In conversations with friends or family, it is not uncommon to ask whether they have read any good books lately. And if they have, we naturally ask what the book was about. Most people can summarize its central theme in a sentence or two without much difficulty.
Each year, I begin my course on Jewish thought for students attending a Zionist gap-year seminary in Israel with a similar exercise. After asking them to summarize a book they have recently read—a task they complete with ease—I then pose a second question concerning another book they have studied throughout their lives: What is the Torah about?
This question proves far more difficult for them to answer.
After several minutes of thought and reflection, their responses include:
- “The Torah describes the evolution of Hashem’s relationship to man (specifically the Jewish people) and a way of life which fosters that connection.”
- “The Torah is a book of stories of Jewish history—our highs and lows and the laws that come along with living a Jewish life.”
- “The Torah is the story of the Jewish people: how they came to be, their becoming a nation and their hardships. It is the story of God’s people, what He does for them, and the laws He gives them.”
The common thread running through these responses is the recognition that the Torah centers upon the relationship between God and the Jewish people; that it contains both narrative and law; and that its commandments constitute the divinely ordained framework for Jewish life. Variations of these themes appear throughout most of their answers.
To help the students evaluate the accuracy of their responses, I then retell the Torah’s narrative in broad strokes.
The opening eleven chapters of Genesis describe the creation of the world and God’s relationship with all humankind—a narrative that consists of two parallel accounts (see my book In the Beginnings: Discovering the Two Worldviews Hidden Within Genesis 1-11). Yet these universal beginnings serve largely as a prelude to the Torah’s primary narrative, which begins with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.
God’s first words to Abraham are therefore among the most consequential in all of the Torah: “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” From that moment onward, two promises stand at the heart of the biblical story: that Abraham’s descendants will become a great nation, and that they will inherit the land of Canaan. Again and again, these twin promises of peoplehood and land are repeated to Abraham, reaffirmed to Isaac, and renewed with Jacob. It is therefore fair to say that the entire book of Genesis revolves around this double promise.
By the opening chapters of Exodus, the first promise has already begun to materialize. The descendants of Jacob have multiplied and become a people. The remainder of the Torah then focuses primarily upon the fulfillment of the second promise: bringing that people to the Land. Indeed, God repeatedly tells Moses that the purpose of the Exodus is not merely liberation from slavery, but the fulfillment of His covenant with the patriarchs to bring their descendants to the Promised Land.
After leaving Egypt, the Israelites cross the Sea of Reeds and begin their journey through the wilderness toward Mount Sinai, where they enter into a covenant with God and receive the Torah—the blueprint for their future national life in the Land. Yet almost immediately afterward comes the sin of the Golden Calf, a profound act of betrayal that threatens the covenant itself and nearly leads to the destruction of the nation. After Moses’ intercession, the covenant is renewed, the people build the Mishkan that houses the Divine Presence in the midst of the camp, and they resume their journey through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.
The wilderness experience, however, is repeatedly marked by complaints, rebellions, and crises of faith. The greatest turning point comes with the sin of the spies, when the people lose confidence in their ability to enter the Land and refuse to continue the mission. As a result, that generation is condemned to wander in the desert for forty years until a new generation arises. Only then does the journey resume, ultimately bringing the Israelites to the plains of Moab, standing at the threshold of the Land across the Jordan River.
Yet Moses himself would not complete the journey. Because of his own failing, he was denied entry into the Land. For the man who had devoted his entire life to leading his people toward this destination, this decree was heartbreaking. Though he pleaded with God to allow him to cross the Jordan, God only allowed him to gaze upon the Land from afar.
Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah, consists of Moses’ farewell address to the Israelites as they stand on the threshold of the Promised Land. In this speech, Moses reviews the nation’s history from the Exodus onward, reflects upon their failures and triumphs, reiterates and expands many of the Torah’s laws, and calls upon the people to remain faithful to God and His covenant once they enter the Land. Again and again, he emphasizes that their future in the Land will depend upon their moral and spiritual conduct, promising blessing for obedience and warning of catastrophe and exile should they abandon the covenant. The book concludes with Moses’ final blessings, the transfer of leadership to Joshua, and then Moses’ death.
After hearing this retelling of the Torah, my students are often startled to realize that they
omitted one of its central themes from their summaries: the Land of Israel.
When I ask them to explain this omission, many acknowledge that throughout their years of Torah study they were trained primarily to focus upon individual words and verses, linguistic nuances, and legal details, rather than upon the Torah’s overarching themes and larger national vision.
And when I suggest that this may also reflect the historical reality that Jews lived outside their land for nearly two thousand years—and that Torah educators therefore naturally emphasized themes more immediately relevant to Diaspora existence—they often acknowledge that this, too, may be true.
If this analysis is correct, then now that we have once again become a sovereign nation in our homeland as the Torah envisioned, it is incumbent upon us to restore the Land of Israel to its rightful place within Torah education.
We must therefore develop curricula that highlight the Land’s centrality to both the Torah’s narrative and its laws. We must equip educators with the tools to teach these themes meaningfully and passionately. And we must seek teachers who do not merely teach about the Land, but who love it deeply and can inspire their students with that same love.
For the Torah is not merely about the relationship between God and His people. It is also about how that relationship is meant to take shape when God’s people become a sovereign nation in its land.
To overlook that truth is not merely to miss one theme among many—it is to miss the Torah’s very foundation and its underlying vision.
Chag Sameach.
