What I am about to write may be uncomfortable for some to read. It is surely very uncomfortable for me to write. However, in order for us to understand our current and future situation, I have to put this out there. I do apologize if some people are hurt from my words in any way; it is truly not my intent. To be sure, everything I am about to write is about me more than anyone else. When I engage in posts such as the one below I am more often than not referring to myself. All that being said please stay with me, regardless. I promise there is a payoff for all of us.

As I wrote previously here https://haroldkatz1.substack.com/p/judaism-in-not-a-religion-part-one the people of Israel and Torah are inseparable. There is no people without Torah and no Torah without the Jewish people. But what of the land of Israel which the nation has been praying to return to three times a day for more than two millennia?

“Moshe commanded us the Torah, a heritage/inheritance (Morasha)of the congregation of Jacob” (Deuteronomy 33:4)

And I will give it to you as a heritage/inheritance. (Morasha) (Exodus 6:8)

By virtue of the Torah using the same word in both verses, Morasha, heritage/inheritance, as it relates to Torah and the land, our sages of blessed memory, taught us that Torah and the land of Israel are equal and inseparable. Jews who want to argue you can have one without the other are simply ignorant of Torah, the people and the land. It really is that simple.

In the mid to late 19th and early 20th century Reform Judaism removed any connection between Judaism and the Land of Israel essentially arguing Judaism is a universal “religion” without any connection to a specific place. Tanach, of course, argued just the opposite, but we will visit that soon enough. Other Jews who wanted nothing to do with any organized “religion” argued that joining the “bund” or other movements such as the various Jewish labor movements for example, called for total integration with our diaspora neighbors and rejected the land of Israel and Torah outright. Soon enough, the last remnants of those movements died out either through assimilation or lack of interest. To combat the problem as it affected the reform movement, they twisted themselves into knots to make room for patralineal descent which still is clearly against Jewish law, but the leadership argued it had to be done to stem the tide of overwhelming assimilation. I have addressed this issue somewhat here https://haroldkatz1.substack.com/p/the-clock-is-ticking-part-1 and don’t want to go too far astray. It can be argued, and I think rather fairly, that the movements that worked hard to separate both Torah from “Judaism” and the land, spawned the current “as a jew, jew” crisis we are living through in our day. Like it or not, those who made that separation are now finding themselves struggling with the youths who grew up in their temples and now endorse and participate in free-palestine movements across colleges, universities and in the streets across the globe. Scores of Jews rejecting the very heart and soul of Judaism. The fact remains, regardless of the Reform movements stance, there is no Judaism without Torah and the Land of Israel. Of the 613 commandments found in the Torah, anywhere from 26 to 37 of them are land specific ranging from the resting of the land, Shmittah,........

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