Land of Sojourning

And I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojourning (megurei), wherein they sojourned.                                                    Exodus 6:4      

Ours is the fourth and final verse of the Torah which refers to the Land of Canaan as the “land of sojourning.”

            Ba’al haTanya (the first Lubavitcher Rebbi [1745–1812]) notes that the word “megurei” allows three possible interpretations:

1.      dwelling place;

2.  fear [as in Psalms 31:14 and other verses]; or

3.      the feeling of being a stranger.

The verse’s addition of “the land of Canaan” rules out the latter explanations.  The Land of Israel is the only place in the world where a Jew has the right to feel himself at home and not as a stranger, and it is only within this Land that he can truly feel secure [provided he observes God’s mitzvot] [Leviticus 25:18]. The condition for negating the alternate meanings of “megurei” is Jews dwelling in the Land, in spirit, as well as in body.