Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

The sidra of Va’era begins with a sequence of verbs that describe God’s redemptive power. Utilising four verbs, וְהֽוֹצֵאתִ֣י, וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י, וְגָֽאַלְתִּ֤י and וְלָֽקַחְתִּ֨י the rabbis derived the idea that on Seder night every Jew should consume four glasses of wine to celebrate these four expressions of redemption. The verbs indicate slightly different aspects of God’s power but essentially they are synonyms – describing God’s intention to lead the Israelites out of slavery and guide them towards a life of freedom:

Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, וְהֽוֹצֵאתִ֣י and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י and I will deliver you from their bondage, וְגָֽאַלְתִּ֤י and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and וְלָֽקַחְתִּ֨י I will take you for my people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Exodus 6: 6-7)

There is however a 5th expression of redemption which according to our sages is not a promise of immediate release, but a promise of long-term salvation. The verse speaks of a time long into the future when the Children of Israel will enter the Promised Land and receive their ultimate and everlasting gift from God – the land of Israel.

וְהֵֽבֵאתִ֤י אֶתְכֶם֙ אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר נָשָׂ֨אתִי֙ אֶת־יָדִ֔י לָתֵ֣ת אֹתָ֔הּ לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם
לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַֽעֲקֹ֑ב וְנָֽתַתִּ֨י אֹתָ֥הּ לָכֶ֛ם מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה אֲנִ֥י ה’:

וְהֵֽבֵאתִ֤י And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; I will give it to you as an inheritance. I am the Lord.
(Exodus 6:8)

Based on this verse, the rabbis debated whether this 5th verb of deliveranceוְהֵֽבֵאתִ֤י warranted a fifth cup of wine at the Seder. For most of history the promise of Israel, as a Jewish state, seemed distant and so a fifth cup was poured but not drunk. Appreciating that the Jewish people would only return to Israel in the days of the Messiah, they named the cup – Kos Shel Eliyahu – Elijah’s Cup – not because they held some kind of mythical belief that the prophet Elijah would attend each and every Seder and sip from the cup, but because Elijah was recognised as the forerunner to the Messiah and when he was ready to announce the coming of the Messiah – then Jews would know that the final redemption would be at hand and only then a fifth cup of wine would be drunk at the Seder. Nowadays, the custom remains for many to pour a fifth cup and leave it untouched on the table, but since 1948, some rabbis have accepted the idea that redemption is close by, and so they have given permission to drink a fifth cup on Seder night.

Putting to one side, however, the question of how many cups of wine we should drink at the Seder, there is another aspect of this verse (Exodus 6:8) that raises a fascinating discussion. The verse describes Israel as a מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה -a noun that is of doubtful meaning and is used only twice in the Torah, once here in Exodus to describe the Promised Land and again at the very end of the Torah where God says the following to Moses:

תּוֹרָ֥ה צִוָּה־לָ֖נוּ מֹשֶׁ֑ה מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה קְהִלַּ֥ת יַֽעֲקֹֽב:
Moses issued to us the Law, an inheritance for the congregation of Jacob.
(Deuteronomy 33:4)

In both cases, I have translated the word as ‘an inheritance’ and there certainly seems to be some relationship between this word and the more common word for an inheritance – יְרוּשָׁה yerusha. The rabbis ponder however, if there is some difference between the two words, just as we may say there is a difference between the words inheritance, legacy, possession and heritage, all of which have been used by Biblical scholars to translate the word מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה.

According to one idea, while מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה is undoubtedly related to the word יְרוּשָׁה – they appear to have very different meanings. A yerusha belongs entirely to the recipient, to do with it as he chooses. One may inherit for example a lump sum from one’s parent’s estate – how a person uses the bequest is entirely in their hands – they have no responsibility to invest it and pass on the capital to the next generation. They may do so if they wish – but it is not part of the normal terms of inheritance. On the other hand, there may be certain possessions that have been passed down through the generations – a work of art, a tract of land, a magnificent collection of jewellery – and often the recipient feels a sense of responsibility to maintain this for future generations – to keep such treasures within the family. The individual may well be able to enjoy the use of such inherited possessions during their life, but on their passing, such heirlooms should be passed on so that they remain in the family for generations to come.

In this sense, a morasha is not so much an inheritance as a heritage; something to be preserved so that it may be passed on to subsequent generations. Israel and Torah are not gifted to us, but entrusted to us. Our role is that of a guardian ensuring that eventually we hand each one intact to those who come after us. In this sense, while a yerusha often has a limited and transient benefit to the recipient, a morasha has an everlasting quality. In the case of the Jewish people – their peoplehood is said to be eternally tied to the Land of Israel and the revealed word of God. How fortunate are we in our generation to see all three combine again and in so doing produce a unique force for good in the world. The Jewish people in the last two thousand years have maintained their study and appreciation of Torah even as they waited patiently for the Land to return – the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Israel is the greatest achievement of the Jewish people since Talmudic times.

