The Land and the People: Who Holds Who?

The final verse presenting the laws of shemitta (the sabbatical year) in our parasha is:

And in all the Land of your possession (Eretz Aḥuzatchem) you shall grant a redemption for the Land.     Leviticus 25:24

This verse is one of five times the Torah refers to the Land of Israel as Eretz Aḥuzah .

            Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch [commentary on Genesis 23:4] notes the following irony: the root aḥoz means to grasp, yet aḥuza “occurs exclusively referring to landed property which is just what cannot be grasped”. … “the object is not gripped by the owner, but the owner is gripped and held fast by the object, and that in fact is the case with the possession of land. Land holds its owner, he is chained to it … So that the underlying idea of aḥuza is being settled, the act of permanent settling. ”

            Thus, Eretz Aḥuza implies a mutual “hold”: of the Land by the Children of Israel and of the Children of Israel by the Land.

            Similarly, the late Lubavitcher Rebbi commented: “our Sages teach that every Jew possesses a portion of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. The converse is also true. The Land possesses a portion of every Jew”.