|
Hebron: The struggle for
the Holy Land in micro
By Rabbi Berel Wein
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
The city of Chevron (Hebron) is very prominent in our world and in the daily news
reports. The news from Chevron is not always encouraging. It is a tough
place, this Chevron of ours. A tough place to live and a tough place to
leave.
In the Torah we read of the purchase of the Cave of Machpela by our
father Abraham. This purchase was supposed to eternally establish that holy
place as being the property of the people of Israel. But it hasn't worked
out that way. Over the long centuries, Ishmael and his descendants and
Esau and his descendants have successfully contested Israel for these
premises innumerable times. For over a millennium Jews were not allowed to
enter the building, which supposedly rests on the top of that burial cave.
The right of Jews to live in Chevron is and has always been contested far
more bitterly than even the right of Jews to live in Jerusalem.
Why? What is the secret of Chevron that makes it so dangerous and so
contested a place for Jewish settlement and security? The Talmud mentions
that there are three locations in the Land of Israel, which are indisputably
the legal property of the Jewish people. They are the Cave of Machpela in
Chevron, the field outside Shechem/Nablus in Samaria, and the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem. All three locations were purchased by the leaders of Israel -
Abraham, Jacob, David - for good and valuable consideration and for full, if
not more than full, market value.
The purchases and the details of those
purchases are all recorded in the Bible. Yet, over our long history, even
till this very moment, our title to all three locations is in dispute. The
insight into this paradoxical situation may be that the very reason these
properties are contested - because our claim to them is based on man-made
law and contracts and deeds and not on Divine promise.
All contracts, even
all purchases in this world of ours, are always subject to review, revision
and cancellation. Governments rise and fall, circumstances and situations
change, the definition of "rights" is altered by fiat or common consent. In
short, nothing ever remains the same. Nothing in the world created by man is
permanent. Therefore, the general world, and certainly the Arab world,
contests our claim of ownership to these parcels of land in Israel. Our deed
is outdated and no longer valid, they say. We abandoned our claim long ago
by not being present on those properties for long centuries.
The Indian tribes in America also had signed and legal government deeds to
large sections of the United States, but when the circumstances "changed,"
the deeds were abrogated, and the Indian tribes' claim to the land was
disallowed. Claims to land are not very secure if they are based only upon
legalities, purchases and contracts.
The entire thrust of the book of
Genesis is that the world and its lands and properties belong not to man
but to the Creator. The claim of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel is
not based on contracts and deeds. Indeed, it is not based even on Balfour
Declarations and United Nations' resolutions. It is based upon the Godly
promise to our ancestors that the Land of Israel belongs, by right of Godly
fiat, to their descendants.
Those Jews, who, for various personal and faith reasons, deny this Godly
promise, are very hard pressed to justify the existence of the state of
Israel and the Jewish claim to Jerusalem.
Without this justification of
belief and Jewish tradition, the claim of the nations of the world that "you
are thieves" sounds plausible and correct. The faith of Israel is based upon
the revelation and will of our eternal Creator. We certainly have to do our
part, for G-d certainly helps those who help themselves.
But, in the final
analysis, it is obvious that we derive our rights and claims not merely from
current behavior, but rather from rights based upon ancient faith and
religious tenets and beliefs. As Rabbi Saadya Gaon stated: "Our nationhood
is based solely on the Torah." Chevron and the Cave of Machpela prove how
right he is.
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JWR contributor Rabbi Berel Wein is one of Jewry's foremost historians and
founder of the Destiny Foundation.
He has authored over 650 tapes, books and videos which you can purchase at RabbiWein.com.
Comment by clicking here or calling 1-800-499-WEIN (9346).
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