God’s Promise v. Amalek’s Noise: Further Notes on the geography and integrity of the Promised Land
“Every place where the sole of your foot will tread shall be yours – from the Wilderness and the Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River until the Western sea shall be your boundary” (Deut. 11:24)
When Israel is not intact, shaleim, it is as if the Eternal One’s integrity and Unity is diminished, state the sages of the Zohar. When this fracturing pertains there cannot be peace, not within or around Israel nor anywhere in the world. And today many cry, “‘peace, peace’ but there is no peace” because Israel is not intact. Its leaders have behaved like wayward sons and faithless wives, like harlots. “On the roads you awaited your lovers like an Arab in the desert.” Thus the quislings “have brought guilt upon the land with their adultery and evil” (Isaiah 2:25 – 3:9). So intoxicated is this group with their delusions and apologetics about a peace process that brings war and about the pillagers from the desert that they have opened the ‘gates’ of the Land to them, tearing it like treif.
To repeat: “the peace of the wicked” has let Edom and Ishmael into the land and holy places in which the Unity of the Eternal One is to be embodied and praised by an integral Israel, Yisrael Shleimah. The selfish arrogance of their designs and self-serving rhetoric fills the land with violence even as “their tongue struts the earth” (psalm 73). Being harlots, the “faithless shepherds that abandon their flock” the troika of defeatism and corruption have treated Israel like a harlot (Genesis 34). Thus the Land is torn into pieces and the people are fragmented by fatalism, confusion, and alien ideas / gods.
It is a time of His concealed countenance…
We will briefly consider the surface noise these betrayals and this drunkenness makes and then return to quench our thirst with the clarity of “milk and wine…the kindnesses promised to David” (Isaiah 55, haftora for Torah portion Re’eh). As the penitents sang, this kindness and truth is a veritable “psalm of song whose foundation is in the holy mountains” (psalm 87). For it is in the topography and the Promised Land, in the fruitful “song” of the Land, as Jacob called its produce (Genesis 43:11) that this wholeness is manifest. The integrity of the landscape is the “truth sprouts from the earth” to demonstrate the area in which Israel will be integrated, whole, complete and, thus, at peace.
It is vital that we explore, review and understand the reiterated designation by the Eternal One that Israel’s true northern inheritance is from the Euphrates and the Lebanon to the Western Sea.
First, as a sign of where the holy nation is now and the distance it has to go to find genuine peace, consider the noise and lies that faithless shepherds have brought on Israel by spurning its heritage again, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Persian violence unleashed upon Israel from the north.
During the recent round of fighting, only a fraction of the reserves, the national host of Israel was mobilized, and only very late in response to the Hezbollah assault. The army’s plans and pleas for a rapid, deep and multi-faceted counterstrike were refused by the expulsion party. But where were the voices of the General Staff when production of the battle tank was halted months ago? This is a major point whose relevance goes past the debacle with Hezbollah: without its battle tank, Israel cannot capably project ground forces; that is, Israel effectively as well in principle surrenders its ability to reclaim any of the Promised Land outside the June 12, 1967 lines. This is the intention of the powers of the world that want to bury the character and redemptive destiny of Israel, the Netzach Yisrael.
In any case, without fulfilling the commandment of pidyon shvuyim (”redemption of captives,” the soldiers abducted in June and July 12), the Hellenized oligarchs agreed to a ceasefire demanded by the nations (it is called an “imposed” ceasefire but this is a misnomer: it can be imposed only with the compliance of the regime). The ceasefire affirms and fruitlessly seeks to bolster the artificial state of “Lebanon” by filling it with a congeries of armed groups hostile to Jews and Jewish integrity.
A short list of these hostile peoples and forces includes the colonial-created Islamic states of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, none of which recognize the existence of Israel; the Islamic state of Turkey whose officials already have announced that they “will not be neutral” but will favor Hezbollah-Lebanon. The French will send a few hundred “engineers” and two thousand troops later, perhaps; the French who have been in charge of the United Nations “Interim” Force in Lebanon that has sheltered jihadists for twenty-five years and whose commander openly expresses his inability to control them; France that does not consider Hezbollah a terrorist group; France, home to deeply-engrained hatred and persecution of Jews that is worsening by the day. The fewer of them the better though the main point is that a “multilateral force” next to Israel is itself a disaster in security terms both as the world speaks and in the divine-historical perspective. For it complicates and delays the time when Israel will be whole and complete.
