Parshas Eikev- The Disengagement - The Land Of Iron

This was written 10 years ago at the time of the disengagement from Gush Katif from which so many STILL SUFFER.

Rabbi Eliyahu Baruch Shulman


I want to talk about disengagement –
After the images we’ve seen, the raw pain, the hardship –
And the infuriating reports of government callousness to the fate of the people of גוש קטיף – I think it is necessary to address these events, and how we should react to them.

But what I want to say is not obvious, and you’ll allow me to get to it in my own way.

If you have apple and fig – make ברכה on fig; one of שבעת המינים
See פרק ח' פסוק ח'

What if you have fig and pomegranate? Fig first – תאנה ורמון.

What if you have pomegranate and date – תאנה ותמר?
Gemara (ברכות מ"א):
רב חסדא ורב המנונא הוו יתבי בסעודתא, אייתו לקמייהו תמרי ורמוני, שקל רב המנונא בריך אתמרי ברישא. אמר ליה רב חסדא: לא סבירא ליה מר להא דאמר רב יוסף ואיתימארבי יצחק: כל המוקדם בפסוק זה קודם לברכה? - אמר ליה: זה שני לארץ, וזה חמישי לארץ. - אמר ליה: מאן יהיב לן נגרי דפרזלא ונשמעינך.
 R. Hisda and R. Hamnuna were seated at a meal, and dates and pomegranates were set before them. R. Hamnuna took some dates and said a blessing over them. Said R. Hisda to him: Does not the Master agree with what R. Joseph, or as some say R. Isaac, said: Whatever is mentioned earlier in this verse has precedence in the matter of benediction? — He replied: This [the date] comes second after the word ‘land’, and this [the pomegranate] comes fifth. He replied: Would that we had feet of iron so that we could always [run and] listen to you!

Why this strange expression: נגרי דפרזלא - feet of iron?

R’ Berel Eisenstein (editor at אנציקלופדיה תלמודית) offered fascinating explanation:

The next pasuk says ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל ומהררי תחצוב נחשת - The land whose stones are like iron. Says the Gemara (תענית ד') כל תלמיד חכם שאינו קשה כברזל אינו תלמיד חכם
... ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל, אל תקרי אבניה אלא בוניה.



Any Talmid Chochom who is not hard like barzel [iron] is not a Talmid Chochom as it says the land whose stones are like iron, don't read stones [אבניה] but builders [בוניה - i.e. Talmidei Chachomim].


And likewise in ברכות ז' – מאי דכתיב ברזל בברזל יחד, מה ברזל זה אחד מחדד את חברו אף ב' ת"ח מחדדין זה את זה בהלכה.
Two Talmidei Chachomim sharpen each other like barzel [iron].

So we see that this pasuk  ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל, alludes to the Talmidei Chachomim that א"י produces.

Now, since this פסוק comes after ז' המינים – I might think physical bounty of Eretz Yisrael is more important. But now that רב המנונא taught that the salient point is what is closest to ארץ – the reiteration ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל teaches that the Talmidei Chchomim of E.Y. are at least as important – indeed, of paramount importance.

And so רב חסדא exclaimed – to really be nourished from the land that is אבניה ברזל, one needs נגרי דפרזלא, feet of iron to follow such talmidei chachomim as you loyally and faithfully and benefit fully from your wisdom.

 Back to disengagement –

Truth is, that the debate around disengagement really contained within it two separate debates; and there are two separate סוגיות, two separate issues, that have to be – disengaged – from each other.

The first issue was what is best for the security of Israel. Would the withdrawal from Gaza enhance Israel’s negotiating position, free up its military resources, defuse a demographic time bomb; or would it encourage terror, provide a military platform for Hamas, expose Ashkelon, and encourage our enemies by presenting the appearance of defeat.

