Upright to and Within Our Land

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.