Friday, November 11, 2005

TT: This is Not About Aliya

From This Week's Torah Tidbits:

This is not about Aliya
This will teach you not to always rely on headlines to tell you what the Lead Tidbit is about. Of course it is about Aliya. Why shouldn't it be. G-d told Avra(ha)m to go to the Land that He will show him. That was and is Eretz Yisrael. But more than G-d telling Avraham to go to Eretz Yisrael, He told US that He told Avraham to go to Eretz Yisrael. [Go ahead - reread that sentence until it sinks in. Then proceed.]

Take a look at B'reishit 16:16. And Avram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Yishmael... Now look at the next pasuk, 17:1. And Avram was 99 years old... There is a 13-year gap between these two p'sukim. What happened during those 13 years? We don't know. And do you know why? Because G-d didn't tell us about those years. And that is because whatever happened during those 13 years has nothing to teach us. Whatever the Torah tells us is there to teach us things. If it's in the Torah, we have something to learn. If it isn't there, there's nothing for us to learn.

Which brings us back to G-d telling Avraham to go to Eretz Yisrael and giving the Land to him in perpetuity - AND to His telling us.

This (Eretz Yisrael) is where He wanted Avraham and Sarah to be, to live, and to become the progenitors of the Jewish People. And this is where He wants us to be too. It's almost as simple as that.

Of course, it isn't just living here. It is committing ourselves to G-d, His Torah, the way of life He wants us to follow.

When you have guests and they leave, do you escort them to the door and walk them out a little? If you do, you learned it from Avraham Avinu. If you don't, you should. Because that is one of the lessons G-d wants us to learn from Avraham.

Did you leave your native country, your hometown, your father's house and come to live in Israel? Good. Just what HaShem wants of us. Not yet? Don't wait too long.

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