), and it is written thereafter: “For the Lord your G-d will bring you to a good land.” The Hebrew word yas-er, here translated “rebukes,” comes from the same root as the Talmud’s word for suffering. In this context, it is better translated as “challenges,” or “tests.” 

The Jewish presence in and allegiance to the Land of Israel tests our faith daily. We are a “sheep surrounded by seventy wolves.” Israel is threatened and attacked at every turn while the world condemns it, questions its right to exist, and, as we’ve seen in recent months, has made the Jewish people and our ties to Israel the object of horrible hatred and violence. After centuries of enduring such ignominy, it would make sense that we finally just give up—on our identity and our claim and connection to the Land of Israel, which we’ve held on to at such a great cost.  

Yet the Jewish people remain steadfast. There has been no mass emigration from Israel after October 7. Rather, Jews who left Israel have returned to serve in this war, and Jews continue to make aliyah. Every time during the last eighty years when things looked bleak, “G-d Blessed the work of our hands,” and we survived and thrived in the “Land G-d is giving you.” It seems impossible that our bond to the Land has become stronger yet. It seems impossible that the events that transpired in the Land of Israel, meant to destroy us, actually brought us together. 

What mysterious power does this Divine gift, the Land of Israel, hold! How awesome is Israel, the nexus—as the Kabbalah teaches—of spiritual and physical, of Creator and Creation, of G-d and G-d’s People.

Shlomo Yaffe is the Rabbi of the Alliance of Orthodox Congregations (Springfield/ Longmeadow, MA) and Dean of the Institute for American and Talmudic Law (Chabad of Midtown, New York, NY).