'Torat Eretz Yisrael' for everyone - a new digital library

• Published date: 06 March 2023
• Publication title: Israel National News (Israel)

Torat Eretz Yisrael is the name given to the special outlook on Torah as lived in the Holy Land, inspired and developed by Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook, Israel's first Chief Rabbi, famed Torah luminary and icon of Religious Zionism

Often considered the baal tshuva counterpart of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, Machon Meir was founded almost 50 years ago by HaRav Dov Begon who still serves as Rosh Yeshiva. The well-known Torah institution offers learning programs for Israelis with divisions for English-speakers, French, Spanish, and Russian.

Israel National News spoke with the writer and movie director Tzvi Fishman, one of the initiators of the Digital Library which houses hundreds of articles on Torat Eretz Yisrael in English and which, he says, will include a wide assortment of creative films in addition to the hundreds of filmed Torah lessons already available for viewing.

Presently featured on the yet unfinished "library-in-construction" are articles on Purim and on the teachings of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, zt"l,whose yahrtzeit falls next week.

Some of the bookis (now digitalized) on Torah Eretz YisraelCourtesy

Machon Meir's plan is have the complete multi-media webpage completed by Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the first day of the Hebrew Month in which Passover occurs..there is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel, and there is no wisdom like the wisdom of the Land of Israel.' In our era of Redemption there is a great need to explain this all-encompassing vision of Torah which HaRav Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook and his son HaRav Tzvi Yehuda strove to illuminate in the minds and hearts of the generation of renewal and national rebirth.

"This old/new understanding became especially important as the Nation of Israel fled the darkness of Exile in foreign lands to return to its promised Homeland and to take its proper place as the future leader of the world community of nations. HaRav Tzvi Yehuda Kook emphasized that without learning the Torah of Eretz Yisrael – the original national Torah given to us at Sinai – a Jew cannot fathom the great events of our times and the vital need to play an active part in this historic process of Redemption which we are witnessing in Israel every day."

Fishman says that the national aspect of Torah is missing throughout the Diaspora precisely because Jews exiled in Gentile lands lack their own Jewish Homeland, the basis for national Jewish life. In its place, Jews of the Diaspora have become accustomed to a life punctuated with...