To “balance out” the Islamic forces (including France) encircling Israel in the name of “peace,” Finland, one of the main sponsors of the “International Solidarity Movement” whose agitators infest Israel and incite Arab violence against Jews, says it will send a few hundred ‘peace keepers.’ Italy and the Netherlands also pledge troops, giving the color of ‘diversity’ to the Franco – State Department plan. Last but not least, German police, customs officials, and naval patrols are offered for the border and coast.
Even if these forces do fight Hezbollah, the situation is rife with danger for Israel. Kadima, the servant of the powers, brings Hamas upon Israel, and attacks from Kasdim, Mesopotamia, too (Habakkuk 1:5-10).
None of these UN forces are peace-keepers; they are sent by anti-Jewish warmongers. Of particular interest is the presence of German police on the northern border of Israel: they “will come from the uttermost parts of the north and all its cohorts, — many peoples will be with you, Gog against [Israel]” (Ezekiel 38:6-16). Certainly the latest ceasefire is a “wicked design” “to advance against My people, Israel… it will be at the End of Days.” It is a seething cauldron, its turbulence blown from the north (Jeremiah)…
Topping the scenario, the fourth transgression as it were (see Amos and Joel) is that Iran - Persia is doing what Israel, even under direct attack from Iranian Guards did not do but should have done: mobilizing its armed forces for war games, training and readiness missions. Iran’s chief of staff states that these exercises will include firing of long range surface to air missiles to be ready for an attack from the “insane regime in Jerusalem.” This is an interesting turn of phrase. It is reasonable to denote as insane the President of Iran who fancies himself the twelfth or “hidden” Imam, and who routinely threatens Armageddon. But in terms of military readiness and deployment which regime is more drunkenly suicidal? Does the branja (ruling elites) in Israel believe that the West will rescue them after Israel has been destroyed? They drink the cup of delusion…
The Iranian military activities bracketed August 22 that this year correlates with the Islamic date 27 Rajav 1427, the day Shiites consider to signal the Imam’s triumphant and apocalyptic appearance. Meanwhile, led by those who commit adultery with the anti-Jewish United Nations, EU and State Department, neutered Israel, like a numbed ox waits for the blow to fall.
None of this has to be. Israel would not be treated like a harlot; its existence would not be imperiled if its integrity were not so greatly compromised. The violence from the north would have been forestalled had Israel been committed to settling in its place. So let us review the geographic evidence for the true boundaries of Israel, “the cherished Land, the heritage from the Eternal One given as a possession to your fathers”; to Israel, “the cherished land, the heritage coveted by the multitudes of nations” (Jeremiah 3:19). It is in this place that truth that will sprout from the earth one way or another: before or after scourging storms.
So let us further examine the land to be claimed and won.
We have explained in a recent essay (”Lebanon our Land: Torah and topography”) that the frequently described boundaries of Israel reveal its north-south axis to be the great valley of the Jordan – Litani rivers that drain the mountains on its western and eastern flanks, mountains whose western line stretches south through the southern Sinai , angles northwest toward Suez and then back east toward the Negev. While Egyptian pillars speak of defeating Israel in the thirteenth century BCE, Scripture specifies that the conquests of the Land in the territory of Juda included “the entire south and the entire land of Goshen and the lowland and the Arabah, from the Arabah through Gaza to the entire Goshen” (Joshua 10:40-1; 11:16). The topography reflects this text.
As to the southwestern, coastal side of the Lebanon range, already in the wars of Joshua the Canaanites had been chased to “Great Sidon,” part of the boundary of the tribe of Zebulon. “All the Sidonians I will drive out on behalf of the Children of Israel. You have only to allot it to Israel as a heritage as I have commanded you. So now divide the land as a heritage” (Joshua 13:6-7).
It is a tragedy heading toward more violence that the oligarchs do not teach the history and heritage of Israel to its children. Until they do and act to fulfill it the children will not return to their borders and “for this, the land will mourn.”
