Living with Moshiach: Devarim

“See, I have set the land before you. Come and possess the land G-d swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give unto them and to their descendants after them.”

-Devarim 1:8

Rashi comments: “‘Come and possess the land’-there is no one to contest the matter, and you need not wage war. Indeed, if they had not sent the spies, they would not have needed any weapons.”

The Almighty Himself had promised the Jewish People that He would give them the Land of Israel. Quite obviously, then, no one can contest this. The People of Israel, therefore, could have taken possession of the land without a battle, and even without any armor to deter a potential enemy.

Unfortunately, however, the people lacked faith. They did not rely on G-d to bring them into the land in a miraculous way. They lost that opportunity when they demanded, “Let us send men ahead of us, to explore for us the land and to bring us back a report...” (Devarim 1:22). Their attitude and conduct made it necessary for them to follow natural procedures in taking over the land: they met opposition on the part of the inhabitants which forced them to wage wars in order to assert their Divine right to the land.

There is a moral in this for our own times and present condition:

The future redemption by Moshiach is said to be analogous to the exodus from Egypt: “As in the days of your going out from the land of Egypt, I will show them wondrous things” (Michah 7:15). In fact, the wonders and miracles of the Messianic redemption will exceed those of the exodus. If, then, the entry into, and settlement of, the Land of Israel by those who were freed from the Egyptian exile was supposed to be in a miraculous way-“There is no one to contest the matter, and you need not wage war”-how much more so will this be the case with the Messianic redemption in our own days!

Nowadays, too, just as then, this matter depends on the Jewish people themselves. We must show absolute faith in G-d and His promise, that the entire Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel! We must not be afraid to inform the nations of the world, clearly and unequivocally, that the Land of Israel is Israel’s eternal legacy. “Should the people of the world say to Israel, ‘You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations (of Canaan),’ they can respond to them: ‘The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and He gave it to whom He saw fit. (The Land of Israel) was given to (the nations) by His Will, and by His Will He took it from them and gave it to us!’ ” (Rashi on Genesis 1:1).

When we shall demonstrate this true and absolute faith in G-d, we shall merit immediately the promise “No one will contest this, and there will be no more wars nor the need for any weapons”: “I shall break from the earth the bow, the sword and warfare, and I shall make them lie down securely” (Hosea 2:20).