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"Chayei Sarah"

November 21, 2024

Dear Friends,

In "Chayei Sarah", this week's Torah portion, Abraham purchases the Cave of Machpelah, which is where he buries Sarah. 

He and Sarah arrived in the Promised Land years earlier, but this transaction conferred to Abraham formal ownership of real estate upon it.

The land is integral to God's covenant with the Jewish people. Note God's first call to Abraham: "Go forth ... to the land that I will show you. ... To your offspring I shall give this land" (Gen. 12).

These verses make clear the centrality of that land to the Jews and Judaism. Some would de-link them, claiming there is some sort of Jewish theology and peoplehood independent of the land. That is impossible. There is no Judaism without the land, nor the land without Jews.

Regardless of one's political orientation, may we always remember the importance of that land -- and the state of Israel -- to the Jewish people.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jeffrey Weill

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