What do you think the Mishnas Chasidim would say were he alive today, looking at the many cranes that dot every neighborhood of Yerushalayim, at the buildings going up all over Eretz Yisrael? What do you think he would say if he witnessed the celebration of Yom Yerushalayim in a rebuilt, modern, Yerushalayim in an independent Jewish state?
Why Do We Need to Rebuild Israel Before the Full Redemption?
lo timacher l’tzemisus – redeeem the land
The Mishnas Chasidim, quoted by Rav Teichtel in his sefer Mishneh Sachir on parshas Bechukosai, writes that in the two years he spent in Tzefat in 1718/19 — almost exactly 300 years ago — he saw so many houses being built that he felt it could not be anything less than a reversal of the curse of ‘v’areichem ye’hi’yu charva,” the promise in the tochacha of the land being laid desolate. The development of the city, says the Mishnas Chasidim, is a “siman l’bi’as ha’go’el.”
Ramban in sefer ha’mitzvot lav 227 discusses the nature of the issur of “lo timacher l’tzemisus.” Rashi seems to hold the issur is for the buyer not to return the land, but, as Ramban points out, the formulation of the lav seems to indicate the prohibition is on the seller, not the buyer. Ramban, based on the Yerushalmi, is machadesh that the issur is in selling land to an aku”m, who has no incentive to return it. Ramban then compares the issur of leaving Eretz Yisrael in the hands of aku”m to the mitzvah of redeeming a Jew who is sold into slavery to an aku”m. Just like in that case the Torah tells us that the reason for the mitzvah is “ki li Bnei Yisrael avadim,” that we are supposed to be servants only of Hashem, so too, Eretz Yisrael is supposed to be a land dedicated to being a makom Shechina, a place of service to Hashem, which is impossible so long as it is not in our hands.
From Divrei Chaim, here.