THERE IS A DEEP CONNECTION BETWEEN EVERY JEW AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL. It is a bond which extends back in time for thousands of years, and which is independent of the question whether the majority of the Jews at any particular time were actually living there. Wherever the Jew might be, he or she has a connection with the Holy Land.
This point is made in the Sedra1 this week. G-d tells Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, that he and his wife Sarah should leave their birthplace and go to the Land which G-d would show them.
When they get there, at first G-d says that "I will give this Land to your descendants"
2, expressed as something which will take place in the future. Later in the Sedra, G-d makes a pact with Abraham and tells him something more: "I have given this Land to your descendants"
3. Rashi explains that G-d has already given the Land of Israel to Abraham's descendants. In this context, who are Abraham's descendants? When this blessing was given to him, he did not yet have any children. As the Torah narrative unfolds, we learn that the inheritors of the Land are his progeny through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, as is affirmed by several verses in the Torah, such as 'your seed will be considered from Isaac'
4.
From G-d's point of view, the Land belongs to them, even if they have not yet taken possession of the Land, as was the case in Abraham's own time. The Land is also theirs even if they have temporarily been driven out of it, as happened in later generations. The Holy Land continues to be the possession of the Holy People.
Here we come to the intriguing puzzle which is at the centre of the theme of the Holy Land. "Holy" means spiritual, sacred. But "Land" is something worldly, very physical, made of earth and rocks. How can "Land" be holy?
This is precisely the task of the Jewish people. They have to make the physical Land into something holy, thus transforming the "Land of Canaan" into the "Land of Israel".
How do they do this? One aspect of their task, historically, is the fact that the Jewish people conquered the Land of Canaan and it became the Land of Israel. They then had the challenge to retain the Land, which sometimes, like today, has meant standing up to enemies who wish to push the holy people away from their ancient country. But another aspect has to do with the Jewish people in themselves.
Each individual is composed of a combination of two contrasting aspects: physical and spiritual. The physical dimension tries to dominate the person, exclusively. The spiritual dimension has to battle against this, sometimes in very subtle ways, in order to exert its own claim: that the person is indeed physical, but is also holy.
We thus see a struggle which takes place on two planes: the inner battle to be a more spiritual person, and the constant practical struggle to hold on to the sacred Land of Israel. The Sedra, reaching back thousands of years, tells us that ultimately the Land belongs to the Jews, and that they alone can fulfil the task to make the physical Land "holy".
This means also that eventually, through the Jewish people, all families of the earth will be blessed5, and the whole world, with all its different nations, will also be filled with the knowledge of G-d. There will be not just a holy people, not just a holy Land, but a holy World6.
1. Genesis chs.l2-17. 2. Gen. l2:7. 3.Gen. 15:18. See Rashi there. 4. Gen. 21:12. See also in our Sedra, 17:19, 21. Regarding Jacob, see Gen.28:13-15. 5. See Gen. 12:3, 28:14. 6. Based freely on the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Likkutei Sichot vo1.20, pp.308-311. 
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