Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Matos-Mas’ei

Boundary Issues

July 24, 2025

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Rav Moshe Ze’ev Granek

Command the Bnei Yisrael and say to them: When you come to the Land of Kna’an, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the Land of Kna’an according to its borders.

Bemidbar 34:2

According to Rashi here, the reason for delineating the borders of Eretz Yisrael is because the mitzvos hatluyos ba’aretz (mitzvos dependent on the Land, like trumos and ma’asros) only apply within them.

This would appear to contradict the Gemara, which says that location alone does not trigger obligation in these mitzvos; the land must first be given kedushah. The Rambam (Hilchos Bais Habechirah 6) explains that for those who entered Eretz Yisrael with Yehoshua (known as olei Mitzrayim), the kedushah was introduced by the conquering of the land, while for the olei Bavel, who returned from exile to build the Bayis Sheini, it was attained by chazakah (acting as the owner of the land). And one cannot argue that according to Rashi, the kedushah is limited to areas within the Torah’s listed borders, because land conquered beyond those borders also becomes obligated in mitzvos hatluyos ba’aretz (see Gittin 7a).

The Mishnas Yosef (Shvi’is 6) explains that when a portion of the land was conquered, that conferred kedushah upon the entire area. If so, Rashi can be saying that the entire area inside the Torah’s borders receives kedushah when even a portion of it is conquered.

The Rambam appears to disagree. He writes (Trumos 1:7) that the borders of Eretz Yisrael in Yehoshua’s time only included those locations mentioned in the Mishnah (Gittin 2a), a smaller area than what the Torah delineates here. R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Ma’adanei Eretz, Hilchos Trumos) explains that kedushah was not automatically given to all of Eretz Yisrael, only to the part that was conquered.