A.
ויהי בשלח פרעה את העם ולא נחם אלקים דרך ארץ פלשתים כי קרוב הוא פן ינחם העם בראתם מלימה ושבו מצרימה (“And it was, when Pharaoh sent forth the people; and G-d did not lead them by way of the land of the Plishtim, for it is close, lest the people regret upon seeing warfare and return to Egypt”). So opens our parasha.
The Plishtim were a people related to the Egyptians (cf. Genesis X, 14) who dwelt along the Mediterranean litoral, more-or-less in the area of the nodern Gaza Strip. The Coast Road, known in ancient times as the Royal Road, ran directly through their territory. At the approach of this huge and motley horde of escaped slaves, their army would stand athwart the way and, quailing at the prospect, the bnei Yisra’él would become disheartened and return to Egypt.
Yet, G-d Himself surely knew that He was shortly to demonstrate His power to Israel by miraculously destroying the world’s mightiest army of the day, that of Egypt, at Yam Suf. Then, too, whether Israel approached the Holy Land via the Royal Road, or went round and entered across the Jordan from the east (as eventually happened), there would in any event be a hard-fought campaign before they would claim the country.
Other than the physical proximity, was there something else about the Plishtim in particular which was problematic?
B.
One must remember that the Patriarchs had a long history with the Plishtim. Genesis XX recounts Avraham’s sojourn in the Plishti city of Grar. As he approached the city, Avraham feared that the Plishtim, like their Egyptian relatives, might be tempted to kill him in order to possess the beautiful Sara. Accordingly, he declared her his sister (v. 11). In the end, matters turned out all right; Avimelech did not touch Sara, and they parted on friendly terms.
Nonetheless, the midrash tells us, when Sara finally became pregnant with Yitzchaq, היו אומות העולם אומרים, הלבן מאה שנה יוולד!? אלא היא מעוברת מאבימלך וגו' (“The nations of the world were saying, Can a centenarian sire a child?! Rather, she is pregnant from Avimelech....” תנחומא, תולדות א', ולא כפי גירסת רש"י בבראשית כ"ה י"ט שרק ליצני הדור היו אומרים כן ).
In other words, in the eyes of the nations of the world, Israel was believed to be directly descended from the Plishti royal line. As such, it would certainly seem reasonable and normal to them that Israel would have a claim on the Plishti territory. The Plishtim themselves, of course, knew better; as the Torah itself testifies, their king had not touched Sara, and there was no such relationship.
But the story was out in the world, regardless of its veracity. A war with the Plishtim would seem an internal, “family” affair, and doubtless many amongst the nations would shake their heads and “tut-tut” about the Plishti unwillingness to accomodate their brothers.
Contrast this with the world’s view of Israel’s war against the seven Canaanite nations, a very different thing. As Rashi famously declares in his very first comment on the Torah, יאמרו אומות העולם לישראל, ליסטים אתם שכבשתם ארצות שבעת גויים (“The nations of the world would say to Israel, You are bandits, because you conquered the lands of the seven [Canaanite] nations”).
So why should it be problematic that the world would see Israel’s cause as just? What would be so bad about the sympathy of the nations?
C.
A much later incident in our history, I believe, sheds some light on the matter. The incident is recounted in the Book of Esther.
Esther, of course, was the Jewish girl amongst the exiles in Babylonia who had been selected by the Medio-Persian shahanshah Achashverosh to be his queen. Ruler of a vast multi-ethnic, polyglot empire, Achashverosh was unaware of Esther’ ethnic origins, and cared less, even as he plotted with his official, Haman, to exterminate the Jewish people, מפזר ומפרד בין העמים כו' ודתיהם שנות מכל עם ואת דת המלך אינם עשים גו' (“scattered and separated amongst the peoples... and their ways are different from every [other] people, and the way of the king they do not practise....” Esther III, 8), as Haman said.
Mordechai, Esther’s uncle, learnt of the plot, and told her of it. At Esther’s urging, Mordechai gathered the Jewish population of the capital and decreed a three-day fast of penance, at the end of which Esther, arrayed in all her queenly finery, appeared at the court of the king, specifically to invite him and Haman to a party she was throwing (ibid., IV,4).
