(סג) תְּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל לְחֵרוּתֵֽנוּ וְשָׂא נֵס לְקַבֵּץ גָּלֻיּוֹתֵֽינוּ וְקַבְּ֒צֵֽנוּ יַֽחַד מְהֵרָה מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָֽרֶץ לְאַרְצֵֽנוּ: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' מְקַבֵּץ נִדְחֵי עַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל:
(63) Sound the great shofar for our liberty, and raise a banner to gather our exiles, and gather us together quickly from the four corners of the earth. into our Land. Blessed are You, G-d Gatherer of the dispersed of His people Israel.
(The following six benedictions, beginning with this one, are prayers for the restoration of the spiritual-national life of the Jewish People. This tenth benediction is an impassioned prayer for the fulfillment of the prophecy, “And it will come to pass on that day, the great Shofar will be sounded; and those who were lost in the land of Assyria shall come and those who were dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they will worship G-d on the Holy Mountain at Jerusalem (Isaiah 27:13).—Avudraham)
Psalm 137. Every day before grace after meals
1. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept as we remembered Zion.
2. There, upon the willows, we hung our harps.
3. For there our captors demanded of us songs, and those who scorned us-rejoicing, [saying,] "Sing to us of the songs of Zion.”
4. How can we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil?
5. If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [its dexterity].
6. Let my tongue cleave to my palate if I will not remember you, if I will not bring to mind Jerusalem during my greatest joy!
Psalm 126. On Shabbat before grace after meals
1. A song of ascents. When the Lord will return the exiles of Zion, we will have been like dreamers.
2. Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with songs of joy; then will they say among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for these.”
3. The Lord has done great things for us; we were joyful.
4. Lord, return our exiles as streams to arid soil.
5. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.
6. He goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed; he will surely return with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves.
Rambam, Laws of Kings 5:10-11
10 Great sages would kiss the borders of Eretz Yisrael, kiss its stones, and roll in its dust. Similarly, Psalms 102:15 declares: "Behold, your servants hold her stones dear and cherish her dust."
11 The Sages commented: "Whoever dwells in Eretz Yisrael will have his sins forgiven as Isaiah 33:24 states: 'The inhabitant shall not say "I am sick." The people who dwell there shall be forgiven their sins.'"
Even one who walks four cubits there will merit the world to come and one who is buried there receives atonement as if the place in which he is buried is an altar of atonement as Deuteronomy 32:43 states: "His land will atone for His people." In contrast, the prophet, Amos [7:17, used the expression] "You shall die in an impure land" as a prophecy of retribution.
There is no comparison between the merit of a person who lives in Eretz Yisrael and ultimately, is buried there and one whose body is brought there after his death. Nevertheless, great Sages would bring their dead there. Take an example, from our Patriarch, Jacob, and Joseph, the righteous.
Rabbi Yehuda Halevi 1075-1141
My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west--
How can I find savour in food? How shall it be sweet to me?
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?
A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain --
Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.
(לד) ויען שמעון ויאמר: הארץ אשר שבנו לרשתה אחוזת אבותינו היא, ואין לאיש זר חלק ונחלה בתוכה.
(לה) כי אויבינו שדדו נחלתנו ויאחזו בה באון ובעוול, ועתה כי הצליח ה' את דרכנו לקחנו את נחלת אבותינו וישבנו בה.
(34) Then answered Simon, and said unto him, We have neither taken other men’s land, nor holden that which appertaineth to others, but the inheritance of our fathers, which our enemies had wrongfully in possession a certain time.
(35) Wherefore we, having opportunity, hold the inheritance of our fathers.
Israel's Declaration of Independence
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood...
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.
....On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Berishis / Genesis
12:1-7 And the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you.
... and they went to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan...And the Lord appeared to Abram, and He said, "To your seed I will give this land,"
15:18 On that day, the Lord formed a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt until the great river, the Euphrates river.
17:7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and between you and between your seed after you throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant, to be to you for a God and to your seed after you.
8And I will give you and your seed after you the land of your sojournings, the entire land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be to them for a God."
19And God said, "Indeed, your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
20And regarding Ishmael, I have heard you; behold I have blessed him, and I will make him fruitful, and I will multiply him exceedingly; he will beget twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.
21But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year."
21: 10And Sarah said to Abraham, "Drive out this handmaid and her son, for the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son, with Isaac."
11But the matter greatly displeased Abraham, concerning his son.
12And God said to Abraham, "Be not displeased concerning the lad and concerning your handmaid; whatever Sarah tells you, hearken to her voice, for in Isaac will be called your seed.
13But also the son of the handmaid I will make into a nation, because he is your seed."
26:1 And there was a famine in the land, aside from the first famine that had been in the days of Abraham, and Isaac went to Abimelech the king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
2And the Lord appeared to him, and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land that I will tell you.
3Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you, for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.
4And I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and I will give your seed all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by your seed,
35: 10God said to him, "Your name is Jacob. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." And He named him Israel.
11And God said to him, "I am the Almighty God; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a multitude of nations shall come into existence from you, and kings shall come forth from your loins.
12And the land that I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, I will give to you and to your seed after you will I give the land."
Exodus 3:7 And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their slave drivers, for I know their pains.
8I have descended to rescue them from the hand[s] of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land, to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivvites, and the Jebusites.
Etc...
Yechezkel 40:1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, in the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year, after the city was smitten, on this very day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me there.
2In the visions of God He brought me to the land of Israel, and He placed me on a very lofty mountain, and upon it was like the building of a city from the south.
1In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth.
Rashi:In the beginning: Said Rabbi Isaac: It was not necessary to begin the Torah except from “This month is to you,” (Exod. 12:2) which is the first commandment that the Israelites were commanded, (for the main purpose of the Torah is its commandments, and although several commandments are found in Genesis, e.g., circumcision and the prohibition of eating the thigh sinew, they could have been included together with the other commandments). Now for what reason did He commence with “In the beginning?” Because of [the verse] “The strength of His works He related to His people, to give them the inheritance of the nations” (Ps. 111:6). For if the nations of the world should say to Israel, “You are robbers, for you conquered by force the lands of the seven nations [of Canaan],” they will reply, "The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it (this we learn from the story of the Creation) and gave it to whomever He deemed proper When He wished, He gave it to them, and when He wished, He took it away from them and gave it to us.