Rabbi Yehudah Alkalai
Working the Land is a Consolation
"Great is the day of Jezreel." (Hosea)
Great is the day in which Israel shall gather to establish settlements, to cultivate the soil, to plow and to seed, to build and to plant...
To procure a remedy and heal all our maladies and all our pains, we have no other rectification, but to settle our Holy Land. Cultivating the soil is the comfort of the land, the redemption of Israel.
Focus your attention and your objectives towards the sacred goal of returning His divine presence to Zion by settling in the Holy Land of Israel: Your brethren, oppressed and persecuted, remote and wandering, travelling from place to place for food - their souls yearn for the Lord and their eyes are anxious, they look out and long days and nights to settle in the land of Israel, perhaps they would find respite there, for there shall the worn-out rest at the table of their Father in heaven.