Jewish Soil Can Suffer Nausea

Why did The Holy Land lay barren before Israel's farmers made it blossom with produce; Certainly Gentiles knew how to farm land? Early history proved this geographical hub to be of optimal strategic value; Why then could they not settle the land as they did everywhere else?

The Torah foretold, 3,300 years ago, that one day in the future, Jews will be exiled from the Land of Israel. In a prophecy spoken by Moses, he said, "When you have been established in the land for a long time ... you will then ... perish from the land ... God will then scatter you among the nations ...". (Deut. 4:25-27)

Now it happens that this land has a unique attribute other lands do not have: It can suffer "nausea". The Holy Land, just as a healthy body that ingested poison, reacts by vomiting out the offensive intrusion; It would "vomit out" the Jewish people were their quota of sins intolerably high. The land then shuts down and no longer can cultivate crop. Otherwise, as long as Jews mostly "... safeguard My decrees and laws ... the land ... will not vomit you out." (Lev. 20:22)

Here's confirmation from a reliable source what the Land of Israel looked about 150 years ago. It's a quote from Mark Twain, who visited Israel in 1867. ("Innocents Abroad", Vol. II, Harper and Brothers, 1922, NY)

“We traversed some miles of the desolate country, whose soil is rich enough but is given wholly to weeds, as silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tavor safely. [Tavor is in the Northern Galilee, the most fertile part of the land.] We never saw a human being on the whole route. We pressed on towards the goal…, renowned Jerusalem. The further we went, the hotter the sun got, the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bound the approaches to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mournful, dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live there.”

As long as Jews are not settlers of this land, or, as long as the occupiers of it are foreign nations, "I will make the land so desolate that even your enemies who live there will be astonished!". (Lev. 26:32) This is a land that can discriminate against Gentile inhabitants!

If you think about it, it makes eminent sense. For as long as Gentiles cannot comfortably stay in the land, they will move on, sooner or later. No one will want to make their stay there permanent. And therefore there will be no archaeological proof of this permanence either. The Jews lived on that land over 1,00 years and yearned to return to it nearly two millennia, while no nation meanwhile could endure there - or lay claim to Jerusalem. As long as its food markets provided meager pickings, this land proved hostile to every nation but the Jewish one.

Thank God, we've all been ushered into the pre-Messianic era, and 60 years ago we got back our land. This too Moses told us in prophecy: "God, your Lord, will bring you to the land that your ancestors occupied, and you too will occupy it". (Deut. 30:5)

And chassidut teaches - the more Israeli society today turns to God, the more productive we can expect the agriculture to recover from its nausea!