TORAT MIZRACHI VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 5 מרחשוון תשפ"א TORAT ERETZ YISRAEL • PUBLISHED IN JERUSALEM • DISTRIBUTED AROUND THE WORLD NOVEMBER 2020 ISRAEL EDITION WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO THE FOUNDING SPONSORS OF HAMIZRACHI – THE LAMM FAMILY OF MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zt”l with a sobering message for us all PAGE 16 Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel ponders the widower’s predicament PAGE 22 Rabbi Hershel Schachter highlights the power of burial in Eretz Yisrael PAGE 17 Rabbanit Shani A CELEBRATION OF THE Taragin Chevron on the sacrifice that mothered a nation CITY OF OUR ANCESTORS PAGE 9 Rabbi Menachem Leibtag INSIDE: discusses two attributes PAGE 44 of G-d HOW RAV SHLOMO GOREN LIBERATED CHEVRON THE CHEVRON LOCKDOWN OF 1840 PAGE 42 PAGE 32 THE TOMBS OF CHEVRON PAGE 38 Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE with three THE MIZRACHI GLOBAL SUMMIT PAGE 12 contemporary lessons from Chayei Sarah BRIDGE BUILDERS MIZRACHI AT THE WORLD ZIONIST CONGRESS PAGE 28 PAGE 14 This edition is sponsored anonymously in memory of ז"ל Col. Dror Weinberg who was killed in the 2002 Chevron Ambush while defending the Holy City לעילוי נשמת דרור יצחק בן אריאל ז"ל TORAT MIZRACHI www.mizrachi.org [email protected] +972 (0)2 620 9000 CHAIRMAN Mr. Harvey Blitz THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND CHIEF EXECUTIVE Sleepy Sermon Rabbi Doron Perez INSIDE 24 Mrs. Shira Smiles EDUCATIONAL DIRECTORS RAV KOOK'S TEACHINGS Burial in the Double Cave Rabbi Reuven Taragin 25 Rabbi Chanan Morrison Rabbanit Shani Taragin PLACES IN ISRAEL TORAT MIZRACHI The Old Jewish Cemetery of Chevron 27 Rivi Frankel The Obsession with Land 3 Rabbi Doron Perez CHAYEI SARAH READING The Chatter that Changes Lives Rabbi Danny Mirvis Discovering the Hidden Light of Chevron 5 30 Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum Building the Bridge PUBLISHED BY THE MIZRACHI WORLD MOVEMENT Rabbi Ari Rockoff Noah’s Ark, Chevron and the Abraham Accords 6 31 Rabbi Yishai Fleisher EDITORIAL TEAM The Big Deal Daniel Verbov Rabbi Reuven Taragin Between Heaven and Earth 8 32 Rabbi Menachem Leibtag Esther Shafier Sarah’s Sacrifice CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rabbanit Shani Taragin Negotiations and Acquisitions 9 Rabbi Ari Kahn Jonny Lipczer 34 Everything Needs Chesed GRAPHIC DESIGN Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon Roses and Thorns 10 Rabbi Stewart Weiss Hadas Peretz 35 PRODUCTION AND ADVERTISING MANAGER The Perfect Partnership 11 Rabbanit Sharon Rimon Our Role Today Meyer Sterman 36 Rabbi Berel Wein [email protected] Three Contemporary Lessons from Chayei Sarah 14 Sivan Rahav Meir and Yedidya Meir The Tombs of Chevron HaMizrachi seeks to spread Torat Eretz Yisrael throughout 38 the world. HaMizrachi also contains articles, opinion pieces and advertisements that represent the diversity of views and interests in our communities. These do not necessarily reflect GLOBAL RELIGIOUS LEADERS GENERAL INTEREST any official position of Mizrachi or its branches. PARENTING One’s Real Age Avoiding Hurtful Labels If you don't want to keep HaMizrachi, you can double-wrap it 16 Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zt”l 40 Rabbi Yakov Horowitz before disposal, or place it directly into sheimos. RELATIONSHIPS Kever Avot Leaving and Leveraging 17 Rabbi Hershel Schachter 41 Rabbi Moshe Berliner The Secrets of Machpelah The Chevron Lockdown of 1840 18 Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald 42 HaMizrachi The Politics of Spiritual Leadership How I Liberated Chevron 19 Rabbi Yosef Carmel 44 Rabbi Shlomo Goren zt”l Dedication SOCIAL COMMENTARY Opportunities The Widower’s Predicament The Pendulum of Human Nature 22 Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel 46 Rabbi Chaim Navon If you would like to dedicate an Our Beloved Mother HaMizrachi Family Page issue of HaMizrachi in memory of 23 Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi 47 a loved one or in celebration of a simcha, please send an email to [email protected] 2 | TORAT MIZRACHI Rabbi Doron Perez The Obsession with Land was not born into a religious family to him and his progeny once again.2 – stands out more than any other, in but grew up in a warm and tradi- G-d makes two distinct and dramatic three distinct ways. First, it is the site tional South African Jewish home. covenants with him, promising that of the first legally purchased part of ITo the great credit of my dear parents, his children will return after Exile the Land, the Cave of Machpelah, and through the influence of a young and that the Land will be an ‘Eternal which Avraham acquires to bury dynamic Rabbi, we began going to shul Inheritance’ for them.3 Sarah. Second, despite our forefa- on Shabbat on a regular basis, which thers’ many travels and sojournings, G-d forbids Yitzchak from leaving the sparked the beginning of a spiritual Chevron is the main area in the Land Land, despite famine, and he spends 8 transformation. I was 12 years old when where all three of them lived. And his entire life there. G-d promises the this family odyssey towards more seri- 4 third, it is where all three sets of our Land to him and his children. 