Thus did Yisrael gain a dwelling place, secure and alone, the fountain of Yaakov, for a land of grain and new wine; even the dew drips down from His heaven. – Dvarim 33:28

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch comments on the above verse that the phrase “fountain of Yaakov for a land of grain and new wine” indicates that the blessing was to be of the people on the land, rather than the land on the people. This is a continuation of thought from the last parsha, Haazinu, on one of differences between Israel and the nations.

Dvarim 32:8 says: “When the Most High assigned property to the nations, when He separated the sons of men, He set the territories of peoples for the sons of Yisrael yet to be counted.” Mankind began as one family, descending from Adam and Eve. The Midrash tells of Adam, not only naming the animals, but deciding which parts of the world would be for cultivation, which for desert, which for mountains, and so on. Each nation then developed on the land assigned to it. The land had an impact on every aspect of that development: physically, socially, intellectually. Understanding of survival, customs and language, mode of dress and foods, all developed accordingly. Due to the impact of the land on their development, the nations came to revere the forces that had shaped their civilizations as local deities.

Israel’s story was different. The land assigned to the nation was first developed by others, while the nation of Israel developed within another nation. The family of Yaakov descended into Egypt as seventy souls of a clan. There they grew into a nation of 600,000 men. First Gd said: “I will take you to Myself as a people.” Then He said: “And I will bring you into the land” (Exodus 5:7,8). Wandering the wilderness, Israel was taught what it meant to be Gd’s people. The Torah had many laws that could be applied only in the land. Once they would enter the Land of Israel, they were to impose this understanding upon the land, rather than the land shaping them. Blessing was to flow from them to the land, through the keeping of the Law of Torah. It is interesting to note how the land lay desolate for so many centuries while the people of Israel wandering in exile, but flourished once again when the ingathering began in our own times.

The first Patriarch, Abraham, was called out of a land filled with worship of other gods. Obeying a directive from Gd, he journeyed with his family to a land he did not know. He was promised that he would be a father of many nations. This promise was not just a physical one, but a spiritual one, as well. It is well-known that Christianity and Islam have their beginnings in Judaism, and are thus “Abrahamic faiths.” The religions of the East, too, can be traced to Abraham. The oldest religion of the East is Hinduism, from which the others, such as Buddhism, sprang. Abraham sent the sons of Ketura, his second wife, east with gifts (Genesis 25:6). Rabbi Menashe Ben Israel wrote: “…he (Abraham) sent the sons of his concubines away from Isaac while he was yet alive towards the East to the holy land, India. Behold, you may see there the Abrahamites, who are today called Brahmans; they are the sons of Abraham our patriarch and they were the first in India to spread this faith…” (From Hinduism Back to Judaism by Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson)

While traveling in the high Himalayas of India, I met a Hindu man on his way to one of the four the sources of the Ganges, a considered by Hindus particularly holy places. He spoke of a prophesied man who would bring the people back to the “knowledge of the ancient ones.” I thought of our own prophecies of Mashiach. He told me how the Muslims had tried to obliterate Hinduism, but being a nature religion with temples all along the rivers, they had failed. I asked him if he was going to go to the local temples beside the raging Ganges for a puja—ceremony to the local gods; he laughed, “No!” That is when he talked about their own messianic version and about how he wanted to be one of his followers, to help bring about change into the world. My mind went to Abraham, and I wondered if this man, who said he had never read our Torah, had a spark planted so long ago by the sons bearing gifts of wisdom of the father of many nations.

In the land to which Abraham sojourned, he made gifts to Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High Gd in Salem. We are told this was Noah’s son, Shem. Midrash further tells us that Shem and his great-grandson, Eber, established a yeshiva, a school, in which they taught the only Torah of the time—the Seven Noahide Laws. Understanding this, we can see the thread woven through religions of the West and East. This code, and all associated with it, is the “knowledge of the ancient ones.” Although it was lost or corrupted in the worship of local deities, it still glimmers in the underpinnings, enough to beckon the souls of true seekers, such as the man I encountered on the Ganges road.

Israel’s developing so differently as a nation is intricately linked to the other nations of the world. In both Haazinu and V’Zot haBracha Israel is called “Yeshurun,” derived from the Hebrew word “yeshar,” meaning “straight.” The code, passed down from Noah and Shem to Abraham and his sons, had to be preserved and to develop in a “straight” way on behalf of the world. Called to be a priestly nation, a light unto the nations, Israel’s mission has always been to be a living example of cleaving to the One sole Gd.