Which prompts the Talmud to ask: מה ראתה אסתר שזימנה את המן? (“What did Esther see that she invited Haman?”). After all, she knew exactly who was behind the plot against her people!
Rabbi Nechemya answers: כדי שלא יאמרו ישראל, אחות יש לנו בבית המלך, ויסיחו דעתן מן הרחמים (“So that Israel would not say, 'We have a sister in the king’s household,' and be distracted from [praying for Divine] mercy;” מגילה ט"ו:). By inviting the author of the plot to the party, Esther sought to ensure that Israel would put their faith not in her, but the true Source of their salvation.
So, too, I believe, in our case. Israel knew the truth of their patrimony as much as the Plishtim did. Nonetheless, the story, as the midrash tells us, was widespread, and they could therefore expect considerable sympathy from the nations in their cause. G-d’s fear, I believe, was that Israel would place some measure of faith in that sympathy, however subconsciously; they would “comforted” (another possible meaning of ינחם) by that sympathy. Living, as we do, in the physical realm, such belief in help coming from a “natural” source, the nations of the world, is קרוב, “close” to us.
D.
After the conquest of the Holy Land, Israel dwelt there for approximately 810 years. When Nevuchadnetzar destroyed the First Temple, the remnant of the southern kingdom of Yehuda were exiled to Babylon. Thence, after the Medio-Persian conquest, they were allowed to return home, rededicating a second, more modest Temple seventy years after they had been exiled, which stood another 420 years.
Since the return of the Yehudim from the Babylonian exile, the Holy Land has never lacked a Jewish presence, however tiny. Since the failed wars against the Romans, to be sure, the majority of our people have dwelt in exile, but our dream, our thrice daily prayer, has been to return home.
In the late 1300’s the Ramban was constrained to leave his native Catalonia, and traveled to the Holy Land, recently vacated by the brutal Crusaders who had slaughtered its Jewish population. Having settled in Jerusalem, he tirelessly wrote to all the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean littoral, advising that it was now possible to resettle the Holy Land, and enjoining people to do so. Some did; a trickle of return began.
In 1492, the Spanish government expelled their Jewish population, followed closely by the Portuguese. Many more Jews found refuge in the old-new land. A generation later, a scion of one of the forcible converts to Christianity in Spain, Don Yosef Nasi, was able to leave his native land, return to his heritage, and became a diplomat for the Ottoman court. Rewarded with wealth and lands, he funded the famous community of scholars in Tzfath led by Rabbi Yosef Caro, author of the Shulchan Âruch, and financed the rebuilding of the ancient city of Tiberias.
The seventheenth century saw the Chmielnicki revolt which laid waste to eastern Poland, and many Jewish refugees from Poland’s Ukrainian territories found a haven in the Holy Land. They were followed by the Vitebsker Rebbe and his followers, in the eighteenth century, then by the followers of the Gra, the famous Prushim.
In the ninetenth century. the Mohilever Rebbe founded the Chovevei Tziyyon, and money was raised, land was bought, and Jewish agricultural villages grew up in the ancestral home: Rosh Pina, Rishon l’Tziyyon, Petach Tiqva...
There was nothing in this process of עלי' כחומה, the mass return and reconquest of the country which, the Talmud tells us (כתבות קי"ג:), our ancestors foreswore at the beginning of our present exile. Just a slow, steady trickle of return and resettlement of the Holy people in their Holy Land, to await the redemption there.
And then, the modern, secular Zionist movement was founded at the Basel conference in 1894, and it suddenly became important what the nations thought.
The subsequent history is well enough known. For sixty years, the modern state of Israel, brought into being by a vote of the United Nations in 1947, has led a precarious existence, attacked from all sides. Today, many of the very nations who voted for its creation regret having done so, and snarl at the Jewish state: “You are bandits! You conquered the lands of the Palestinians!”
Perhaps it is not yet too late for us to learn the lesson of our parasha, not to expect justice from the nations. The Holy Land is not ours because the U.N. said so; it is ours because the Al-Mighty said so. ועל מי יש לנו להשען? על אבינו שבשמים (“And on whom do we have to rely? On our Father who is in Heaven”; סוף סוטה ).
When we stop thinking we can rely on anyone else, or anything else, perhaps the process will resume.
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