Awakening from Below

אתערותא דלתתא

The above phrase (pronounced roughly "it'aruta di'l'tata) is a concept important to the Keitz Meguleh. The basic idea is that we put in our efforts below on Earth, and then Heavenly Assistance is added on. We show desire to have the Land of Israel, and Hashem helps us make it happen. We show the desire for the Beit HaMikdash, and we move towards it being built. I'd like to put that into a drash for this week's Parshah, Shoftim.

We learn from Chazal that we were commanded to do Three Mitzvot when we entered the Land of Israel:

1. Appoint a King
2. Destroy Amalek
3. Build the Beit HaMikdash

I used numbers instead of bullets because this is taken to be the proper order for this to occur.

So what's the problem? I don't have Seder Olam Raba out in front of me, but Am Yisrael was in Eretz Yisrael more than 300 years before asking for a king. We see in Sefer Shmuel explicitly that Am Yisrael requested a king, and then and only then did the three mitzvot take on full force. We got a king, and the Mitzvah of Amalek, and finally the command to build the Beit HaMikdash.

Posting to this blog will be sparse for the next 2 weeks.

Shabbat Shalom