The very first Rashi in Bereishis (Genesis) asks, “Why does the Torah commence with the creation of the heavens and the earth?” After all, the Torah is a book of commandments. So would it not have been more logical to begin with the very first commandment given to our people as they departed Egypt on their way to Sinai?
But those opening words of Bereishis are clear. “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth.” Why? The answer Rashi gives is amazing. He quotes his own father. “When the Jewish people shall return to their land the nations will accuse them, saying “You are thieves, you have taken this land by force.”
At that time, Rashi’s father taught him, you must point to the Torah and respond, “G-d created the heavens and the earth and the world belongs to Him.” G-d designated this land for the Jews. It is He who gave it to us and it is He who set our boundaries.
I have mentioned this during many press conferences in Israel over the years and I never tire of adding, “If only Israel’s representatives at the UN and our spokespeople everywhere would point to our Torah and declare that it is the Bible that has deeded the land to us.”
There is no other nation that can make such a claim. No nation can find its boundaries delineated in the Bible. Israel came to its inheritance, its land, by the will of G-d. That land is called the “Promised Land” because it was promised to the Jewish people.
I am a survivor of the Holocaust who will unabashedly tell you it is wrong for us to justify our homecoming to Eretz Yisrael based on the Holocaust. The land was, is, and would be our inheritance regardless of whether the Holocaust had occurred. Indeed, the enemies surrounding Israel have protested time and again that they resent being penalized for the sins of the Europeans. The Europeans, they say, should provide a homeland for the Jews. It is they who uprooted them; it is they who unleashed the bloodbaths against them through the centuries; it is they who built the death camps, the gas chambers, and the crematoria.
Why have we been so reluctant to present our case as the very first Rashi teaches? Could it be that we are ashamed to be so simplistic as to base our rights to our land on the Bible? Could it be that we are so alienated from our traditions, from our faith, from the Word of G-d, that we find it an embarrassment to refer to them?
Years ago we learned a simple teaching that many have yet to learn today. “Torah, Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, chad hu – Torah, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel are one and indivisible – never to be divided.” It is only when we are connected that we realize our mission and power. Divided we are maimed and weak. United we are eternal and invincible.
Until such time that we will have the courage to stand up and openly declare to the world – and better still to ourselves – who we are, from where we came, and how it is that we inherited the Land of Israel, we will be attacked and our ownership of the land will be questioned. Yes, we are the nation that stood at Sinai and it was there that G-d bequeathed to us our Promised Land. If we cannot tell this simple truth, if we are in denial of Sinai, what are we all about?
There is one more passage from the Torah we need to bear in mind. “Ki hi chachmaschem – for this is your wisdom in the sight of the nations.” How foolish that we try to negotiate with this government and that government, with this prime minister and that prime minister, with this president and that president. Although all these actions have failed to bring us the peace we so desperately need, we still fail to understand that the laws that dominate our lives are not the same laws that control the lives of other nations. Our constitution, our very survival, comes from only one source – our G-d-given Torah.