When God placed the first man in the Garden of Eden, He asked him to preserve its trees. In the same way, Israel has a mission to preserve the planet, said Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund co-chairman Yizhak Vaknin.
“When the Holy One, Blessed He Be, created the world, He took the first man, showed him every tree and its fruit in the Eden Garden, and told him to devote his intelligence and heart so that he would not ruin God’s world,” Vaknin said, speaking at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York on Monday.
“In all my meetings with the Jewish communities in the United States, I see the connection with Israel.”
Yizhak Vaknin
“Our task in a global world is precisely to preserve the world of the Creator,” he added.
Addressing the audience, Vaknin stressed the importance of the connection between Israel and the Diaspora.
“As the KKL-JNF co-chairman, I see in every single one of you the roots of the forest called the Jewish people, as it is written in Deuteronomy ‘for a man is like a tree in the field,’” he said.
Vaknin: Jewish unity is essential for Israel
“In all my meetings with the Jewish communities in the United States, I see the connection with Israel,” he added. “This bond is like one living human tissue that ties all of us together as one people.”
According to Vaknin, unity among the Jewish people is essential to ensure that Israel continues to thrive.
“I believe that the guarantee that the country will continue to develop and overcome its enemies is dependent upon our unity in the love for Israel,” he noted. “For this purpose, all the different pieces of the puzzle need to connect which each other to form one single picture.”“This is our ethical imperative, for us and for the future generations,” he added. “Together with you, at KKL-JNF we will continue to invest in and develop the State of Israel, so that the light of Jerusalem will continue to illuminate the world.”