On Shabbat, we will begin rereading the Torah, which opens with the story of creation. It seems natural that the Torah begins at the point where everything began, but the Sages of Israel do not take this for granted. After all, the Torah is essentially a book of instructions and commandments for man. Why does it open with the story of creation and not with the commandments that we must keep?
Chazal respond that this was intended to establish the right of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel: "If the nations of the world say to Israel - you are plunderers, who conquered the lands of seven nations, they say to them: The whole earth belongs to God, the Blessed; He created it and gave it to whomever is right in His eyes. At His will - it was given to them, and at His will - it was taken from them and given to us.".
Listen to the enemies
There is something interesting here: Chazal knew thousands of years ago that a day would come when they would claim that we are conquerors. They would throw it at us: "You are robbers." But we were given a victorious answer to this claim.
Some believe that Israeli outreach to the wider world should be based on pragmatic considerations, security needs, or UN resolutions. In contrast, arguments based on faith and the Bible seem to be disconnected from diplomatic reality.
But this is a serious mistake, for which we pay the price every day. Faith is an incomparably effective propaganda tool. When Egyptian President Sadat declared at the time that he would not give up a single inch of Sinai soil, arguing that every grain of soil was sacred in his eyes – he may not have appeared as an enlightened man, but he sounded right and believed in his rightness.
Listen to the language and arguments of the Arabs. They speak in the name of justice and faith. Their 'justice' is all a lie, and so is the 'faith' in the name of which they made Jerusalem 'holy' for them, even though it is not mentioned in the Quran even once. But they speak in the name of justice, right and faith, and manage to convince the world. Whereas we speak of pragmatic considerations and our arguments are not convincing.
The reason is simple. If the diplomatic rules of the game and the positions of the international community are the determining factors, we must comply with UN resolutions, return all refugees, and converge within the stranglehold of the 'partition' borders. And indeed, this is the firm demand of our enemies, and from their perspective, rightly so.
In contrast, the argument based on the belief that the Creator of the world gave the Land of Israel to the people of Israel, and that it is the 'Holy Land' that belongs to the Jewish people according to the 'Bible' - has special power precisely because the diplomatic rules of the game do not apply to it.
Stop being ashamed.
Indeed, it is important to voice the security arguments, but they must be based on the moral right we have to the land (if not, where does the right to seize the property of others for your own security needs come from?). We must make it clear with determination that the entire Land of Israel is our land, because we were given an eternal inheritance by the Creator of the world.
This argument is especially vital when our enemies confront us in the name of religion. Only a strong religious faith can stand up to another religion. This faith exists with us, burned into our souls. We just have to stop being ashamed to carry it proudly. That is why the Torah opens with the story of creation, so that even a Jewish child beginning to learn the Pentateuch will grasp and absorb this basic truth.
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