“For you are coming to the land of Canaan” – halakha: Before they entered the land, how would they recite the Grace after Meals? Our Rabbis taught: Before they entered the Land of Israel, they would recite one blessing: Who feeds all. When they entered the Land of Israel, they would recite the blessing: For the land and for the food. When it was destroyed, they added: Builder of Jerusalem.
When those killed in Beitar were buried, they added: Who is good and who does good – who is good, because they did not decompose, and who does good, that they were brought to burial. There is none more beloved than the blessing: For the land and for the food, as our Rabbis, of blessed memory said: Anyone who does not mention in the Grace after Meals: For the land and for the food, the desirable land, covenant,13The covenant of circumcision.
Torah, and life does not fulfill his obligation. The Holy One blessed be He said: The Land of Israel is more beloved to me than everything. Why? It is because I scouted it.
Likewise it says: “On that day I raised My hand to them to take them out of the land of Egypt to the land that I scouted for them, flowing with milk and honey; it is the most magnificent of all the lands” (Ezekiel 20:6). And likewise it says: “I gave you a desirable land, a magnificent inheritance of the hosts of nations” (Jeremiah 3:19). You find that when Joshua killed those kings, Rabbi Yannai HaKohen said: There were sixty-two there, thirty-one in Jericho and thirty-one in the days of Sisera.
When he went to wage war with Israel, they too were killed with him. Why? It is because they desired to drink water from the Land of Israel. They requested of Sisera and said to him: ‘We implore you, let us come with you to war.’
Each king that would request to go to war would pay and hire laborers for money who would assist him. They said to Sisera: ‘We are not asking anything from you. We will come with you for free, as we desire to fill our bellies with the water of that land,’ as it is stated: “Kings came, they waged war, then the kings of Canaan made war in Taanakh by the water of Megiddo; they took no money” (Judges 5:19).
It is to inform you that there is nothing as beloved as the Land of Israel. The Holy One blessed be He said to Moses: ‘The land is beloved to Me,’ as it is stated: “A land that the Lord your God seeks, always” (Deuteronomy 11:12), ‘and Israel is beloved to Me,’ as it is stated: “Rather, it is due to the Lord’s love for you” (Deuteronomy 7:8). The Holy One blessed be He said: I will take Israel, who are beloved to Me, into the land that is beloved to me, as it is stated: “For you are coming to the land of Canaan.”