I am writing this on the Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi tiyul to Maarat Hamachpela. What a zechut it is to write about this week's parsha while walking in the footsteps of the avot and imahot, to stand on the very ground purchased by Avraham Avinu thousands of years ago, on the spot where he uttered the seminal phrase ger vetoshav anochi imachem.
For Rav Soloveitchik zt”l this phrase is definitional to what it means to be a diaspora Jew. Avraham is capturing the reality of the Jew living in a predominantly non-Jewish society. In that society we are the toshav, the resident, with a feeling of commitment to and responsibility towards the society in which we live. The toshav does not isolate himself from society. Instead he is a full participant. In the Rav’s words, Avraham "erected tents, raised sheep, involved himself in business deals with kings and princes and established treaties with them. He learned their language and paid taxes – and when called upon, went to war to protect the land.”
At the same time, says the Rav, Avraham is a ger, a stranger, who "lived as well on the other side of the river… From those distances Avraham took something with him, in a word, the vision of the Master of the Universe, of the new world order and new ethical system. This vision of the other side of the river never left Avraham’s sight.”
While the toshav identity compels Avraham’s civic duty and participation, it is the ger identity which animates his spiritual aspirations. While the toshav within us assimilates, the ger within us sets us apart. For my formative years and most of my adult life living in America, it was the ger that I aspired to. Until two months ago.
The Seforno understands Avraham differently:
גֵּר וְתוֹשָׁב. וּבִשְׁבִיל הֱיוֹתִי גֵּר אֵין לִי פֹּה קֶבֶר, כְּאָמְרוֹ "וּמִי לְךָ פֹה כִּי חָצַבְתָּ לְּךָ פֹּה קָבֶר" (ישעיהו כב:טז), וְהַטַּעַם שֶׁאֲנִי מְבַקֵּשׁ לִקְנוֹתוֹ הוּא מִפְּנֵי שֶׁאֲנִי תוֹשָׁב עִמָּכֶם, שֶׁבָּאתִי לְהִשְׁתַּקֵּעַ לֹא לָגוּר בִּלְבָד:
According to Seforno, Avraham is saying “I am limited by my status as a ger, for I am a new arrival here. I have no ancestral claim to land because my family is not from here. But I want to purchase the land, because my goal is to embed myself into this land. Not merely to live in it.”
Here the orientation is the opposite. The ger identity is Avraham’s status quo, the toshav identity marks his religious aspiration.
Avraham has arrived as a ger, and has come with a mission to evolve into a toshav. He yearns for connection to the land. Avraham, according to Seforno, is reaching. Not as a toshav striving to be a ger, but as a ger striving to be a toshav – to lay down roots in the land that will be the home of his descendants.
This is the feeling I have now, and since we arrived in August. We are in pursuit not of distinction, but of belonging. Here we strive to integrate fully with the Israeli woman sitting on the bus reading Tehillim and the shirtless guy at the beach quoting pesukim from Isaiah while recording his latest TikTok. For the first time I am to fully embrace the toshav identity, rather than step beyond it.
I was blessed to be a student of Maimonides School for 30 years. The school and community taught me how to embrace the richness of the society around me, to excel in its wisdom, and to feel responsible for its well-being. But most of all, Maimonides taught me to be a proud Jew. A Jew in pursuit of meaning, of connection with our mesorah and all the beauty that differentiates us. At Maimo I learned to be distinct, a ger in a land where I was a toshav.
Now my task is to integrate into Israeli society. To take that which I learned at Maimo, that which made me different, and use it as a stake in the ground planting the seeds of our family’s new story in Eretz Yisrael. I have found no better institution to do it in than Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi. Here I have found an institution that is fully aligned with the values we teach our students at Maimo. And in it I have found colleagues who show me how to plant those roots as I strive not for distinction, but for integration. At Eretz Hatzvi I am learning to be a toshav who arrived as a ger.
Here at the burial site of the avot and imahot, wondering whether I am standing on the spot where Avraham uttered those words, I am struck by the transformation the meaning has undergone for me since I last read these words a year ago. I am overwhelmed by appreciation for the fruits of distinction we cultivated together at Maimo, and thankful for the opportunity to plant those fruits as seeds in the fertile land of Eretz Yisrael where they belong. And I carry the hope that our treasured institutions, like Maimonides, SHAS, and Eretz Hatzvi, will continue to produce students who exemplify these values.
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