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Questions related to the religiously-defined geographical area, the Land of Israel / *Eretz Yisrael*.

1 vote

Rachav's home in the wall

I don't know if there's any source for the following, but perhaps it's just this: The red string was tied in the window in order to mark the house. When the wall came down, of course the window - and …
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5 votes

Why does the term Eretz Yisroel never appear in the Torah?

The Zohar (Bereishis 73a) says: כד הוו זכאין ישראל אקרי ארעא על שמא דא ארץ ישראל כד לא זכו אקרי ארעא על שמא אחרא ארץ כנען "When Israel was worthy, the land was called by their name, …
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4 votes

Why did Moshe conquer the land of Og and Sichon?

The land in question is indeed part of the land promised to Avraham (and hence of halachic Eretz Yisrael). We see this from the fact that the Torah describes this area as "the land of the Rephaim" (De …
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8 votes

How precisely oriented towards Jerusalem should we face for praying?

To expand on Dave's points a bit: R' Shneur Zalman of Liadi points out in his siddur that the practice of facing eastward goes back to when the major (Ashkenazic) center of Jewish settlement was in F …
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2 votes
Accepted

Jewish History and exiles

Generally, the list of exiles corresponds with the four empires that Daniel envisioned (Daniel 2:37-43 and chs. 7-11). According to most commentators, they are: Babylonia, Persia/Media, Greece (Alexan …
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12 votes

What is the law for a Goel Hadam (Avenger of Blood) outside of the Land of Israel?

Sifri states that the Cities of Refuge also serve people who live outside of the Land of Israel. According to Kesef Mishneh's first explanation, that means exactly what it sounds like: an accidental m …
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8 votes

Babylonian Jewry and Chanukah

For that matter, there was also a pretty important community in Alexandria, and we don't hear anything from them either. I think it may simply be because these three communities were in different kin …
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3 votes
Accepted

The list of Binyamin's cities

To judge by Tevuos Haaretz's identifications of these cities (Hebrew text here, English translation here), it looks like the division is between the eastern and western areas of the territory. This al …
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5 votes

Why do we find two adjacent pesukim stating what seems to be the same?

Daas Sofrim explains that v. 3 is not Hashem's blessing, but rather an explanatory statement: "Remain in this land," He tells Yitzchak, "because it is the land that I will be giving to you and your ch …
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11 votes
Accepted

Shir Hashirim - when there is no Shabbos Chol HaMoed Pesach

Nit'ei Gavriel (Pesach 108:5) states, as Dan mentioned in his comment, that in Eretz Yisrael in such a case they read it on the first day of Pesach, and in chutz la'aretz they do so on the eighth day. …
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14 votes

Al Hamichyah - Wide land?

Ramban on the verse I mentioned (Ex. 3:8) offers two possibilities: It simply means that the land is "wide" enough to accommodate the entire Jewish people. (This is especially so in light of the Gem …
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10 votes

Bad Jew or Good Gentile?

Just as a first crack at this (and there is a lot more to say on the topic), we need to distinguish between different kinds of love. In human terms, a person loves their spouse, their children, and th …
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2 votes

יוֹשְׁבֵי דְּבִיר

There are some other places where יושבי is used similarly. In Josh. 17:7 ישבי עין תפוח is used as a geographical marker, and in v. 11 there seems to be a distinction between the cities and their inhab …
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9 votes
Accepted

Keeping one or two days of Yom Tov in towns outside the biblically stipulated borders of Isr...

Amman has never been under Jewish rulership (it was the capital of the Ammonite kingdom). By contrast, Eilat (or neighboring Etzion Gever) was controlled by Shlomo (I Kings 9:26), Yehoshafat (ibid. 22 …
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10 votes
Accepted

Halachic significance of the plurality of Jews living in Israel

It's actually if Israel has the majority of the world's Jewish population, not just a plurality. The figures in your second link have 42.5% in Israel vs. 57.5% outside of it - so we're not quite there …
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