Study Kiddushin folio 69B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
״דברי ריבת בשעריך וקמת ועלית״, אלא ארץ ישראל גבוהה מכל ארצות מנלן? דכתיב: ״לכן הנה ימים באים נאם ה׳ ולא יאמרו עוד חי ה׳ אשר העלה את בני ישראל מארץ מצרים. כי אם חי ה׳ אשר העלה ואשר הביא את זרע בית ישראל מארץ צפונה ומכל הארצות אשר הדחתים שם״.
“Matters of controversy within your gates, and you should arise and go up to the place that YHWH, your God, should choose” (Deuteronomy 17:8), indicating that the Temple, the place that God chose, is higher than all other cities in Eretz Yisrael. But from where do we derive the claim that Eretz Yisrael is higher than all other lands? The Talmud answers: As it is written: “Therefore behold, the days are coming, says YHWH, when they should no more say: As YHWH lives, Who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but: As YHWH lives, Who brought up and Who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them” (Jeremiah 23:7–8). The phrase “Who brought up” indicates that Eretz Yisrael is higher than all the other lands from where God will bring the Jewish people.
מאי איריא דתני ״עלו מבבל״? נתני ״עלו לארץ ישראל״! מסייע ליה לרבי אלעזר, דאמר רבי אלעזר: לא עלה עזרא מבבל עד שעשאה כסולת נקיה ועלה.
The Talmud asks: If that is what the Mishnah wants to teach, why does the tanna specifically teach: Ascended from Babylonia? Let him teach: Ascended to Eretz Yisrael. The Talmud answers that the wording of the Mishnah supports the opinion of R' Elazar, as R' Elazar says: Ezra did not ascend from Babylonia until he made it like fine flour, free of bran, i.e., he ensured that the lineage of those remaining was unsullied, and selected all of those in Babylonia who were of questionable lineage, and then he ascended with them to Eretz Yisrael.