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

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Inviting the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

"And You Shall Bury Me in My Father's Grave"

“Blessed are You HaShem Who revives the dead.”

The belief in rectification of the dead in Judaism includes both the literal rectification of the dead and the figurative rectification of the dead, i.e the return of a historically ‘dead’ People, the People of Israel, exiled for thousands of years from their national homeland, to be revived and ‘rectified’, and return to their homeland, the Holy Land, in the age of Redemption. These two conceptualizations come together in the dependency of the Holy Land for the process of the literal rectification. According to our Sages, the righteous dead of the Diaspora will be ‘rolled’ in tunnels to The Land in order to be resurrected in The Land, while those who are not righteous will be ‘rolled’ to the Land without tunnels, in order to be resurrected. This is the reason, according to our Sages, that both Yakov and Yosef asked to be buried in the Land of Israel in this parsha.

Not only is the Land of Israel singled out for its high spiritual value in regard to burial and the resurrection, but also Hebron, Beacon of the Holy Land, is singled out for its high value in regard to burial and the afterlife. So writes Rabbi Tokachinsky zt’l, one of the foremost halachic authorities on modern burial and mourning in ‘Gesher Hahaim’ (p.299) ‘It is an ancient tradition that the dead (who died in Hebron) are not to be sent to be buried outside of Hebron, even to Jerusalem, and even if the deceased had bought a grave or had a family grave-site in Jerusalem.

Aside of the Patriarchs, Nahmanides is yet another example of one of our People’s spiritual giants who requested to be buried in Hebron. If Nahmanides is actually buried in Hebron is up to debate, but the fact that he writes in one of his last letters that he plans to dig himself a grave in Hebron is under no controversy. This last testament itself is enough to show the high regard Nahmanides held to burial in Hebron. In fact, his high regard of Hebron, Beacon of the Holy Land, specifically, may also be linked to Nahmanides’ high regard to the Land of Israel in general, as can be seen in many of his writings and in his actual move to the Land of Israel at the end of his days. In similarity with numbers of figures we mentioned before who held special endearment of the Holy Land, Nahmanides too was a master of Kabbalah, one of Torah’s doctrines that puts much emphasis on the Holy Presence in the Holy Land. Since there is so much material about Nahmanides, we will pare down our description of his life to his latter years in the Holy Land.

In 5027 (1267 CE) Nahmanides made Aliyah from Spain, where he had lived, to Jerusalem. There he established a synagogue that exists until the present day, known as the Ramban Synagogue. Nachmanides then settled in Acco, where he was very active in spreading Torah study, which was at that time very much neglected in the Land of Israel. He gathered a circle of students around him, and people came in crowds, even from the district of the Euphrates, to hear him. It is in the Land of Israel that the Ramban wrote much of his most famous work, his commentary on the Chumash. One of his comments on the words ‘kivrat eretz’, found also this week’s parsha, provides a unique glimpse into the life of the Ramban in the Holy Land. Originally, Nahmanides wrote that ‘kivrat eretz’ denotes a far distance, meaning that Rachel is buried far from the city of Beit Lehem. However, after making aliyah, he writes: ‘so I wrote before, but now that I have come to Jerusalem, praise to the Good and Benevolent God, I saw that there isn’t even a mile from the tomb of Rachel to Beit Lehem...’ Therefore, Nahmanides poses a different interpretation that ‘kivrat eretz’ is actually a very small distance. This visit of Nahmanides to Rachel’s Tomb most probably occurred on his chronicled journey from Jerusalem to Hebron, after which he returned to Acco. This journey may remind us of our Father Yakov who traveled through Bethlehem to Hebron, the home of Avraham and Yitzhak. Indeed this is Hebron, our People’s home city in life and death, and also in the afterlife.

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Real Stories from the Holy Land #248

"About two years ago a friend of mine asked me to pray that he be able to buy a more smoothly-driving car. Of all things to asked for I was humored by this request, but I agreed to pray for this. After two years my own car broke down, and I looked to buy a car for myself. Just then, my friend indeed found ‘the car of his dreams’. Therefore, he offered to me to borrow his old car for an extended period of time, free of charge."

Sources: Wikipedia on Ramban

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