The Miniature Aleph and the Land

(The Book of Leviticus) begins with “He called (vaYikra) to Moses,” written with a small “aleph” because the call was incomplete. And why was it incomplete? Because the call took place in a foreign land, and completion is possible only within the Holy Land.              Zohar Genesis 339

Tzror haMor (Rabbi Avraham Sava, among the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492), writes: “God’s glory and sanctity are within the Land of Israel, since it is the Holy Land. When God, as it were, is required to leave His palace and go abroad, it is as if His glory is diminished, hence the small “aleph.”

Rabbi Moshe Zuriel notes an additional Midrash which concurs with Zohar’s comment. Our Sages understood the verse in Psalms [48:2] “Great is God, and highly to be praised, in the city of our God, His holy mountain” to mean that God can be called great only when the People of Israel are with Him in His Land.

Thus, as it were, the integrity of God Himself is dependent upon the Holy Land.