This unique relationship between the people, the Land and God’s revealed word is reflected in the Talmud where our rabbis write:

״תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה״. אַל תִּקְרֵי מוֹרָשָׁה אֶלָּא מְאוֹרָסָה

“Moses commanded us the Torah, an inheritance [morasha] for the congregation of Jacob” (Deuteronomy 33:4). Do not read the word as inheritance [morasha]; rather, read it as the similar sounding word – betrothed [me’orasa]. (TB Pesachim 49b)

The Talmud is implying that the word morasha (inheritance) is linked to the idea of betrothal. Given that the word is only used in relation to Torah and the Land – it appears to convey the idea that the Jewish people should see themselves as wedded to these two aspects of their being. No other body of literature can replace the words of Torah as our constitution, and no other region can replace Israel at the very heart of our nation. Remove these two pillars from our lives and tragedy follows either in the form of antisemitism or widespread assimilation.

When Jews sought to replace Torah at different times in history with foreign ideas taken from outside the traditional Jewish world, whole sections of Jewry lost their way with disastrous results. Two thousand years ago, a radically different form of Judaism evolved which included non-traditional and in some cases pagan ideas. Eventually becoming a distinctly new religion, Christianity caused unimaginable pain to Jews in the medieval world. When the Jews of Germany (and later the USA) sought to purge much of Torah from their lives two hundred years ago with the idea of reforming Judaism to bring it into line with contemporary Christian culture, the result was assimilation of the type that continues to damage the body-politic of our nation in the West.

In general, the Land of Israel was never abandoned in this way – its loss was always felt deeply and Jews prayed daily for a return to Zion. But there was one notable exception when the Land might have felt that it had been neglected or slighted. I refer to the proposal by Theodor Herzl at the 1903 Zionist Congress to establish a Jewish Home in Uganda. The scheme provoked intense debate within the Zionist movement, challenging the primacy of Eretz Yisrael as the focus of Jewish national aspirations. Although the Sixth Zionist Congress authorized a commission to assess the territory, widespread opposition from both Zionist delegates and white settlers in East Africa ultimately led to the withdrawal of the offer in 1905. The controversy marked a decisive moment in Zionist politics as it reaffirmed its commitment to a Jewish homeland in what was then known as Palestine. In a strange quirk of history, it was as if the Land had been mortally wounded by even the suggestion that Jews could make their nation-state anywhere but Israel. Perhaps it was the Entebbe Affair of 1976 when Jews were taken to Uganda against their will but saved for the most part by the heroic efforts of the IDF and returned safely to Israel that softened the insult that the Land had felt in 1903.

A final thought on the meaning of מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה. To appreciate this nuance, we need to compare the use of מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה with a synonym used in Bemidbar. In the Book of Numbers, the Torah outlines Estate Law and makes clear that although in matters of inheritance a son generally takes precedence over a daughter, nevertheless where there are only daughters, they are permitted to inherit from their father’s estate. The word used for this type of inheritance is נַחֲלָה (nachala).

It seems to me that there is a linguistic point that is being made. In the case of inheriting possessions from one’s parents the word נַחֲלָה is used because it relates to the word נַחַל (nachal) meaning a river. No matter what happens, water runs downstream. Rain falls upon the hills and merges into streams and then into rivers until it finally flows out to sea. Nothing can stop the flow of water downhill. This is inheritance as described in the Book of Numbers – one’s parents acquire possessions and when they die those possessions flow on automatically to the children. A child does not need to do anything to receive their inheritance, like water flowing down a mountainside, so a person’s possessions transfer automatically to the next generation.

מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה is very different. The verb לְהוֹרִישׁ from which the noun is formed – does not mean to inherit – it means to disinherit – in other words, as expressed many times in the Book of Joshua, for the Israelites to inherit the land of Canaan, they must first fight against and conquer the land from its existing inhabitants.

Hence, מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה does not imply any form of automatic transference of property or land from one to another – but signifies that no such transfer will ever take place without huge effort on the part of the one seeking to take ownership.

This then is the real meaning of the word מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה. Neither Torah nor Israel can be possessed or ‘inherited’ without incredible effort. If one considers Torah luminaries, no one can achieve the title of Talmid Chacham without having spent decades studying every aspect of Judaism. Such great scholars would have studied Tanakh, occupied themselves with Talmud and examined volume upon volume of Jewish Law, Jewish philosophy, Jewish history and Jewish mysticism. Similarly, the struggle to create a Jewish state only came about with great sacrifice. Generations of Jews have fought on the battleground and in the political arena so that Israel could survive and prosper. The entire history of the Zionist enterprise since 1880 has been one of perpetual struggle and enormous sacrifice. It is ongoing. This is the promise God made to the Children of Israel all those years ago – if it is worth owning, then it is worth fighting for – even dying for – and that is what generations of Jews have done in attempting to conquer Torah learning and in more recent years – conquer the Land for the benefit and future of all the Jewish people.

We owe a debt that can never be fully repaid, to those, who through their commitment and consistency, as well as through their unwavering faith and tremendous sacrifice, ensured that these two pillars of Jewish life have each remained a מֽוֹרָשָׁ֖ה – a legacy for our people, for all time.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman