The Land of Israel: Sanctified Matter or Mythic Space?

Abstract

The central issue to be faced as we confront the doctrine of the Land in Jewish tradition is that we have been led to believe that as an historical religion Judaism manifests a marked preference for sacred time over sacred space. Having been nurtured by A. J. Heschel’s lyrical prose that declares unequivocally, ‘Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time … to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first … The sanctity of the time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses’,¹ we are astonished by the realisation that space occupies a far more prominent place in our theology than we were, heretofore, prone to admit. One must wonder aloud as to whether Heschel himself conceded this point by devoting one of his last books, Israel: An Echo of Eternity, to the Land. Beyond this concern with holy territory, we, children of modernity, are offended and alienated by the ‘scandal of particularity’ that emanates from the twin concepts of Jewish peoplehood and nationhood. Finally, our Christian brethren have, over the years, viewed the land-centred-ness of ‘Israel of the flesh’ with some considerable scepticism, especially when juxtaposed with the immaterial sanctity of ‘Israel of the spirit’.