Internal and External Security

But you shall soon cross the Jordan and live in the Land that God your Lord is allotting you. When He has granted you safety from all your enemies around you, and you live in security.              Deuteronomy 12:10

            Rabbi Yehonatan Eybschutz notes the apparent redundancy at the end of our verse: if God relieves Israel of its enemies, it would seem to follow that they will live in security in their Land, and explains that it is possible to be safe from external threat, yet face internal disunity. Thus "you shall live in security" refers to internal peace, the situation of complete unity and harmony within the entire nation.

            Based upon Rabbi Yehonatan's explanation, we can understand that the latter blessing is the greater. Indeed, Israel's history has demonstrated that the greatest threat to the nation is posed by internal disunity, not by our external enemies. When Israel is united, God will protect us from all external threats, but when we lose our unity, we lose God's protection. This is the meaning of our Sages' comment [Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b] that the Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred among the Jews.

            (Perhaps the juxtaposition of our verse and the following verse, which refers to "the place which the Lord your God shall choose", hints at the connection between Israel's internal unity and the continuity of the Temple.)

            Rabbi Baruch Epstein (1860 – 1942) comments that our verse connects internal peace with crossing the River Jordan, since the river is the border of the Holy Land and it is within the Land that Israel has the promise of security.

            Rabbi Epstein’s comment hints at the insight of Zohar [vaYikra 93b] that Israel can be a single, united nation and feel secure only within its Land.