Article published by AJN on May 4, 2022
Historically, the longing to return to the Promised Land is a sentiment that has prevailed in the spirit of Judaism since its earliest times. This feeling is also a biblical Jewish precept, from the time when Moses freed the people of Israel from the Pharaonic yoke to go to the land flowing with milk and honey.
The Jewish people began to settle in the Land of Israel during the leadership of Joshua and reached their apogee with the reigns of David and Solomon. When the Jews were exiled by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babel, they kept hoping and yearning to return to their homeland. They achieved it under the auspices of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, and with the religious leadership of the prophets Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra. They were then banished a second time by Vespasian, Emperor of Rome, and through thousands of years of exile they continued to pray for a return to Zion.
The Sages fostered in the people the desire to return to God’s land, and preached help for the residents of Israel so that the Jewish population in Israel would not end. In the course of successive generations, the yearning for redemption and nostalgia for the Holy Land attracted the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where they went individually or as a family, stimulated by a purely religious feeling. Each group of immigrants awoke anew the nostalgic desire that exerted deep feelings for a return to the land. Historically, those inspired to come back to the land were the Jews who remained adhered to the ancient Jewish traditions. Thus, important immigrations maintained the spirit of return to the holy land from the most remote times throughout the Ancient and Middle Ages. In Modernity, Zionism gave political expression to this longing for return.
The State of Israel and the mission of the Jewish people
The State of Israel is already a reality. After years of political, diplomatic, ideological, cultural and military struggle, the Jewish people have their own State, as corresponds to all the nations of the world. However, now that the problem of where to live has been solved, the question is why to continue: how to fill the modern Jewish state with transcendental content? How to revitalize the Jewish national ideal in a new historical context?
Judaism has always longed to return to the Land of Israel for a transcendent goal: to fulfill the Divine Will, transmitted through the Torah, and spread the eternal values of kindness and solidarity to humanity. The Land of Israel must continue to represent what it did thousands of years ago: a spiritual center to live according to God’s revelation in its fullness and transmit His ethical and humanitarian message to the nations.
The Creator first revealed Himself to the descendants of Abraham and transformed them into a nation when He gave them the Torah, in the vast aridity of the desert. Before the people entered the land, God gave His Torah to teach us that existence does not depend on the land but rather on our attachment to His Torah. It is the Torah that must exist. Practicing the revelation of God mobilizes civil society towards the enduring and stable values promoted by the Jewish tradition: justice, righteousness, morality and human dignity.
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