{"id":37618,"date":"2018-08-12T16:55:38","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T13:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=37618"},"modified":"2022-03-07T13:12:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T11:12:22","slug":"ownership-and-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ownership-and-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Ownership and Humility: Then And Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[418,430,423],"acf":{"old_id":"37618","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33859,"related_cahpter":"23","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The deeper meaning of being a resident yet a stranger","content":"

Whatever your position on Israeli politics may be, it’s hard to escape the irony that some of the places where Jewish ownership and sovereignty are most called into question today are precisely the places where \u00a0the Torah goes out of its way to detail the story of their purchase. First among these purchases is the cave of Machpela in chapter 23.<\/span><\/p>\n

But alongside this irony, it is fascinating to note that the very act of Abraham’s purchase highlights his refusal to fully act as owner of the land that he has been promised. Although the residents of Het call him a Prince of God, Abraham acts in a manner so humble as to border on the servile, bowing to the people, and insisting on paying full price for land that he is offered for free, and that he has been promised by God. <\/span><\/p>\n

From the outset, Abraham defines his relationship to the land which dictates his self-effacing attitude as that of a ‘stranger and resident’, not as a lord. With this phrase, Abraham anticipates the attitude to the land that God aims to impress upon the Jewish people as a whole when we enter and conquer it. With the very same phrase, ‘for you are strangers and residents’ (Lev. 25:23), God explains the rationale behind the institutions of shmita<\/em> and yovel<\/em> (the sabbatical and jubilee years), whose purpose is to ensure that, no matter how much sovereignty and ownership we enjoy, we must always remember to act with the humility of the stranger and resident, for the whole land is God’s. <\/span><\/p>\n

In today’s chapter, Abraham is the first one to teach us this first principle of sovereignty, a principle all the more relevant in our days of renewed Jewish sovereignty: you are only ready to possess this land when you are prepared to act, not as an owner, but as a humble ‘stranger and resident’ within it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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