The wholeness of the Land of Israel is the simple realization that the entire Holy Land was given to the entire Jewish People by God, the Creator. This fundamental right holds even when the Jewish People is situated on foreign land and is even truer now that we have returned to our land, settled and reclaimed it from foreign hands through extraordinary Divine Providence (for instance, the War of Independence and the Six Day War, which we recall during the month of Iyar).
“You Have Chosen Us” – Knowledge After wisdom and understanding comes knowledge. The sefirah of da’at (knowledge) is not a purely rational power, but a power of the soul that activates intellectual awareness and brings it to the fore in the emotional powers of the soul. Concepts such as recognition and responsibility, free-choice and devotion to a cause, all these belong in particular to the sefirah of knowledge, and the Zohar defines knowledge as the “key” that opens the six attributes of the heart. With reference to rectifying the state of Israel, the sefirah of knowledge focuses on the recognition that we are the Chosen People, as the verse states, “And you shall be for Me a treasure from out of all the other nations.”
Nowadays, the term “Chosen People” may seem somewhat objectionable, because it is mistakenly identified with racism. This aversion intensifies on the background of the monstrous racist theory (which we will not mention by name), whose proponents brought upon us the darkest, bloodiest period in Jewish history. But, it must be made clear that we are speaking of the difference between light and dark, and the truth is that God’s choice of the Jewish People obligates us to a greater responsibility to improve, and includes within it good and blessing for the entire world.
Trying to run away from the uniqueness of the Jewish People, or attempting to create an imaginary equality between everyone is like someone who runs away from his own self and forgets his name and identity. Forgetting one’s identity is liable to deteriorate even further to blur the boundaries between friend and foe (which unfortunately happens quite often). So, rectification must be achieved by accepting a correct, deep understanding of our Jewish uniqueness, and by linking to our chain of Jewish tradition through which runs the scarlet thread of recognition that “You have chosen us from all the nations, You love us and have desired us.”
So far, we have laid the initial foundation for rectifying the state at both the super-conscious and rational-conscious levels of the soul. Once this correct perception has been achieved, we can begin to descend to the practical levels of the process, like in our human soul from which our emotions and actions stem from the intellect that is above them and motivates them to manifest.
END OF PART I
