1.
Jewish time has the ability to extract us from our daily routine and elevate our gaze beyond the here and now, so that we may draw comfort and encouragement in the face of the challenges of the era. Each generation and its challenges.
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At the dawn of our existence, we were commanded to observe the Passover holiday, our national birthday, which falls in the spring. "Observe the month of Aviv (spring) and make a Passover offering ..." In the spring, when nature awakens after the winter slumber, our nation was born from the womb of the Egyptian empire. From here, we were commanded to count seven weeks and celebrate Atzeret, the fiftieth day, which is the holiday of Shavuot, on which tradition holds that we received our first constitution in the desert. If you will, a soul was infused into our national body to help it walk through the valley of the shadow of death of nations and peoples and act for the benefit of humanity.
Between the birth of the national body and the infusion of the spirit within it falls the month of Iyar in which many national events are concentrated -- especially in the modern era: First and foremost among them is the 5th of Iyar, the day of the declaration of the establishment of the state. The infant born in 5708 was conceived 28 years earlier from the 1st to the 7th of Iyar, at the San Remo Conference in 1920, where, for the first time since the destruction of the Temple, the nations of the world recognized our rights to our land and tasked Great Britain with fulfilling the Balfour Declaration regarding the establishment of a national home for our people in the Land of Israel. Toward the end of the month, on the 28th of Iyar (1967), the Old City of Jerusalem was liberated and reunited with its western part. Between the 17th and the 25th of Iyar, a series of events unfolded that concluded World War II, starting with the suicide of the tyrant, and ending with the signing of Nazi Germany's official surrender before the Allied powers.
Lag BaOmer, which falls on the 18th of Iyar, commemorates the memory of our people's fight for independence from the Roman Empire in the Bar Kokhba revolt between 132 and 135 CE. The revolt failed and exacted a tremendous toll on lives and property. It led to Judea being depopulated of Jews for a long time. In the wake of the rebellion, the Roman authorities changed the name of the province from "Judea" to "Syria Palaestina." The attainment of independence in modern times during that very same month is a historical correction.
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Every year in the month of Iyar, we complete the reading of the third book of the Torah, Vayikra (Leviticus), and this too is part of our pantheon of national dates, as, towards the end of Leviticus (Chapter 25), the Torah speaks about the relationship to a specific soil, the soil of the Land of Israel on which our national home was established. Firstly, there is the commandment of Shemitah (the Sabbatical year in which the soil is rested from cultivation every seventh year), and after that comes the commandment of Yovel (Jubilee, the fiftieth year), in which, in addition to the land being left fallow, it is returned to its original owners.
Leviticus continues: "If one of your kin is in straits and has to sell part of a holding, the nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what that relative has sold. Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption… If that person lacks sufficient means to recover it, what was sold shall remain with the purchaser until the jubilee; in the jubilee year it shall be released, so that the person returns to that holding. " (Ibid 25:25-29). When a person loses their wealth and therefore sells their land, their relatives are commanded to redeem their ancestral inheritance and restore it to the family. And if that person has no relative who can redeem the land, he is commanded to make the necessary effort to rehabilitate himself financially, so they are able to redeem their land themselves. And if they have no relatives and are unable to obtain the necessary sums, the land remains in the possession of the buyer until the Jubilee year, and then it shall be returned to its original owner.
These verses were not taught merely as an individual commandment, they are first and foremost a national commandment. The Land of Israel was under foreign occupation and these verses call upon us to redeem it, to demand its liberation.
Jeremiah, the prophet of destruction, says in the sixth Century BCE: "Though they called you Outcast. That Zion whom no one seeks out." This was the situation for centuries; the people were in national slumber and did not act to redeem the land. Until we awakened and were resurrected. It is from these verses that the pioneers of the modern era took the concept of "redemption of the land."
3.
In the 19th century, toward the end of the Ottoman era, Jews began to purchase lands in the Land of Israel. They paid in full to buy land from families who had acquired it from the Turks a relatively short time before. In 1807, Rabbi Bajayo, a descendant of Sephardic exiles, bought lands in Hebron, and in 1834, Yisrael Bak, from Berdichev in Ukraine, purchased lands in Mount Meron. In 1839, the Abu family from Algeria acquired lands in the Galilee, and in 1842, the Sephardic community in Jaffa redeemed lands along the banks of the Ayalon River. In 1855, the British-Sephardic financier Sir Moses Montefiore purchased the lands of Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the first Jewish neighborhood outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. David Yellin redeemed lands in Motza in 1860, and in 1865, Jews from Morocco purchased land for "Machane Israel," the second Jewish neighborhood outside the Old City. In 1858, Rabbi Eliyahu Saliman Mani began to raise funds from the Jewish communities in Bucharest and from Montefiore for the redemption of lands in Hebron, and in 1870, the Abu family redeemed around 7,000 dunams of agricultural land in Mount Meron, where immigrants from Kurdistan and North Africa would settle. In the same manner, lands were redeemed in Petah Tikvah, Rishon LeZion, Gedera, Ness Ziona, Rehovot, Yesud HaMa'ala, Rosh Pina, Zichron Yaakov, and more. By the time Theodor Herzl came along with his political plan, Jews were already working the land in various locations outside the four holy cities, proving that we could live off our toil and sweat.
And the desolate and barren land, redeemed from its captors, returned to its youth and began to flourish. It acquiesced to its redeemers and fulfilled the words of the prophet of exile, Ezekiel, who prophesied that the land would bloom and bear fruit when the people of Israel return to it: "But you, O mountains of Israel, shall yield your produce and bear your fruit for My people Israel, for their return is near." And at the beginning of the fourth century, Rabbi Abba, of the Amoraic era, (who made Aliyah to Israel from Babylon despite the objections of his rabbis) states in the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin: "There can be no more manifest [sign of] redemption than this," Rashi, the greatest Talmudic commentator, clarified the meaning of this in the 11th century from the depths of exile in the city of Troyes, France: "When the Land of Israel will give its fruits generously, immediately, immediately the end (of the exile) is near…"
4.
The Book of Ruth, which is read on the holiday of Shavuot and tells the story of the birth of the Davidic dynasty, also discusses the redemption of the individual and the land. Ruth the Moabite, a widow who has converted, asks Boaz, a close relative of her mother-in-law Naomi, to redeem her - that is, to take her as a wife - and thus establish offspring for the family of Elimelech (Naomi's husband) whose sons had died in Moab where they had gone because of a famine. She comes to Boaz at night, and he says to her, "Stay for the night. Then in the morning, if he will act as a redeemer, good! let him redeem. But if he does not want to act as redeemer for you, I will do so myself, as the Lord lives! Lie down until morning." Remember the verses in Leviticus about the redemption of the land. There is a closer redeeming kinsman and the obligation to redeem Ruth is upon him first. But if that kinsman does not wish to fulfill his obligation, then Boaz swears by his God that he will not rest until he redeems her.
Beyond the personal and romantic story, the story is also that of the parents of the royal dynasty, and so our national history too awaits the fateful union of Boaz and Ruth. Therefore, there is a national significance to the saying that the night is the time of exile, and the morning is when the dawn of redemption breaks. When will this happen? Take the numerical value of the Hebrew letters in the words "שכבי עד הבקר" - "Lie down until morning" and they equal 5708, the Hebrew year that corresponds to 1948, the year of the establishment of the State of Israel.
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