9 ous Torah observance began. forefathers and mothers are buried. A good place to start studying Torah To escape his brother, Ya’akov has Therefore, Chevron – more than any was from the very beginning, so I no choice but to leave the Land, but other place – represents our founding his whole life revolves around it. In began with the book of Bereishit. As fathers’ and mothers’ extraordinary his dream on departure, G-d assures I began learning about Avraham, I connection to the Land. was totally perplexed. The very first him he will return and 20 years later 5 time G-d speaks to the very first Jew, commands him to do so. Upon his As I was finishing high school, I made He commands him to leave wher- return, Ya’akov is promised the Land a further amazing discovery. One of 6 ever he is and to journey to another for him and his children. Then after the world’s leading historians, Paul land to fulfill his destiny. This baffled being pushed into Exile once again, Johnson, had just published his mon- me. After all, was this really the most to reunite with his son Yosef in Egypt, umental work, “A History of the Jews,” important thing for Avraham to do Ya’akov asks Yosef to swear to bury in which he highlighted the very same in order to begin his mission? What him in the grave of his forefathers in reflections about the Land in general 7 about studying Torah, keeping mitz- the Land. and Chevron in particular. vot, committing himself to total obe- The book of Bereishit ends coun- In his opening chapter, he emphasized dience to fulfill the will of G-d? terintuitively with Yosef, despite his the remarkable centrality of the Land Incredibly, the more I studied the meteoric success in Egypt, making from the dawn of Jewish history: “The book of Bereishit, the more I realized his family promise to bury him in election of Abraham and his descen- that this original encounter between the Land of his fathers. Remarkably, dants for a special role in G-d’s prov- G-d and Avraham was not an excep- the last verse of the book conveys his idence, and the donation of the land, death, embalming and placing him in tion but rather the rule. It seemed as if are inseparable in the Biblical presen- a coffin. No burial is mentioned. The 10 G-d had some type of obsession, so to tation of history.” message is clear – he is waiting, no speak, with this Land. It was clear that matter for how long, to return to the Strikingly, Johnson traces the very the new spiritual mission of Avraham Land with the Children of Israel and beginning of Jewish history to Chev- and his children was somehow inex- to be buried there. ron itself: “The Jews are the most tricably linked to this tract of land. tenacious people in history. Chevron The singling out of a person, a family This conclusion is inescapable. As is there to prove it. It lies 20 miles and a people for a unique mission is soon as Avraham arrives, G-d prom- south of Jerusalem, 3,000 feet up in interlocked at every stage with the ises to give the Land to his children.1 the Judean Hills. There, in the Cave singling out of the Land. They are of Machpelah, are the Tombs of the As he returns from Egypt after the inseparable. famine, G-d commands him to walk Patriarchs. According to ancient tra- around the Land, look in all direc- I also noticed that in the book of Bere- dition, one sepulcher, itself of great tions and promises the whole Land ishit, one city in the Land – Chevron antiquity, contains the mortal remains Continued on page 4 | 3 TORAT MIZRACHI Continued from page 3 of Abraham, founder of the Jewish to them. It is perhaps the first pas- Judaism will always remain inherently religion and ancestor of the Jewish sage in the Bible which records an connected to the inseparable foun- race. Paired with his tomb is that of actual event, witnessed and described dational principles of Jewish people- his wife Sarah. Within the building through a long chain of oral recitation hood and nationhood – the Land and are the twin tombs of his son Isaac and so preserving authentic details.”12 people at the heart of Bereishit. It is a and his wife Rebecca. Across the privilege to be part of a breathtaking inner courtyard is another pair of Thus the Jewish people’s connection drama unfolding today; a phenome- tombs, of Abraham’s grandson Jacob to Chevron is a microcosm of our non unrivaled in all of human history: and his wife Leah..