Dvar Torah for Parshat Bereshis

Based on Likutey Halakhot, Hilkhot Devarim HaNohagim B'Seudah 4:17

"Rabbi Yitzchak said, 'The Torah should have started from.Parshathe first mitzvah the Jews were commanded. Why does it start with the account of Creation? [To fulfill the verse,] "The strength of His deeds He told to His people in order to give them the portion of the nations" (Psalms 111:6). For should the nations ever accuse the Jews of occupying land that is not theirs, the Jews can respond, "The entire land belongs to God. He created it and gave it to whom He saw fit. By choice He gave it to them and by choice He took it from them and gave it to us."'"

(Rashi, Genesis 1:1)

The essential holiness of the Land of Israel is derived from mankind's knowing and believing that God created the universe and everything it contains. Thus, when you sit down to eat and make a brakha (blessing), a statement of your knowledge and belief that God is the Creator of the foods you are about to eat, you are proclaiming to the world that the Land of Israel is the Holy Land.

Even though every brakha is a statement of God's sovreignty, it is the blessings on food that especially reveal His kingship. This is because the mitzvot which are unique to the Land of Israel are all related to eating (e.g., trumot u'ma'asarot (tithes of produce), shmittah (the Sabbatical year). This parallels the mitzvah given to Adam and Eve, to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. When they sinned and ate they denied God's sovreignty.

Their punishment was that they were banished from the Garden of Eden, a paradise of holiness. The way back in is closed off by angels of destruction and a sword of fire that constantly revolves. Each of us can help free the Holy Land of the angels of destruction and the sword of fire that threaten it by taking care to proclaim to the world each time we eat that God is the Creator and the Land is His to do with it as He chooses.

Agutn Shabbos! Shabbat Shalom!