As part of the introductory prayer
to the daily morning recital of Kriat Shema, the essential declaration
of belief in God, our Sages chose the words: “and bring us upright (komemiyut)
to our Land.”
The only appearance of the word komemiyut
in the entire Bible is in Parashat Beḥukotai, where the verse says:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from
servitude to them, and I Have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you Go
upright (komemiyut). [Leviticus 26:13]
The English translation “upright” is
taken from the Midrash, which states: “with upright stature, and fearing no
creature.”
Through their choice of words, our
Sages teach us that it is insufficient for a Jew to merely enter the Holy Land . We must enter “upright and fearing no
creature.”
Rabbi Menaḥem Kasher offers an
expansion of the meaning of the Midrashic definition: the Israelites will
appreciate their status as the sons of the Living God, and will not be lowly in
their own eyes. Rabbi Kasher’s comment points out the element of belief which
is part of “komemiyut”: the People of Israel must enter the Land not
only upright, but appreciating the fact that we are God’s chosen people and that
He chose to give the Holy Land to us. To fail to be upright in the Land, in
essence, is to fail to appreciate God’s choices.
Rabbi Kook quotes the Talmud [Bava
Batra 75a], which, in a play on words, understands “komemiyut” to
mean “two statures,” and to refer to the “two statures of Adam the First.” Rabbi Kook explains the Sages’ comment as a
reference to the spiritual and physical aspects of man. The Land of Israel
is the only land on our planet which combines physical and spiritual
attributes. Thus, the words of the prayer imply that not only must we enter our
Land upright, but we must also appreciate the Land in its spiritual, as well as
physical, aspect, as well as realizing that it is the only land which combines
these two dimensions.
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