Parshat Shelach-Lecha contains a justly famous description of the Land of Israel as a "land flowing with milk and honey." The riches of Eretz Yisrael have endowed our people with a sense of home and of promise from our earliest ages. But why should a contemporary Jew, at home in America and comfortable with English, care about Israel? What has Israel done for us lately?
Any visitor to Israel cannot help but be moved by the archaeological testimony of the Jewish past; David's City, the steps leading up to Solomon's Temple, Massada, site of the Jewish resistance against Rome, the tomb of Maimonides, the synagogues of the fourth and fifth centuries, the synagogues of the medieval mystics of Safed. Each age of Jewish civilization has left its mark in the Land of Israel, and the great treasures which have come to light due to the careful studies and exploration of Israel's archaeologists -- the most notable of which are the Dead Sea Scrolls -- enrich our sense of belonging and of peoplehood for Jews everywhere.
For too long, Jews were reputed to be weak, passive and incapable of productive work. Hidden inside dimly-lit houses of study, Jewish pedants supposedly would mull over obscure and archaic books, while Jews lived in fear, poverty and ignorance.
While that characterization is not an accurate reflection of Jewish history, it is shared by many Jews as well. The Zionist Movement and, later, the State of Israel, deliberately encouraged a new self-image for the Jew. No longer a figure of weakness or passivity, Zionist women and men were pioneers -- transforming the desert into bounteous farmland, restoring ruined cities to prosperity and habitation.
Israel's ability to defend itself against a sea of hostile and implacable neighbors, Israel's vibrant (and occasionally chaotic) democratic system, and Israel's first-rate system of schools and universities have restored an image of Jewish self-worth that had been denied for too long.
While it is certainly true that many Jewish artists, writers and thinkers adorn Jewish communities of the Diaspora, it is no less true that Israel has had a tremendous impact on Jewish culture throughout the world.
Think, for a moment, about how many synagogues and Jewish centers offer Hebrew classes. Now recall that until this century, Hebrew was not a spoken language. Like classical Greek or Latin, Hebrew was a language that scholars read. But it hadn't been used as a living language for two thousand years.
Zionism restored Hebrew to life. Israel is a living laboratory for Jewish expression in the modern world. In Israel, Jews must resolve questions of power, violence, government and being a majority in ways that Jews elsewhere only think about. As a consequence, Israel's writers and thinkers exert an influence out of proportion to their numbers. Writers such as Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, poets like Yehudah Amichai, and philosophers such as David Hartman, Emil Fackenheim and Eliezer Schweid have profoundly shaped Jewish thinking and Jewish culture.
During the Shoah, every nation in the world closed its borders to fleeing Jews. Countless millions would have survived if the western democracies would have taken them in. During World War II, Jews had nowhere to go. With the establishment of the State of Israel, all Jews acquired a second home. Israel has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Ethiopia and elsewhere.
Oppressed Jews are no longer abandoned -- they now have a haven in Israel. That concern for the abandoned extends even beyond a concern for Jews alone. When the "boat people" of Southeast Asia were drowning at sea, Israel opened its arms to them. In fact, Israel took in more Indochinese refugees than any other country except the U.S.A.!
When Arabs in Jordan or Lebanon need advanced medical help, they utilize the free medical expertise of Israeli hospitals. Israeli experts flew to the Soviet Union to save lives following the catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
For all of these reasons -- biblical memory, rabbinic longing and love, unity of the Jewish People, a renewed Jewish culture, pride, character and a haven for oppressed Jews -- Israel is still the land of milk and honey, still our eternal homeland, regardless of where we hang our 'kipot.'
Shabbat Shalom!