Land, Creation and Mitzvot

Rashi chose to begin his commentary on Torah by explaining that the purpose of the entire Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus until the presentation of the first mitzva given to the nation of Israel [12:1 ff.] is to stress that the Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the People of Israel as a gift of the Creator. Thus Rashi writes [based upon Yalkut Shimoni Exodus 187]:

Rabbi Yitzḥak said: The Torah should have commenced with the verse “This month shall be for you the first of months” [Exodus 12:2], which is the first mitzva commanded to Israel. Why then did the Torah begin with Breishit? Because of (the concept expressed in the verse) “He declared to His people the strength of His works in order that He may give them the estate of nations.” [Psalms 111:2] Should the nations of the world say to Israel: “You are thieves, having forcefully taken the land of the seven nations [of Canaan],” Israel will reply: “The entire earth belongs to the Holy One blessed be He, He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us.”

Rabbi Aharon Miasnik, in his book Minḥat Aharon, explains that the sanctity of the Land of Israel (which is the necessary condition for mitzvot applying within her) depends upon Israel’s ownership of the Land. Hence, if Israel stole the Land, it is not sanctified. Thus, the claim of the nations of the world is that since Israel stole the Land from the Canaanites, they do not have ownership, and the mitzvot are not in force. (According to Naḥmanides’ approach, this would be true of all mitzvot, not only of those dependent upon the Land.)

The depth of Rabbi Yitzḥak’s answer is that Breishit, the description of God’s creation of the world, is a necessary and integral part of mitzvot, since it confirms Israel’s ownership of its Land, and it is only through this ownership that the Land achieved sanctity from which flows the obligation to perform mitzvot.

This approach allows us to understand why the Torah is concerned with the claim of the nations of the world to the point of commencing by refuting of this claim, since this refutation is the underpinning of all of Torah and mitzvot.