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Parshat Vayeira
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Discovering the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

"וירא אליו ה' באלוני ממרא"

‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, protect and save your beloved People of Israel from all evil for the sake of Your praise. When the holy beloved Shabbat ends, may this week, this month , and this year, come upon us with complete faith, faith in the Sages, love of our fellowman, devotion to the Creator Blessed be He...’ (Prayer of R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev for Motzei Shabbat)

As we culminate this ‘Hebronian Year’, which began last year with the week of parshat Chayei Sara, we bless all our readers that ‘this (coming) year, come upon us with complete faith, faith in the Sages, love of our fellowman, devotion to the Creator Blessed be He...’ through the merit and covenant with our Patriarchs of Hebron as we turn to HaShem as ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’.

Two years ago we went on a spiritual voyage through many cities and locations in the Land of Israel and showed Hebron’s spiritual influence on these locations. This past year we have gone through a journey among the various sites and locations within Hebron itself, homiletically interpreting the names of these places. Therefore, as we culminate these two years we would like to touch both on Hebron’s influence on locations, as we did two years ago, and at the same time stay relatively close to the vicinity of Hebron itself, as we did in the past year.

For example, names of neighborhoods in the vicinity of Hebron, such as Givat HaAvot - ‘Patriarchs’ Hill’, Ramat and Nofei Mamreh (also a girls’ school called ‘Elonai Mamreh’), are named after Hebron’s  additional name Mamreh, all reflect Hebron’s expanding influence especially in these locations. These places are even within the limits of Hebron’s ‘eiruv’. Going several kilometers to the south we also find a whole regional county called ‘Har Hebron’, which includes about twenty(!) towns and settlements. The names of numbers of towns in this county reflect their connection to Hebron or to important people who lived in Hebron. For example, Maaleh Heber means the ‘Heights of Heber=Hebron’. Other towns in the Har Hebron County, such as Maon, Karmel, Abigail, Asahel are names (places/people) mentioned explicitly in context of King David’s reign in Hebron. Yet another town is called Otniel after the great judge of Israel, Otniel ben Kenaz, who is buried in Hebron. If we go numbers of kilometers north of Hebron we reach the town Karmei Tzur - ‘the Vineyards of Tzur’. This town’s name may allude to an additional name of Hebron according to the Midrash, Eshkol which means ‘grape-vine,’ after the grapes taken from this location by the spies sent from the Wilderness to show the giant fruit of the Land. This Land, ‘Haaretz’, has the identical numerical value of ‘Tzur’ (296), as in Karmei ‘Tzur’.

Just as Hebron can be compared to the heart of the cities of Israel, while Jerusalem can be compared to the brain of these cities (this conceptualization has been discussed in depth in parshat Bo of last year along with other parshiot), so too the locations in Hebron’s vicinity can be compared to its ‘cardiac veins and arteries’, playing an important role in Hebron’s spiritual grandeur and influence across the globe.

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #241

‘I invited a Rabbi to deliver a shiur in the Beit Midrash that I run. It ‘turns out’ that the very same day that this Rabbi gave this shiur in my Beit Midrash my wife just ‘happened’ to talk with this Rabbi’s wife for the first time to arrange an appointment with her for the next week. Needless to say, that my wife did not know that this woman’s husband was delivering a shiur by my Beit Midrash that very day.’ A.G

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