Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.

In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the Torah reading of the week.

Marseille, the religious significance of Israel. The long journey is nearing its close. The

Jordan is almost within sight. We've read the long itinerary of stops along the way.

Finally, we are reaching the end of the list of encampments. And God tells Moses,

take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess.

This, according to Nachmanides, is the source of the command to dwell in the

land of Israel and inherit it. With this, we come to one of the central tensions in Judaism and

Jewish history, the religious significance of the land of Israel. Its centrality cannot be doubted.

Whatever the subplots and subsidiary themes of Tenach, its overarching narrative is the promise of and journey to the land. Jewish history begins

with Abraham and Sarah's journey to it. The four subsequent books of the Torah from Exodus to Deuteronomy

are taken up with the second journey in the days of Moses. Tanakh as a whole ends with Cyrus,

king of Persia granting permission to Jews exiled in Babylon to return to their land, the third great

journey. The paradox of Jewish history is that although a specific territory the Holy Land is at its heart,

Jews have spent more time in exile than in Israel, more time longing for it than dwelling in it,

more time traveling than arriving.

Much of the Jewish story could be written in the language of

Parshot-Masei. They journeyed from X and camped at Y. Hence the tension. On the one hand,

monotheism must understand God as non-territorial. The god of everywhere can be found anywhere. He is not confined to this

people or that place, as pagans believe. He exercises his power even in Egypt. He

sends a prophet Jonah to Nineveh in Assyria. He's with another prophet

Ezekiel in Babylon. There is no place in the universe where he is not.

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