But it must be said that this debate – for all that it engrossed us, for all that we may have felt passionately about it – or been confused by it – was a debate for the people of Israel to decide. At the end of the day it is not – for the most part – our sons who served in the army protecting the settlements of גוש קטיף, it is not we who have stood the brunt of Palestinian terror. For many years the American Jewish community’s policy has been that security issues must be decided by the people of Israel, and that is sound policy, and I think we are making a mistake if we abandon it.

And, in any event, for better or worse, the decision has been made, and it remains now even for those who were opposed to disengagement to hope that they were wrong, and that events will validate the government’s decision.

But there is a second issue that was engaged here as well. For all that this was a security debate, it was also a debate about the character of the state of Israel. For us, from afar, it may not have been apparent, but to the people there in Israel it was very clear – it was made very clear – that part of the callousness that much of the governing elite of Israel felt towards the settlers – much of the callousness that characterizes the government’s shabby treatment of them now – flows from the animosity that they feel towards people who represent a certain vision of Israel’s future; flows from animosity towards the fact that settlers are שומרי תורה ומצוות, not merely nominally frum but מדקדקים על קלה כעל חמורה, deeply religious Jews, whose vision of the future of the state of Israel is radically different than that of the secular elite.

But while the people of גוש קטיף, feeling the brunt of this animosity perhaps for the first time, feel betrayed and disillusioned, it is important for us to realize that this is just another chapter in an ongoing battle over the character of the state, and of the Jewish people in ארץ ישראל, for a very long time; long before גוש קטיף was even dreamed of, long before even the founding of the state. It goes back to the very beginnings of the Zionist movement, to when Herzl proclaimed that in the future Jewish state the rabbis would be locked into their synagogues and not allowed out; to when Eliezer ben Yehudah proclaimed that we have turned our back on all of Jewish history, and that is our pride and our glory.

It is no secret that the great dream of the founders of secular Zionism was ככל הגוים בית ישראל, to make over the whole character of the Jewish people, to divorce the Jewish people from its heritage and its Torah.

The great irony however – and irony, of course, is just another way of saying השגחה – was that they chose as the vehicle of this dream the land of Israel. And what they did not realize is that ארץ ישראל is not only a land of חיטה ושעורה וגפן ותאנה ורימון, a land of physical bounty. It is, far more importantly, an ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל, a land that produces Torah, and greatness in Torah, a land in which רוחניות flows like milk and honey.

And so על אפם ועל חמתם – to their confounding and chagrin – the state of Israel has become the catalyst for an explosion of Torah greatness, without precedent, perhaps, since the time of חזקיהו המלך; a תשובה revival without parallel since the time of עזרא הסופר; a growing spiritual thirst that is a clear fulfillment of the נבואה – הנה ימים באים ושלחתי רעב בארץ לא רעב ללחם ולא צמא למים כי אם לשמוע את דברי ה'.

Let us be clear eyed. The people of גוש קטיף are experiencing tremendous pain – and their pain is our pain. To the best of our ability we need to help them, to empathize with them, to be נושא בעול with them. It would be very appropriate on our next mission if we could visit with some of our brave friends from נצרים and גוש קטיף and all the wonderful communities that we had visited.

But there is no room here for disillusionment, because we never had any illusions in the first place. Let us not lose our perspective. The saga of גוש קטיף is only one chapter in an ongoing process, an ongoing struggle for the soul of the state of Israel. But while we have no illusions about the depth of the struggle, we have no doubts about its outcome. Because the state of Israel was founded in a land that is – not only an ארץ חיטה ושעורה וגפן ותאנה ורימון – a land of great natural beauty and bounty – not only an ארץ זבת חלב ודבש – flowing with milk and honey. It was founded on an ארץ אשר אבניה ברזל, a land that produces Torah as its natural product – so that we are indeed confident that ultimately our vision will prevail, and we will see unfold before our eyes the promise that ושבת עד ה' א', we will all together return, to ארץ ישראל, and to the רבונו של עולם, and then ובא לציון גואל ולשבי פשע ביעקב – a redeemer will come to Zion, and to those have returned from sin – בב"א.

from yutorah.org [slightly edited for clarity]