"Israel as Memory", Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, ed. Susannah Heschel (1996, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Why did our hearts and minds throughout the ages turn to Eretz Israel, to the Holy Land? Because of memory, because of hope, because of distress...
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the city did not simply become a vague memory of the distant past; it continued to live as an inspiration in the hearts and minds of the people.
Jerusalem became a central hope, a symbol of all hopes. It became the recurring theme of our liturgy. Thus even when the minds were not aware of it, the words reminded us, the words cried for the restoration of Zion and intensified the link, the attachment...
When Jerusalem was destroyed, the sages decreed that each person make remembrance of Jerusalem every day in every place...In joy and in grief Zion is never absent from our thoughts. We pray for her recovery, we pray for her redemption, for her prosperity and for her peace....
Attachment to the land of Israel so dominates our liturgy that the prayers for dew and rain accord with the seasons of the Holy Land rather than with the climates of the lands in which the worshippers recite the prayers....
What we have witnessed in our own days is a reminder of the power of God's mysterious promise to Abraham and a testimony to the fact that the people kept its pledge: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither" (Psalms 137:5). The Jew in whose heart the love of Zion dies is doomed to lose his faith in the God of Abraham, who gave the land as an earnest of the redemption of all men.
(א) בראשית אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק לֹֹֹֹֹא הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַתְחִיל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה אֶלָּא מֵהַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם,שֶׁהִיא מִצְוָה רִאשׁוֹנָה שֶׁנִּצְטַוּוּ בָּהּ יִשׂרָאֵל, וּמַה טַּעַם פָּתַח בִּבְרֵאשִׁית? מִשׁוּם כֹּחַ מַעֲשָׂיו הִגִּיד לְעַמּוֹ לָתֵת לָהֶם נַחֲלַת גּוֹיִם (תהילים קי”א), שֶׁאִם יֹאמְרוּ אוּמוֹת הָעוֹלָם לְיִשְׁרָאֵל לִסְטִים אַתֶּם, שֶׁכִּבַּשׁתֶּם אַרְצוֹת שִׁבְעָה גוֹיִם, הֵם אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם כָּל הָאָרֶץ שֶׁל הַקָּבָּ"ה הִיא, הוּא בְרָאָהּ וּנְתָנָהּ לַאֲשֶׁר יָשָׁר בְּעֵינָיו, בִּרְצוֹנוֹ נְתָנָהּ לָהֶם, וּבִרְצוֹנוֹ נְטָלָהּ מֵהֶם וּנְתָנָהּ לָנוּ:
(1) בראשית IN THE BEGINNING — Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah should have started only from the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto you the first of the months” which is the first commandment which Israel was commanded. What is the reason, then, that it starts with "In the beginning"? Because of the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works to give them the heritage of the nations.” For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you conquered the lands of the seven nations”, Israel says to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whomever seemed right in His eyes. By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).
(א) ונתתי לך וגו׳. פירש עוד שלא יאמר א״א דזה תכלית ישראל לבד להיות נודדים בגוים ולהחכימם. וא״כ אין להם תעודת הישוב בעולם להיות בחיי ממלכה בפ״ע. ע״ז חזר ופירש דבסוף כ״ז יהי׳
...And I will give to you, etc. He explained more so that our father Avraham would not say that this alone would be the final outcome for Israel - to wander among the nations and make them wise. And if so, they would have no title in the settlement of the world, to live a sovereign life for themselves. Therefore He repeated and explained what will be at the end of all this.
ת"ר לעולם ידור אדם בא"י אפי' בעיר שרובה עובדי כוכבים ואל ידור בחו"ל ואפילו בעיר שרובה ישראל שכל הדר בארץ ישראל דומה כמי שיש לו אלוק וכל הדר בחוצה לארץ דומה כמי שאין לו אלוק שנא' (ויקרא כה, לח) לתת לכם את ארץ כנען להיות לכם לאלקים
... the Sages taught: A person should always reside in Eretz Yisrael, even in a city that is mostly gentiles, and he should not reside outside of the land, even in a city that is mostly Jews. For anyone who resides in Eretz Yisrael is like one who has a God, and anyone who resides outside the land is like one who does not have a God. As it is said: “To give to you the land of Canaan, to be God for you” (Leviticus 25:38).
