“You Must Provide Redemption for the Land”

"Geulah Teet-nu La'Aretz"
[Leviticus 25:24]
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
May 3, 2002

My brother and I communicate late at night Instant Messaging, when we both finally have a moment at the computer. He also shares other materials, some of them humorous. Recently he sent me the following:

The Prime Minister of Israel sits down with Arafat at the beginning of negotiations regarding the resolution of the conflict. The Prime Minister requests that he be allowed to begin with a story.

Arafat replies, "Of course."

The Prime Minister begins his story. "Years before the Israelites came to the Promised Land and settled here, Moses led them for forty years through the desert. The Israelites began complaining that they were thirsty and, lo and behold, a miracle occurred and a stream appeared before them. They drank their fill and then decided to take advantage of the stream to do some bathing – including Moses. When Moses came out of the water, he found that all his clothing was missing.

"Who took my clothes?" Moses asked those around him.

"It was the Palestinians," replied the Israelites.

"Wait a minute," objected Arafat immediately; "there were no Palestinians during the time of Moses!"

"All right," replied the Prime Minister. "Now that we've got that settled, let's begin our negotiations."

Tomorrow morning's Shabbat Torah reading of Behar talks about redemption, geulah, of the land of Israel. It is referring to the socio-economic conditions wherein a person sells his ancestral land because of economic distress. The Torah commands that it may never be sold beyond reclaim. The Torah commands: "Geulah tee-tnu la'aretz." "You must provide redemption for the land."

The Jewish people, inside and outside the Land of Israel, the State of Israel,

stand at a perilous time.

Yet it also is a time pregnant with promise.

It is a time fraught with danger.

It is a time presaging peace.

It is a time laden with peril.

We, the Jewish people wherever we live, are commanded in the most solemn and sacred way to perform acts of geulah, of redemption.

We have to redeem the truth from the lies bandied in the media and the U.N.

We have to redeem the allegiance of Jews throughout the United States who have ignored Israel, or been mistakenly ashamed of Israel, who have not supported Israel.

We have to redeem the spirits of our people who feel so isolated in Israel as they see the rest of the world ganging up on them and ignoring the truth and forgetting history, and pushing them or allowing them to be pushed to the precipice, the water's edge.

We have to redeem the dreams of the children in Israel who are afraid to go out the door, to play, to school.

The Torah's, God's command to redeem echoes to us. It may not be ignored.

What is the truth, which needs to be redeemed from, lies?

That Israel offered virtually 97% of the West Bank and Gaza as a Palestinian State with a capital in Jerusalem two years ago under Prime Minister Barak, only to be rejected in a hail of murderous suicide bombers.

That Israel supplied electricity, water, medical care, sanitation facilities, free markets, open employment to the Palestinian Arabs at higher wages than anywhere in the Arab world, only be knifed, blown up and run over when they had free access in Israel.

That since 1967 Israel offered to rebuild refugee camps in which their brother Arabs let them fester, in order to foster hatred, and the UNRWA refused to allow Israel to do so, and with all the interim agreements, the Palestinian Authority has been so corrupt that they have done virtually nothing - when they have already had control.

That Israel could have wiped Jenin off the face of the earth, like Assad did to the Syrian city of Hamas, but since Israel is a democracy and allows reporters and the media, it exposes itself to criticism while Assad then and his son now runs an absolute dictatorship so that there is an absolute blackness over their atrocities; and so far only fifty or so bodies have been found in Jenin, most of them armed terrorists who engaged in the fight, and for the civilian deaths Israel has already apologized, while Israel lost numerous soldiers because they didn't bomb them to smithereens! Israel shed Jewish blood in order to save Arab lives and the UN calls this a massacre. That is why Israel rightfully kept the liars out of Jenin. Has anyone apologized for Passover night? Did the U.N. call that a massacre?

That Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital since 1312 B.C.E. No one else ever made Jerusalem its capital: not the Babylonians, nor the Persians, nor the Romans, nor the Turks. No one but the Jews.

That for three thousand and three hundred years plus, there has always been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem.

That, for Bethlehem, a place with no sanctity for Israel and Jews, Israel is taking every precaution, and with every piece of modern technology has shown that they did not set a fire or fire a gun that could set the fire in the Church compound, and they have the pictures that world media willfully ignores and refuses to see as proof.

That is the beginning of the litany of truth, which we must redeem by our articulation, letter writing and public speech. Dare anyone be silent! 

Regardless of detailed political position, it is a sacred oath for every Jew to redeem their allegiance to the State of Israel.

There is no other place in the world that it is natural and normal for a Jew to be a Jew.

There is no other place in the world to which a Jew can flee for safety and protection, because they are being persecuted just because they are a Jew.

There is no other place in the world where Hebrew is the spoken language, where the artifacts of our history rise from the earth, where our Bible was written,where our ancestors walked.

There is no other flag, there is no other place, other than the State of Israel, which has, resurrected the image of the Jew from our condition of being the wandering, victimized stranger, to being the self-sufficient, productive, unwavering, and proud Jew of the 21 st century.

There is no other country that puts its soldiers at risk, who hands them the Bible with its moral code at their military induction, whose Jewish value of "tohar haneshek," purity of their weapon meaning, never shedding human blood needlessly, and keeps their children away from harms way instead of intentially putting them into the hazard of flying bullets and using civilians as human shields when they unleash lethal gunfire.

This is not a blanket endorsement of every single action by every single soldier and sergeant. Of Israel we need never be ashamed! If we have ever wavered, before our children who know not of what we speak, we must redeem and uphold our allegiance to Medinat Yisrael.

We can redeem the spirit of our people and the dreams of our children by our presence and by our money.

All the people of Israel will know, and all the world will know that American Jewry will gather together throughout America and throughout the world to vocalize our love, our support, our adoration and our devotion to Medinat Yisrael. And we will do so in Richmond on May 15 th at 5:30 P.M. at the JCC.

There are thousands of wounded Israeli civilians. There are hundreds of wounded Israeli soldiers. There our countless bereaved families. There are numerous agencies of support that council the children of Israel who have lived under attack, under threat, isolated and ignored. American Jewry has pledged $300 million to aid the people of Israel. We must bring geulah, redemption, to the people of Israel through immediate assistance. This mitzvah we are commanded to fulfill, as God has blessed us, so may we do.

The second Torah portion of tomorrow morning, B'hukkotai, begins by promising that those who live according to God's laws will "dwell securely in your land." Whether we wish it or not, several million Arabs live adjacent and in close proximity to Israel. It is against all our Jewish moral code and human ethic to even imagine any other scenario other than their continued presence. It is even in the dream of the founders of the State and is enshrined in Israel's Declaration of Independence. All that I pray for is that the opening verses of B'hukkotai comes true:

"I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake your sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread, and dwell securely in your land."

May no one miss the opportunity for a true, enduring and genuine peace.

May all the land be redeemed from war, from hatred, from bloodshed.

May all peoples dream that dream.

Amen.