Parshat Bechukotai begins with the promise of blessings as a reward for fulfilling the Torah and is then followed by a much longer list of curses, or consequences, for not doing what Hashem wants us to do. The last verse of blessing states (26:13): וָֽאֶשְׁבֹּר֙ מֹטֹ֣ת עֻלְּכֶ֔ם וָֽאוֹלֵ֥ךְ אֶתְכֶ֖ם קֽוֹמְמִיּֽוּת: “I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being slaves to them; and I broke the pegs of your yoke and led you komemiyut.” I’ve left the last word untranslated because there are a number of different explanations. The word is only found once in the Torah, so we cannot decipher its meaning by looking at its usage in other contexts. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan translates komemiyut as “led you forth with your heads held high.” There are Christian translations that translate the word as “walk proudly,” “live in freedom,” or “live with dignity.” The Talmud (Baba Batra 75a) explains that the word is a combination of two words: koma (height) me’ot (either 100 or 200 amot). This hints at the great stature with which Hashem provided us. Rashi, based on Midrashim in several places, similarly explains the word as referring to standing erect, and when Hashem is on our side the Jewish People need not be afraid of anyone or anything. Komemiyut is apparently connected to the root of koma which means stature. At a minimum the stature referred to may be as simple as entering Israel vertically, as opposed to those who live their entire lives in the Diaspora, but they have burial plots in Israel. By the time these people make Israel their final destination they arrive horizontally, in a coffin, and not alive and upright. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Ketubot 12:3) tells the following story related to arriving in Israel in horizontal position:
“Rabbi bar Kiri and Rabbi Elazar were strolling in Istrina, and they saw coffins arriving in the Land of Israel from the Diaspora. Rabbi bar Kiri said to Rabbi Elazar, “What are they achieving? I apply to them the verse,5 ‘You make My inheritance desolate [in your lives], and you came and defiled My land [in your deaths].’” Replied Rabbi Elazar, “When they arrive in the Land of Israel, a clod of earth is placed in the coffin, as it is written, ‘His land will atone for His people”
We hold like Rabbi Elazar and believe that burial in Israel is spiritually significant. However everyone agrees that living in Israel is far more spiritually beneficial than merely being buried in the Holy Land.
I believe there are two lessons to be learned from the word komemiyut that are especially important at this moment in history. First, komemiyut is a declaration of Jewish pride. As Rabbi Joseph Lookstein said after the Six Day War, “We used to walk around like question marks. After 1967,” and Israel's miraculous victory, “we started walking like exclamation points.” One of the outcomes of October 7 has been a swelling of Jewish pride, even among those who had not thought much of their Jewish identity previously.
Second, the history of Jewish immigration to Israel has primarily been one of running away from a country of origin that no longer is hospitable to Jews (perhaps a drastic understatement). In that historical context Jews arrived in Palestine (before 1948)/ Israel (since 1948) as “huddled masses” (to quote from Emma Lazarus’ sonnet that is engraved on the pedestal of the Statute of Liberty). Today, Jews in America should be proud of their Judaism, and we should value the State of Israel and consider Aliyah not because we need to run away from anything but because we are being pulled towards the Jewish homeland. This is the type of komemiyut that is available and accessible to us and the type that we pray for every day in the blessing before Shema: “Bring us in peace from the four corners of the world and lead us komemiyut to our Land.”
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