ר' זירא הוה קמשתמיט מיניה דרב יהודה דבעא למיסק לארץ ישראל דאמר רב יהודה כל העולה מבבל לארץ ישראל עובר בעשה שנאמר (כב) בָּבֶ֥לָה יוּבָ֖אוּ וְשָׁ֣מָּה יִֽהְי֑וּ עַ֠ד י֣וֹם פָּקְדִ֤י אֹתָם֙ נְאֻם־ ה' וְהַֽעֲלִיתִים֙ וַהֲשִׁ֣יבֹתִ֔ים אֶל ־הַמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃ (פ)
Rabbi Zeira evaded being seen by [his teacher] Rav Yehuda, for he sought to ascend to Eretz Yisrael [and his teacher disapproved]. As Rav Yehuda said: Anyone who ascends from Babylonia to Eretz Yisrael transgresses a positive mitzvah, as it is stated: (22) They shall be brought to Babylon, and there they shall remain, until the day of my recollection of them—this is the declaration of God —and I will bring them up and restore them to this place.” [Jeremiah 27:22]
(יד) ט) [ד] ... על הפסוק וירשתם אותה וישבתם בה. אומר רבנו הגר״א (אדרת אליהו דברים י״א) ״בזכות שתרשו אותה תשבו בה, ובמה תירשוה בחזקה״. וחזקה היינו בנין ונטיעה כדין חזקת קרקע בכללות וזאת בטוריא דעזרא ונחמיה. ולעת הצורך גם בחזקה (החי״ת בקמץ) וזאת בטוריא דיהושע. ...
(14) ... Regarding the verse, [Deut. 11:31] “you shall possess it and you shall settle in it, ” our Rabbi Eliyahu, the Vilna Gaon says (in Aderet Eliyahu, on Deut. 11), “Because of your merit in taking possession of it, you will dwell in it, and how will you take possession of it, by establishing your claim by presumption/ chazaqah.” How does one establish a chazaqah? This is done by building and planting as is the law in general with regard to claiming land by presumption. This is in line with what was done by Ezra and Nehemiah. However, when necessary, strength/ chazaqah may also be used ..., and this is in line with what was done by Joshua...
"Religion and State in Israel", Menachem Lorberbaum in Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, ed. Moshe Halbertal and Donniel Hartman (Continuum, 2007)
;;;[In John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration, he posits] three important arguments about the Jewish religion: (1) The Jewish religion is committed to a specific political theology wherein God is conceived of in political terms. He is sovereign. (And this presumably precludes human sovereignty.) Put differently, Judaism is committed to a theocracy, to a polity wherein God reigns. (2) A Jewish commonwealth cannot therefore countenance a separation of the religious and the political, for they are all part of the one law of God for ordering his polity, in terms of justice and in terms of worship. (3) By implication, Jews would not make for good citizens in a polity that would strive to separate the religious and the political...
[But] there are sufficient resources available in the Jewish tradition for thinking differently about politics and religion...The Torah raises a theocratic conception in the Book of Exodus but also provides a thoroughgoing critique of its political viability...
...[The] book of Judges...identifies God's reign with human anarchy: 'In those days there was no king in Israel, each man did what was right in his own eyes.' This verse is repeated...three times at the end of the book (18.1, 19.1, 21.25) stressing that idolatry, spilling of blood and incest -- the cardinal sins of Judaism -- are attendant on this anarchy....
The attempt to implement direct divine rule proves to have a destructive effect on human life: it either corrodes leadership (as in the case of Moses) or is corrosive of fundamental values thus leading to anarchy (as in the case of the Judges)...
[According to Rabbi Isaac HaLevi Herzog, the first chief rabbi of the State of Israel,] the State of Israel is constituted upon a joint covenant of Jews and non-Jews together to create a political society whose public space is predominantly Jewish. [It] is not charged with the implementation of the Torah's vision of a political society but it is however obliged not to openly legislate against Torah law.