A Thought on Parshas Achrei Mos

"...va'taki ha'aretz es yoshveha...v'lo taki ha'aretz es'chem..."

"...and the land vomited them out...and the land will not vomit you out ..." (18:25,28)

The nations who had once inhabited eretz Kana'an defiled the land. Their conduct, their standards, their ways of life were deviant and decadent, and the land would not contain them. They died off, they were expelled and most of them vanished without leaving an enduring trace.

In contrast, the Jews were given the land in order to grow and to ascend in sanctity of conduct. The Torah admonishes us in the first verse about the intolerable life orientation that led the land to "vomit away its earlier inhabitants", and then warns us not to follow those paths of impurity. The second verse seems to say that "the land will not vomit you out when you contaminate it the way it vomited away those other nations." The wording seems hard to follow, which has led various commentaries (and English translations) to insert the implied unwritten word "lest", or "you shall not cause the land to vomit you" and other modifications of the concrete reading of the verse. As it is written, however, the verse says,

"v'lo taki ha'aretz eschem b'tam'achem osa ka'asher koh es ha'goy asher lifneichem"

which should translate literally as "and the land will not vomit you when you defile it the way it vomited the nation which preceded you." The commentaries suggest, therefore, that it means "(that you should not cause) the land to vomit you (by) defiling it..." etc.

The Ralbag, however, offers us a different understanding, truer to the written format of the verse. He cites his father, Rav Gershom zt'l who taught that one should not assume that if Jews misbehave in Israel that their fate will resemble that of the earlier nations. The Torah is emphasizing that our misconduct will not result in our being expelled "in the same manner in which those nations were expelled." No! The verse says "and you will not be vomited out the way they were." Those nations were forced to leave, they left, they relocated or they eventually died out.

The lot of the Jew is different. We live by a higher standard. We are meant to ascend and to elevate our existence, especially when living in the land which we are to make holy through more and more mitzvos which can be fulfilled within its sanctified confines. We live by a spiritual standard. When we fail to uphold our mission, we have failed as a nation. The land will expel us, but not in the "geographical relocation" experienced by those others who left the land. Rather, our lot will be one of spiritual strife as well as physical exile. We will yearn to return yet that goal will elude us as long as we fall beneath our spiritual charge.

Furthermore, our fate is different than those earlier nations in another way. Those peoples inhabited the land and were later ejected collectively. Whereas the Jews are a nation and are accountable one to the other in that same collective sense, we are also accountable at the individual level. Each one of us is responsible for his or her spiritual purity. Each one of us is accountable at an individual subjective level for his or her failings. When one is living in the Holy Land and defiles its values, this is an assault on his or her very soul, and that person will face dire spiritual consequence as an individual. One's spiritual fate is in their own hands, and the rest of the nation, one's family and relatives may merit the blessing of living on, whereas he who defiles the land will lose out.

"You will not be vomited out, when you defile the land, the way the nations were!"

The Jewish people faces higher potential, and straying from that means more stark and tragic results. Each individual, too, is expected to reach spiritual heights, and is judged with a stricter measure. We face greater expectations, and we have so much more to lose.But we have so much more to gain....

Wishing you a good Shabbos. D Fox