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In "The Mitzvah of Eretz Yisrael," Rav Shlomo Katz takes us deep into the heart and soul of one of Judaism's most profound and debated mitzvot. What does it really mean to conquer, dwell, and truly live in the land of Israel today? Is it merely about physical settlement, or is there a deeper spiritual conquest at play? Drawing on Torah sources, Chassidic insights, and practical halacha, we’ll explore questions like: How central is living in Eretz Yisrael to fulfilling our Jewish destiny? Can the mitzvah be achieved spiritually outside the land? What is our role in actively building and nurturing the land given to us by Hashem? Join us as we journey to reveal the extraordinary dimensions of this holy mitzvah.
בוקר טוב, good morning everyone. ברוכים הבאים לכולם. As we stated yesterday, the הלכות we're learning this week are very much trigger a lot of triggers here. So no one should feel like this is a directed towards anybody just to the individual.
We went with the point of learning these הלכות of מצוות ישוב הארץ is not towards like, oh, what anyone else should do. It's just a reminder, it's in order to enhance my experience of having this זכות to be מקיים את המצווה of coming back to ארץ ישראל, כיבוש הארץ and ישוב הארץ. Having said that, amongst the lot of new questions that came up in modern day Israel was when the חז"ל said the three reasons you're allowed to leave ארץ ישראל, are they still שייך the way we are in modern day Israel? Is that still the same thing? We see that especially when it comes to like a famine, when it comes to פרנסה. So, can is there a difference between someone that's a גדול and someone that's not a formal a real גדול in terms of leaving leaving the country, leaving the land in a time of famine? In a time where פרנסה is very hard.
Why? Because we see that someone did get punished for that. Who in the תנ"ך got punished because of his status, because he left ארץ ישראל, because he went somewhere else because there was a famine? אלימלך. Right. So therefore, חז"ל דרשן from that is that when it comes to גדולים, it's not so פשוט for them to leave even when the normal פשוט יהודי could leave for instance, like a famine.
However, in modern day Israel, that's not so שייך anymore. As much as maybe certain things are missing from the shelves, it's not we're not in that situation anymore that you could מצדיק that in terms of a famine. Now when it comes to the other stuff, like what finding a woman and learning Torah, so ברוך השם there are plenty of שיינע מיידלעך here in ארץ הקודש as well and there and they're also plenty of גדולים today that can teach you Torah. The question is is like, so what do we do with the what do we do with the שאלה we had yesterday? And the שאלה we ended off with yesterday was another question that comes up in modern times.
It's even a question that came up many many times in the הסדר ישיבות. Okay rabbi, my family's going on a טיול right before my גיוס. Where are they going? כ'ווייס, I don't know. מצרים.
Yes. That's a different שאלה. Can you go דוקא to Egypt? Dubai, very good. Can you go to Dubai? Right, מצרים, you know how the רמב"ם used to sign all his letters, right? The רמב"ם would sign all his letters saying, משה, העובר על שלושה לאוין בכל יום, right? Because there's three different לאוין about being going back and dwelling in Egypt.
But Dubai is a great example. The question is can can you go to Dubai? Based on the way that we understand that every that the מצווה is not just קביעות מגורים, like we learned yesterday, but it's שהייה. It's being here. And this you see, רב גורן, רב ישראלי, you see a lot of the פוסקים of this past generation are dealing with this back and forth, back and forth.
למסקנה, if you have a one way ticket, it seems to be totally okay for anybody. But he's saying over here, you can get away with anything. You can מצדיק any reason to leave ארץ ישראל. Of course, when it's for a sense of שליחות and bringing people closer to השם, ודאי, there's no שאלה about that.
But even with your own need of a kind of like, I need to just go out and breathe, אין בעיה, you could do all that. But he says, but focus on the one thing and the לשון he says here is very very very important. I found this to be like putting everything into a into context. He says, נכון, אין חובה להיות בכל רגע ורגע בארץ ישראל.
There's no חיוב that you have to be here every single second. בסדר גמור. ולכן אין איסור ביציאה לטיול קצר. And that's why to go out for a small trip, there's no איסור on it.
נכון. Especially when there's a מצווה involved in it. But, he says, בכל רגע ורגע שיהודי נמצא בארץ ישראל, הוא מקיים מצווה. And you have to realize, every second of you just being here, not even doing anything, just being here, you're מקיים a certain מצווה.
If that was the way if that was how our consciousness was working, it wouldn't be as easy to not it wouldn't be as easy for us to leave when we do. So forget about focusing on anyone else, I'm talking about ourselves, the consciousness of the of the state of mind that we're in, that yeah, we came to shul, we did a מצווה. Which מצווה? We did a few מצוות right now. We put on תפילין, we put on ציצית, we דאווען with a מנין.
Learn שחרית, it's all good, but we also are מקיים את המצווה of being here right now. When that becomes the way that I'm doing all the rest of the things that I'm doing, it's not as easy to leave even though there's no איסור of it. And that's the sensitivity point that I feel with all these הלכות about the problem, the problem, all the problems of leaving and the עניין of of like we said yesterday or was it last week about when your parents say something to you, about problems with the כיבוד הורים, all those things are כמובן important, but at the end of the day, what's going to keep a person's heart connected to this עניין of living here in ארץ ישראל and not wanting to leave is the consciousness that we are fulfilling a מצווה right now just by just by being here right now. So יהי רצון בעזרת השם that as we continue to learn all the שאלות ותשובות that we see from all these גדולים, ממש, it's unbelievable.
From רב עובדיה to רב שאול ישראלי to רב צבי יהודה, to to anyone that we've been seeing, the זכות to even speak about something that's בידינו should be what's really the focus of learning these these מצוות. אמן. Have a beautiful, beautiful day בעזרת השם.