<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><font size="4" class="">The Sidra of Masei defines with great exactitude the borders of the land of Israel. Further, in his commentary on the verse and you shall drive out the inhabitants of the land and dwell therein; unto you have I given the land to possess it (Bamidbar 33:53), the Ramban identifies this verse as the imperative to inhabit the Land. The great importance the Sages attached to living in the Land and the prohibition against leaving it are derived from this verse.<br class=""> <br class="">As the Jews prepare to enter Israel they are warned by God regarding the non-Jewish nations who already inhabit the land: Do not permit them to live in your land (Shemot 23:33). In the opinion of a large number of scholars (Rashi on Gittin 45a, Ravad and Sefer Mitzvot Gedolot) this applies only to the seven nations who inhabited Israel at that time and who have since vanished into history.<br class=""> </font><div class=""><font size="4" class="">The problem that we are faced with today is how to deal with our enemies who reside in the Holy Land and want to drive us out and kill us. Our claim to Israel is ultimately predicated on the Torah. The Bible is our mandate. However, our permanence in the land depends on the degree to which the Torah is encoded in that land. The whole purpose of God giving us the land was that in combination with the Torah, we are supposed to be a light unto the nations. If that goal is removed, then our whole purpose for existence has been thwarted. Without the pillar of cloud by day, our vision is totally clouded. And without the pillar of fire by night, we are suffering from night blindness.<br class="">Could this be to what our Rabbis referred when in answer to the question why did we lose the land? they answered shelo barchu baTorah techilah, not as is usually translated they did not make a blessing before reading the Torah but rather as they did not look upon Torah as a priority?</font></div></body></html>