22. From Exile to Aliyah: The Return of the Land-Based Mitzvot

Rav Shlomo takes us on a breathtaking historical sweep of the mitzvos that only come alive in Eretz Yisrael. From Yehoshua’s conquest to Ezra’s second sanctification, from exile to return, we trace how mitzvos like Shemitah, Yovel, Terumos and Ma’asros waxed and waned with the presence—or absence—of Am Yisrael in the Land. But the real heart of the episode is the invitation: you can actually turn a mitzvah from derabanan to de’oraysa just by where you live. And the deeper message? It’s not just about agriculture. It’s about מלוכה, about משפט, about building the holy society we were always meant to live in.

What is The Mitzvah of Eretz Yisrael?

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 everyone. The word should be right now לעילוי נשמת Moshe's grandfather, שמעון בן משה. שמעון בן משה. He shares a great יארצייט.

Today is also the יארצייט of of the רבי ר' זושא. The הייליגע רבי ר' זושא's יארצייט today also. So anyway. So that's also my grandfather's.

Oh, here we go. משה בן אסתר. משה בן בן אסתר. אסתר.

Oh, anyone else? Anything else going on? Okay.So, you should know the last הלכה we did, which spoke about השיבה שופטינו כבראשונה, ברוך השם, got me into some trouble. It was great. I love it when it happens. Not trouble, you know what I mean.

We're just talking about things that are really דברים. My my personal השיבה שופטינו כבראשונה, a דאווענען for השם for the reinstitution of the real אמת'דיגע judicial system, uh, took on a completely different מהלך the last last few days. Just thinking about this, doing some personal visualizations of what the judicial system looks like in a really, in a מדינה מתוקנת. And a very long way to go, but we're still on our way.

What's amazing, this is falls under the categories of מצוות התלויות בארץ. Again, when we usually speak about מצוות התלויות בארץ, מצוות that are dependent on being in the land, our mind usually goes to right away, we go to, we go to חקלאות, we go to agriculture, we go to land stuff, right? But I want to show, I want us to learn today briefly, the evolution of the מצוות התלויות בארץ, how we we started doing them, and then unfortunately, how what being banished into exile, how it caused the מצוות התלויות בארץ to slowly fade away, and בעזרת השם how they're coming back again as well.So, the מצוות התלויות, what's that? Did someone say something? Good. So the מצוות התלויות בארץ, let's just go again, a little bit of a a little bit of a history lesson over here. Remember the first חבר'ה that came and conquered the land, we call that עולי מצרים.

That is the זמן of יהושע, when we came and we actually established land and we חלקנו את הארץ לפי השבטים. We divided it into the tribes. And once that happened, all the מצוות התלויות בארץ regarding חקלאים, regarding agriculture, such as תרומות ומעשרות, שביעית and יובל, that's when they took effect. Once when the שבטים came and it was divided according to the שבטים in the time of יהושע.

Okay, that's one. But it still took many years afterwards until we could do the other מצוות, for such as הקמת המלוכה, establishing a royal, you know, a monarchy, and the מקדש, and the whole real judicial system, because for that to happen, we needed עם ישראל to complete the מצוה of ישיבת ארץ, and to להתבסס בנחלתו, and to be settled and dwelled in the land. In the meantime, the משכן is temporarily operating in שילה, and the judges are judging in a very temporary format as well. Only 400 years later, שמואל הנביא comes up and he becomes the judge, and he sets up a court, and then מלכות בית דוד it gets established, then the בית המקדש is built eventually in ירושלים by שלמה המלך, and the בית המקדש, as we know, the first one stood for 410 years.

Now, before the חורבן בית ראשון, 140 years before חורבן בית ראשון, מלך אשור, he exiled the שבטים that were on the other side of the עבר הירדן. And since then, once those שבטים, this is very interesting, once those שבטים that were other side of the ירדן were הוגלו, where they were exiled and they were banished, what stopped happening, a חיוב from the Torah? שביעית ויובל. Because for שביעית ויובל to be established, you need the שלמות של העם on their land. So since then, basically more or less, it seems שביעית ויובל מדאורייתא has not happened.Uh, further after that, after all the other ten שבטים were then banished into exile, in a situation that most of עם ישראל isn't here, and then תרומות ומעשרות וחלה מדאורייתא also stopped taking place.

