Homesick

Let not the Land vomit you out for having made it impure... (Lev 18:28)

This can be compared to the son of a king whom they fed something repulsive, which cannot stay in his stomach, but rather, he vomits it out. Similarly, Eretz Yisrael does not abide transgressors. (Rashi, ibid.)

The above verse has always fascinated me; the use of such imagery is a graphic warning to those who would transgress the Torah's dictums and bring impurity into the Holy Land. However, over the past few years - especially after my tenure there as a Yeshiva student - there has been one question that to me is glaringly obvious: The fact of the matter is, we have the misfortune of seeing all sorts of horrible things happening in the Holy Land - things that are in direct conflict with the Torah's laws, sometimes even purposeful violations - and nothing has happened!

Some of the very acts described in the verses preceding ours are being carried out day and night, and the Holy Land hasn't even let out a tremor of nausea? What's happening here?

I have a theory - for which I haven't found any corroboration in the classic commentaries yet - that may explain why the Holy Land has yet to vomit us out.

We all know that vomiting is the body's way of purging a foreign, harmful substance from inside it; it is a protective measure against illness, wherein the body rejects the potentially dangerous material before it can do any substantial damage. This is what happens in the early stages of illness as a way of staving off infection. Antibodies flood the affected area and begin fighting off the offending bacteria or virus and help restore the body's health. But what happens when the body is overwhelmed by the sickness, when there is simply too much to deal with, when the sickness has metastasized and spread through to other parts of the organism?

At some point, the body starts to shut down, and reroutes its reserves toward maintaining the vitals - the brain, the heart, the lungs, etc.

I believe that this may be a very powerful way of understanding what is happening in our Holy Land. The inherent holiness of Eretz Yisrael, coupled with the many fine institutions that continue to grow and proliferate and spread a message of Torah-true Judaism - these are all keeping the Holy Land alive, but just barely. Those are reserves that keep the Land running, but more than that, there just isn't enough power to do anything else, certainly not to unceremoniously expel all those who bring sin into the Land.

But lest you think that this is a polemic against the secular Israelis and the Israeli government, I want to dispel that notion. To blame the non-religious exclusively would be foolhardy and unfounded; while they may be actively involved in some of the transgressions listed previously in our Torah portion, that doesn't leave us off the hook, not by a longshot.

What happened to our approach to the Holy Land? Our attitude? How do we perceive Eretz Yisrael - more importantly, how do we conduct ourselves when we have the merit to be there? The unfortunate truth is that many of us see 'Israel' as a tourist destination, the final stop on a tour through Europe. The ruins that can teach us so much about our past; the holy sites where our sages and antecedents are buried and memorialized - these are all brief stops on our pilgrimage to Ceasaria or Eilat (Ceasaria was built by Herod to honor the Romans, and Eilat isn't even within the biblical borders of Eretz Yisrael). In the holy city of Jerusalem - less than a twenty minute walk from the Kotel and the holiest physical place in the world - girls and boys presumably there to further their spiritual education in the various seminaries and yeshivot gallivant around town until the wee hours of the morning. People actually complain about the Land, and bemoan the fact that they don't have the exact products that are so readily available in America and elsewhere.

The truth is that even the people who live there don't always appreciate what they have. How else do you explain the utter squalor that smacks you in the face when you approach some of the more religious neighborhoods? Trash literally lines the roads, and the overflow of debris is astounding! People spit on the ground as they walk, and carelessly drop their crumpled up receipts on the ground as the exit stores.

All the things that I just mentioned are mere symptoms of a much more serious problem. What has happened to the reverence, the respectful approach that we must have concerning our Land? We have transferred our assumed lack of dignity onto the Holy Land which is a birthright given to us by God. We have taken that for granted, and in our lack of sensitivity to the Land, we have all weakened it, to the point that it can barely maintain its vitals, and certainly not actively reject any wrongdoing.

Remember this on your next trip to Eretz Yisrael: it is a holy Land, unlike any other, deserving - demanding - our respect and love. Only by treating it in a dignified manner will we be able to appreciate what has been given to us.

May the Master of the World help us to raise our sensitivity to His Land, and may he redeem us and restore the Land to it's elevated state soon, Amen.