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Parshat Va'eira
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו 

Connecting to the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

"וידבר ה' אל משה ואל אהרן ויצום אל בני ישראל... להוציא את בני ישראל מארץ מצרים"

"May the Merciful One send us Elijah the prophet remembered for good, and may he deliver us good tidings, salvation and comfort."

Just as our first redemption from Egypt came about through a prophet - the messenger of God, Moshe, so too the future redemption will come about through the prophet Elijah. As we have shown in the past, one of the primary motives of the first redemption and of our future redemption is to bring our People to the Holy Land, thereby uniting us with the Holy Presence therein.

With the same token, the concept of 'sending a messenger' in regard to bringing the People to the Land is echoed in halacha in the significance of 'messengers' especially in regard to mitzvoth that pertain to the Land, and especially in regard to the mitzvah of Truma. Our Sages learn some of the most fundamental laws in regard to messengers in general in halacha from the verses in the Torah that talk of summoning messengers in order to take truma from produce. One of these laws learns from the Torah's words 'you shall also lift' that just as the one initially obligated to take the truma is a Jew, so too his messenger to take ('lift') truma must 'also' be a Jew. This law sheds light on the spiritual nature of a messenger, considered to be an 'extended hand' of the sender, thereby implying that only a messenger of the same People can be considered to be united with the sender in such a special way. Although this law pertains to all laws of messengers in the Torah, the fact that it is learned from the mitzva of truma, which is unique to the Holy Land, seems to remarkably reflect the nature of the Land of Israel in relationship to our People in general.

In the past we have noted how verses, laws, and more point to the fact that Israel are considered truly one people only in the Land of Israel, as it says 'one People in the Land'.  Also, especially in regard to Truma did we learn that the Biblical obligation of truma only takes hold when the majority of Israel live in the Land of Israel, a matter that once again highlights the common responsibility and unity of our People in regard to the Land of Israel. This, in turn, is also the message of the beacon of the Land of Israel - Hebron, which reminds us always our common roots in beautiful unity - Hebron (hibur - unity)!

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #103:

"Once I was learning Torah with a group, and we side-tracked to a different topic within the discussion. Just when we finished learning, I began another learning session with a hevrusa (learning partner) and unknowingly the section we began to learn was exactly on the topic we had 'side-tracked' to in the learning session just before..." (M.G)  

Sources: Rambam Trumot 1, 26 and ibid 4, 1 

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