They still kept it, but they kept it מדרבנן. After the חורבן בית ראשון, so all the מצוות, all the מצוות התלויות בארץ: שביעית, יובל, תרומות, מעשרות, חלה, all these מצוות stopped. Really we should be learning the פנימיות of these מצוות to understand how what the קדושה of it is all about, to explain that it seems like only like אידן being in ארץ ישראל are the vehicle or the vessel for such potent מצוות to take place. That's, you have to stop and think about that for a second.Now, after 70 years of גלות בבל, we start coming back to ארץ ישראל, בית המקדש השני is being being built.

And then we have the אנשי כנסת הגדולה. Then the כנסת הגדולה is established. That's the בית דין הגדול that had 120 זקנים. They had some נביאים stand with them.

And who stood on the head of the בית דין, כנסייה הגדולה was עזרא. Now what today, just think about it right now, we were דאווענען right now, right? סדר התפילה, קריאת התורה, נוסח of the ברכות, תפילות, that's what this בית דין that was established then began to implement. And they also did what's called, they קידשו את הארץ מלכתחילה. They did another sanctification of the land when they came back in order to establish a חיוב to מקיים מצוות of שביעית ותרומות ומעשרות.

But since, and I know this brings a damper into the story of פורים, how many אידן came back to ארץ ישראל after we we we had the most miraculous miracle with פורים? Does anyone know the numbers? 42,000. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's intense. But you know what, there was a thing called 1948.

There was a thing called 1967. There was a thing called 2023. So we're still in, you see this is amazing, we're still in the process of establishing the קיום of the מצוות התלויות בארץ. It's still something that's ongoing.

And we're part of a much much bigger picture that we've been struggling with for many, many years. When did this happen with עזרא? The part where he established it, turned it into... When we came back after גלות בבל, after תהליך שיבת ציון, when we started building the בית המקדש השני. Now since most of the עם was still in גלות, therefore, according to most פוסקים, all these מצוות that we're doing regarding תלויות בארץ are מדרבנן.

Now, that shouldn't deter anyone from \"ah, it's a דרבנן, so you know, it's not so much my\". Just saying, these are things that you could establish, it's an amazing thing. You could establish something to be a דאורייתא based on where you choose to live. פשוט.

That's when it comes to these מצוות התלויות בארץ.Now, what happened after the חורבן בית שני, just to end this synopsis of putting everything in a הלכתי framework, after חורבן בית המקדש השני, slowly, slowly over the years, we know that the Jewish settlement, נכון, there's always been a איד here, but it's dwindled down more and more and more. 300 years after the חורבן, 300 years after חורבן בית שני, the חכמים are trying to hold on to what they have. And now the נשיא is הלל השני, and they decided that you can't continue to even have to do סמיכה and the בית דין that does קידוש החודש and עיבור שנים has to stop as well. And from 300 years after חורבן בית שני, we started using a לוח to determine these things, a calendar, as opposed to שליחת, to have שלוחים coming and testify, I saw from here, I saw from there.

And we see that we go למטה למטה in terms of getting further and further away. It's interesting because this פרשה is actually the first מצוה, פרשת קידוש החודש, in פרשת בא. So what we're seeing is is this gradual like dwindling down that took place. But don't worry, that's just for today.

We're going to see though, coming back home and the re-establishing of these things, the שאלה of most of עם ישראל being here or not, what למעשה does this change in terms of our relationship with these מצוות התלויות בארץ. But I don't, but I want us to keep in mind, don't just get fixated on תרומות ומעשרות and saying, oh, עלייה. It's not, that's that's part of it. That that's part of it.

מלוכה is what it's really all about. שופטים כמו שצריך, setting up the judicial system כמו שצריך is really, really the בסיס to all these עניינים as well. Anyway, we should be זוכה to feel that what we just said right now is an active role in how we conduct ourselves here living in ארץ ישראל. And this should be בעזרת השם a message that gets sent out to all those who who haven't read the memo yet, בעזרת השם.

It should be a sweet memo of love, of invitation, to come and join us and re-establish all these מצוות so we could do all of them דאורייתא, בעזרת השם.