Enter Yitzchak.
Yitzchak is described by Rashi as a korban (sacrifice). Indeed, he is a figure who does not take many positive actions. Avraham had tests, fought in wars, was visited by angels, saved Lot from Sodom, etc. Yaakov also lived an eventful life: He fought with his brother, dealt with Lavan’s trickery, wrestled with an angel, etc.
Yitzchak, however, does not have many adventures. He is a more passive figure. But Avraham was born outside Eretz Yisrael. And Yaakov’s departure to Egypt began the chain of events which led to the Exodus and the necessary events that followed. Yitzchak, who was born in and never left the Land, solidified the Jewish claim to it. Without him, the Land might seem a mere temporary stopover in Avraham and Yaakov’s sojourns.
The Torah therefore twice mentions that Yitzchak was confined to Eretz Yisrael. First, in Chayei Sarah, Avraham prohibited Eliezer from taking Yitzchak out of Eretz Yisrael, even if the woman whom Eliezer finds for Yitzchak were to request it. Avraham exclaims, “Beware not to return my son to there,” and continued to cite God’s promise “to your offspring I will give this land” as justification (24:6-7).
Then, in Toldot, when there was a famine in Eretz Yisrael, God commanded Yitzchak: “Don’t go down to Egypt,” but “dwell in the Land … for to you and your descendants I will give these lands” (26:2-3). By twice mentioning that Yitzchak was forbidden to leave Eretz Yisrael and by rooting this prohibition in the inheritance of the Land, the Torah recognized the importance of Yitzchak’s lifelong residency in Eretz Yisrael to the Jewish claim to the Land.
The underlying conclusion to draw from the Torah’s emphasis on the legal claim of the Jews to Eretz Yisrael – as grantees, conquerors, purchasers, inheritors, possessors, and ultimately rightful owners – is the necessity of asserting that claim.
By returning to the Land and struggling for it, the Jews have continuously buttressed their legal claim to Eretz Yisrael. This is important because of the principle of “adverse possession,” according to which someone can acquire title to land by taking up residence there if the original owner does not challenge the squatter’s claim after a certain amount of time set by the statute of limitations.
The Gemara states a similar principle. If an owner gives up his claim to stolen property by abandoning hope that he will ever get it back, the property becomes hefker and he loses title. When Rav Kook testified before a League of Nations commission in 1930 about the Jewish right to the Kotel and Eretz Yisrael, the commission’s chairman argued that the Jews had not controlled the Land for almost two thousand years. Rav Kook responded that “if a person steals someone else’s land, and the rightful owner continuously protests the theft, he retains ownership….”
In many cases, however, the original owner cannot make a claim to his property. In New York State, for example, if a painting is stolen and its whereabouts are unknowable, the statute of limitations will not begin to run against the original owner’s claim until he can discover the possessor/location of the painting, which would enable him to bring his claim.
After the expulsion following the Bar Kochba revolt, a plurality of the Jewish People would not live in Eretz Yisrael for nearly 1,900 years. Of course, this was not possible because the empires occupying the Land would not allow it.
But the Jews refused to abandon their claim. They prayed for and toward the Land from the time their prayers were set. They became like the original owner of stolen art who does not know who currently possesses the art and has no one to sue.
Emancipation, however, afforded Jews the opportunity to restate their claim to the Land. As individuals, they could, and did, immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. They were also able to organize the Zionist movement, which, as Herzl wrote in The Jewish State, aimed to make the Jewish question “a political world-question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world in council.”
The movement eventually obtained the League of Nations’ “recognition … to the historical connection of the Jewish People with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” in the Palestine Mandate. This ultimately led to the creation of the Jewish state.