The Land of Canaan and the Land of Israel's Inheritance

When you come to the land of Canaan, which I am giving to you as an inheritance, I will place the mark of the leprous curse in houses in the Land of your inheritance.                                                           Leviticus 14:34

In thus introducing the laws of tzara’at habayit (which applies only within the Holy Land [Mishna Nega’im 12:4]), the verse uses two different names of the Land, opening with “the land of Canaan” and closing with “the Land of your inheritance.”

      Rabbi Yehonatan Eybschutz offers an insightful explanation of the Torah’s choice of words. Since the connotation of the name “land of Canaan” is the ultimate level of degradation [Leviticus 18:3 and Rashi and Ramban there], in Rabbi Kook’s words “the repository of defilement and human degradation,” the verse begins by using this name to explain why a relatively minor offence (haughtiness, as Rashi comments on verse 4, based upon our Sages’ teaching) will cause “an evil spirit” to permeate the walls of a home in Israel. Just as it is often the case that one who suffered an illness and was cured is more susceptible to a recurrence of that illness, so too the houses of the Land, which were exposed to the great impurities of the Canaanites, yet were purified by Israel’s arrival in the Land, are especially susceptible to a recurrence of the impurities of Canaan.

The verse ends by using the name “the Land of your inheritance” in order to obviate an implied question: if, indeed, a relatively small sin can cause “an evil spirit” to permeate the walls of a home in the Land, why did this not happen during the degradation of the tenure of the Canaanites within the Land? The answer, explains Rabbi Yehonatan, is that since the Land has been the inheritance of Israel from the time of creation, the Canaanites never had true sovereignty over her, and as our Sages taught [Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 90a] “one does not have the power to effect a prohibition on that which is not his.” However, once Israel entered to take control of the Land in practice, the houses of the Land become susceptible to the “evil spirit.”

Rabbi Yehonatan adds another implication of the phrase “the Land of your inheritance:” when Israelites see themselves as the natural masters of the Land, and fail to appreciate that we are but sojourners at the pleasure of the true Master of the Land, we invite a plague upon our homes, the effect of which will be to remove us from those homes [v. 40 ff.]

     Thus, the Torah’s wording conveys significant lessons concerning our attitude to the Land.