Message for the Nations and for Israel

               In preparing Israel for entry into its Land, Moses and the Elders of Israel instructed the people:

And it shall be on the day that you cross over the Jordan into the Land which God your God gives you, you shall set up great stones and plaster them ... And you shall write on the stones all the words of this Torah, to be well understood”

                                                Deuteronomy 27:2,8

            Our Sages [Babylonian Talmud, Sota 32a) tell us that the phrase “to be well understood” means that it was to be written in the seventy languages.

       Rabbi Levi Yitzḥak of Berdichev explained that according to rabbinic tradition, the People of Israel received the Land of Israel by virtue of having accepted Torah. Thus, the Torah was to be written in seventy languages (according to tradition, this encompassed all languages), in order to show all the nations that it was their refusal to accept Torah and Israel’s readiness to receive it that constitutes the Israelite’s right to the Land.

          The contemporary relevance of this comment (written two hundred years ago) is immense. Torah is the sole authority, sanction and permit for the right of the People of Israel to the Land of Israel.