The Bekaa valley, in recent years notorious as the camp of “Syrian” troops, is the direct extension of the Jordan - Litani valley, a primary feature of the Land. (The Canaanites are described as living both “on the east and on the west” of this central valley (Joshua 11:3). In the absence of Israel, the Bekaa, the northernmost part of this valley has been filled with hostile forces from various alien states, artificial and ancient. Israeli commandos are operating and dying northwest of Baalbek on the Boudai stream because the state has not affirmed and inhabited its inheritance up through the Jordan-Litani-Bekaa to the Euphrates.
Draining this northern part of Israel’s central mountain valley, streams like the Boudai flow to Lake Homs from which issues the Orontes, flowing north to turn into the Western Sea near Mt. Hor and the city occupied by the Turks and called by them, Iskandrun.
As it spreads north from Baalbek, at its head the Jordan-Litani-Bekaa broadens into the plains of Hama where David won great victories over the city states of Aram, defeating repeatedly the adventurous Hadadezer who crossed the Euphrates to encroach upon the Promised Land (2 Samuel 8 – 12). Regarding these northern wars, David’s General, Joav made an intriguing remark about the fighting at the walls of “Tavaitz” (2 Samuel 11:22). This may be the site of today’s Tavash on the Euphrates at the head of a great dam. The name, Medinat al Tavash is a scarcely changed Hebrew-derivative (”fortress of state”). It in any case forms part of the northeastern bounds of the Promised Land as topography and Torah show. “The approach to Hamath” is the low plateau stretching from the Land’s central valley toward the Euphrates.
The topographical flow of the mountain ranges of the Lebanon show how they and the Euphrates anchor the northeastern portions of the Promised Land as stated often in Deuteronomy and Joshua. East of the Land’s long north-south valley, the eastern Lebanon splits, just north of Damascus which rests below the eastern slope, into two parallel lines often referred to as the “ante [easterly] Lebanon ranges. These extend into rugged highlands that rise to the “Mount of the great father” (Jebel [from Givat] Abu Rabbah). A small valley connecting to the Hama plateau separates Abu Rabbah from the smaller Mt. Bishri that overlooks the Euphrates.
The western range of the Lebanon continues north, paralleling the Sea past Latakia and then hugging the coast to the Mediterranean’s great bend toward the west which the sages denote as the northern limit of Israel. As discussed in our previous essay on Torah and Topography, as it extends south, the eastern or ante-Lebanon range includes the high lands containing the head waters of the Yarmuk, Jabbok and the Arnon, the lands of the northern portion of Dan, of half of Menashe and the tribes of Gad and Reuben. These are “the lands that the Children of Israel inherited on the other side of the Jordan, toward the rising sun… the entire plain to the east of Mt. Hermon and the Kinneret until the sea of the plain, the Salt [Dead] Sea to the east and in all of the Bashan” (Joshua 12:1-6; 13:8-32 cf. Numbers 32:16-42).
Thus we can see the beautiful integrity of the Promised Land, “from the Wilderness and the Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River until the Western Sea” that “shall be your boundary,” Israel. This geographic – Scriptural integrity, this “song whose foundation is in the holy mountains” shows us the “desirable, good and spacious land” apportioned to Israel. This land is defensible as well as geologically and ecologically coherent: Hashem does not require the impossible; the essence of Israel is integrity and wholeness, the only qualities that bring peace.
Until Israel is intact and complete and arrives again in healing triumph at Shechem it will not fully inherit the qualities of its honorific name (Genesis 35). Until it settles and thus inherits all its land, the presence of the Eternal One will not be complete in the world and it will continue to suffer geopolitical storms of Hamas like those that perennially afflict Israel from the peoples around it, artificial states and empires that fill with violence the vacuum where Israel should be.
The betrayals and faithlessness have gone so dangerously far it seems that we are living in the times about which the Eternal One said “I will gather all the nations and bring them down into the valley of Yehoshaphat and contend with them there concerning My people and My possession, Israel that they have dispersed, and they have divided up My land, and cast lots upon My people” (Joel 4: 1-17). There and then will occur the “Final Decision” for those who have sought for so long to impose their “Final Solution” upon the Children of Israel. “For the Eternal One’s portion is His people, — Jacob is the measure of His inheritance” (Deut. 32:8).
We now have mapped the song of this inheritance of land and require only the national will to embrace, cherish and settle it for integrity and peace to flow like the river of healing light we are promised will come “toward evening” in this Erev Shabbat of history.