The Land of Israel as the Beloved of the Jewish People
At the beginning of Parshat Va'ayra, when addressing Moshe, Hashem employs the famous five leshonos of geulah in promising that He will liberate Bnei Yisroel from Mitzraim. In pasuk 6:8, we have the final expression of geulah:
"V'hayvayti etchem el ha'aretz asher nasati et yadi latet otah l'Avraham, l'Yitzchak, u'l'Yaakov, v'natati otah lachem morasha, ani Hashem."
That is, Hashem promises that He will bring B'nei Yisroel to the land that he promised to the Avos, and He will give Eretz Yisroel to the Jewish people as a "morasha."
Traditionally, the word "morasha" is translated as an "inheritance." (note: in Devarim 33:4, the Torah is also referred to as a "morasha" of the Jewish people).
In several places, the Gemara says the word "morasha" should be read metaphorically as "me'urasa" - i.e., betrothed - from the concept of "erusin", which is the first step in a Jewish marriage.
What is the significance of this metaphorical reference?
Unlike today, when the stages of "erusin" (betrothal) and "nisuin" (formal marriage) are performed in close proximity in a single ceremony under the chupa, in the times of the Gemara, the two stages of the marriage process were separated by roughly a year.
Following erusin, the couple was considered to be married to some degree (e.g., both the husband and wife were forbidden to others, and a get would be needed to dissolve the relationship), but they continued to live separately.
So to the extent the Land of Israel is referred to metaphorically as the "betrothed" of the Jewish people, the Torah is telling us something about the relationship between the two. Which is that the Jewish people and the Land of Israel are linked together as a husband and wife are linked following erusin. Which means the Land of Israel is effectively "forbidden" to other nations, and the Jewish people is "forbidden" to other lands .
To some extent identifying the relationship between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel as "erusin" is actually a form of prophecy. Rabbi Jonathan Rietti often speaks of how the Torah self-authenticates itself as a divine document by making various prophecies about the future that are so bold and definitive that no human would dare make them out of concern they may not come true (at which point the credibility of the document in future generations would be destroyed).
That is, only Hashem, who knows the future, could possibly make certain definitive statements about the future since, by definition, He knows these occurrences will come to pass. Since the Torah makes many such bold and definitive prophecies, it must be from Hashem, and not written by man.
I submit that Hashem's promise to Moshe that the relationship between Eretz Yisroel and Am Yisroel will be like erusin is such a form of prophecy.
As noted, a woman is forbidden to any other man following erusin. So one would expect that the Land of Israel would not allow itself, so to speak, to enter into a relationship with any other nation. Of course, while other nations may conquer and occupy it (much as another man might attempt, chas v'shalom, to seduce a woman already engaged to another man), the Land of Israel will not reciprocate and will instead wait for her beloved - i.e., Am Yisrael.
And indeed, historically, this is what has happened. A famous illustration is Mark Twain's description of the Land of Israel during his visit there in 1867 in his book "Innocents Abroad" - prior to the waves of immigration of Jews that occurred subsequently in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
"We traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds - a silent, mournful expanse... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely... We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on toward the goal of our crusade, renowned Jerusalem. The further we went the hotter the sun got and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem... Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes."
Anyone familiar with the approaches to Jerusalem today cannot imagine a more striking contrast. With the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the land has blossomed and thrived. Indeed, the Land of Israel waited for her beloved to return.
By the same token, despite 2,000 years of exile, the yearning for the land of Israel never left the Jewish people. I am not sure historically how many other nations there are who were separated from the land of their forefathers for such an extended period of time, and yet always longed to return.
We see this yearning in Tehilim ("If I forget you, O Jerusalem.." or "When the Lord brings about our return to Zion, we will be like dreamers..."); in the daily Shemoneh Esrei in the bracha of "bonei Yerushalayim"; at the conclusion of the Hagada: "Next year in Jerusalem;" and in many other contexts.
One can also see the connection expressed politically when the early Zionists, who were mostly not religious, rejected Uganda as an alternative to the Land of Israel when offered by the British.
So too, the groom has not deserted his bride.
(on the flip side, one is also reminded of the Meshach Chochma's famous commentary on parsha Behaloscha where he explains that despite achieving success in many foreign lands in galus, the Jewish people eventually suffer persecution and are driven out of such lands as a reminder that foreign lands are not their homeland - an appropriate reminder if the Land of Israel is the Jewish people's bride waiting for their return).
In sum, the Gemara's interpretation of "morasha" as "me'urasa" is extremely significant: perfectly apt and borne out fully by history - adding another "prophecy" to the Torah that has been fulfilled.
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