We read in parshat Truma, about the mitzva “ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם”, “and you shall make me a Mikdash and I will reside among you” (Shmot 25, 8). Rav Kook explains that Y’rushalayim, the permanent site of the Mikdash, is like Eretz Yisrael “squared”.
It’s worth noting that at the time of the giving of the Torah, it was predominantly accepted in the ancient world that each land has its own god. Interestingly, just as Christianity “spiritualized” tefillin, tzitzit and all of the other practical mitzvot, saying that they are just symbolic and not physical, they similarly did away with the concept of one inherently Holy Nation and Land. They rejected the mitzva of living in the Holy Land, and all of the holiness and mitzvot associated with her fruit, trumot, ma’asrot etc.
Just as is usually the case, between the two extremes, that either every land has their own god, or that G-d has no land, Judaism believes in the middle-road, that there is one Land, the Land of Israel, which truly has her own G-d, the One and Only. True, “Hashem is truly everywhere” (which is what “threw off” the Christians, and in fact they have no mitzva to live here), but He informs us that He is manifested and rests His Shchina only here (Dvarim 11, 12). When Yonah didn’t want prophecy, he simply left Israel (Yona 1, 2).
One can see the advancement of mankind in growing out of the pagan limiting of god into one locale, but unfortunately that also can lead to their mistake that Eretz Yisrael is just “real-estate”, or only necessary for security needs. Sadly, even some Jews have difficulty with the concept of a Holy Land. Over 2,000 years, we yearned for Eretz Yisrael from afar, but for obvious reasons we too, sort of forgot the practical centrality of Eretz Yisrael for Judaism. We grew up seeing Judaism as a religion which does fine in America… We must consciously revive the forgotten, and make sure that at least our Jewish brothers should remember this theological concept. That Jerusalem, Chevron, in fact all of Biblical Israel has inherent kedusha in her very earth, stones and fruit (Rambam hil. M’lachim 5, 10). This will help them also understand that despite being physical, tefillin, Sifrei Torah and the many practical mitzvot are not just “symbolic”, but actually reveal kedusha, “אשר קדשנו במצוותיו”. “Whoever lives in Eretz Yisrael is as if he has a G-d” (Ketuvot 110a).
The outstanding spiritual revival we see this year in Israel, is a G-d-sent opportunity to strengthen both our national and religious fervor for all Jews world-wide, for as Rav Kook teaches, in the original Judaism, the national and the religious are always meant to go together, and bolster each-other.