Q&A: A Desolate Land
A Desolate Land
Question
Hello, Honorable Rabbi.
In the verses, the Land of Israel was prophesied to remain desolate until the Holy One, blessed be He, gathers the Jewish people.
Was that in fact the case? What about the Byzantine period in the Land of Israel, which is described as a flourishing period?
And regarding the prophecy, it is described that when the Jewish people return to the Holy One, blessed be He, then we will be gathered to the Land of Israel by the Holy One, blessed be He—but the pioneers who made the desolate land bloom were secular, weren’t they?
Answer
As far as I know, that was indeed the case. I don’t have information about the Byzantine period, but one should remember that this was not long after the destruction, and so there were still remnants of the Jewish period there (and also quite a few Jews).
According to the Sages, there is a redemption in its time, and there is “I will hasten it” (before its time). But in general, in my opinion, it is impossible to learn very much from the prophecies, since almost anything there can be interpreted in several different ways. Some would say that the very desire to settle the land is itself a return to the Holy One, blessed be He. Others would say that this is only a preparation, and the complete redemption will come when we return. Bottom line, I draw almost no conclusion from any verse in the Prophets (and therefore also don’t see much value in studying those verses).
Historically, during the Byzantine period there were around 600,000 Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (out of a population of one and a half million). There are various estimates, but we’re talking about several hundred thousand.