Musar к Келим 1:12

We have already explained that the mystical dimension of מעשר is expressed by the three dimensions of the letter י, which expanded into three gifts to the Jewish people, i.e. תורה, ארץ ישראל and עולם הבא. The concept Torah can be summed up by the letter י, i.e. the Ten Commandments which contain allusions to all the 613 commandments of the Torah. The total number of letters in the Ten Commandments is 613. The Ten Commandments are sacred; the tenth of the commandments (when counting from the last one backwards) is the statement: אנכי ה' אלוקיך. Being the tenth, it is even more sacred than the others seeing that it is the ראש, the head. It embraces all the others seeing it stipulates the existence of G–d and His relationship to us. The second gift is ארץ ישראל; the Mishnah Keilim 1,6 describes ten successive stages of sanctity of holy areas, explaining that ארץ ישראל as such is at the bottom of the list of these holy areas. The next higher degree of sanctity is found in walled cities (dating back to the time Joshua conquered the land) within ארץ ישראל, followed by sites within the city wall of Jerusalem, followed by the Temple Mount and so forth, until the Holy of Holies within the Sanctuary, the Holy Temple. The third gift to the Jewish people is the gift of עולם הבא, the world to come, which we know was created with the letter י -as distinct from the present world- which was created with the letter ה. The ארץ ישראל in our world is perceived as "opposite" a similar area in the "higher" world referred to by Isaiah 60,21: ועמך כולם צדיקים, לעולם יירשו ארץ, "Your people (Israel) all are righteous; they will inherit an eternal land." This "eternal" land is the mystical dimension of the ten directives with which G–d created the universe. We know that one single directive was the nucleus of all the other directives, just as the first of the Ten Commandments is the nucleus of all the other commandments. It can therefore be described as קדש קדשים, the holiest of the holy.

The beginning of the פרשה speaks about the gift of the land of Israel which is a patently "good" gift both in its manifest and in its hidden aspects. The land is situated "opposite" a corresponding ארץ ישראל in the Celestial Regions. Both the terrestrial land of Israel and the Celestial land of Israel has areas of varying degrees of sanctity. We have learned (Keilim 1,6) about the ten respective layers of sanctity of terrestrial ארץ ישראל culminating in the Holy of Holies. Moses thought that the lands of the kings Sichon and Og, i.e. the East Bank of the Jordan, already contained some level of the sanctity common to the whole of ארץ ישראל. We will explain why he thought so later on. A leader who leads the people to take possession of the Holy Land acquires great spiritual advantages. The authority of Jewish leaders is not of the same caliber as that of the Gentile kings or rulers. While the Gentiles derive their authority from physical power and material attributes, this is not so in the case of leaders of the Jewish people. Their authority is rather of the caliber of Heavenly authority. To be more specific: Leaders are appointed according to superior intellectual qualities, according to the ability of the individual in question to lead the people in Torah observance. As soon as the first Jewish king, Saul, was anointed king by the prophet Samuel he was granted Holy Spirit, as we know from Samuel I 10,11-12: הגם שאול בנביאים, "Saul too has joined the ranks of the prophets." One of the reasons the kingdom was transferred to David was that there was no one as qualified as David as far as Torah scholarship was concerned. G–d was with him to such an extent that any religious rulings pronounced by David were always accepted by his colleagues as binding. In addition, no one excelled like David in singing the praises of the Lord. These are the considerations that made Moses so desirous of remaining the leader who would bring the Jewish people into the Holy Land. He knew that if he were to be granted this request he would further perfect his personality, would be granted even greater insights by G–d. He wanted to fulfill those commandments which can only be fulfilled on the soil of the land of Israel, and he was certain that by doing so he would ascend still higher spiritually (Sotah 14a).