These promises – of descendants and land – stand at the center of Abraham’s life. Most of his stories focus on these two subjects – continuity and the land.
A large Religious Zionist congregation in North America slightly amends the standard text of the blessing for the State of Israel authored by Rav Yitzchak Herzog and Rav Ben Zion Hai Uzziel, the chief rabbis of Medinat Yisrael at the time of its founding in 1948. Instead of describing Medinat Yisrael as “reishit tzemichat geulateinu” (the beginning of the flowering of our redemption), it adds the word “shetehei” (that it should become) reishit tzemichat geulateinu.