WHY ISRAEL?

 

WHY ISRAEL?

It is hard to understand why the territory of Israel was chosen by God as the Jewish homeland. A small narrow piece of land, not at all distinctive and with no obvious resources.

The very location proves that Israel  cannot be built into an empire. If one considers the geography: the Judean hills in one direction, the Sinai desert in the other, with a narrow coastal plain open to easy attack from the sea. Situated at the juncture of powerful empires makes it a major trade route,  both  strategic and vulnerable. Israel must always be a small country.

                                                                     
                                                                                

On the contrary, an empire is a large territory, or very different territories/peoples that are under the one powerful authority.

Beginning with Abraham and ending with Moses, the Pentateuch (first five books of the Jewish Bible) is about the long, arduous journey to Israel, the Promised Land. Avraham came from Mesopotamia (Iraq) the largest empire in its time. Moses came from Egypt, the largest, richest, and one of the most long-living  empires. This was in exact contradiction to the normal movement of population - from poor countries to rich, and more advanced, ones. This is one example, amongst others, of the Bible’s opposition to empires. Jews were commanded to be neither an empire nor a tribe.

The Jewish connection with the land is twice as long as the history of Christianity, three times as that of Islam. Jews are the West’s oldest nation, and from the beginning Israel was its birthplace.

A member of the House of Lords once asked Chaim Weizmann: “Why do you Jews insist on Palestine when there are so many undeveloped countries you could settle in more conveniently?” Weizmann responded: “That is like my asking you why you drove twenty miles to visit your mother last Sunday, when there are so many old ladies living on your street.”

Theirs was to be a small land, but a significant one. It was only there that they were to live their destiny. The idea of utopia, as foreseen by the prophet Micah: “Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid….”