The Torah provides great detail in describing the procedure of mitzvas bikkurim. A farmer gathers the first fruits, brings it to Yerushalayim, and tells the kohen, “Higadti hayom laHashem Elokecha”. Then he recites the nation’s memory, Arami oved avi, Egypt’s oppression, the chesed of yetzias mitzrayim, and the simple truth of history, that God brought us “to this place” and gave us an eretz zavat chalav u’devash. That phrase is a promise kept and the bounty in the basket is a clear token of our gratitude.
The farmer concludes the bikkurim with a tefillah, Hashkifah mim’on kodshecha min hashamayim u’vareich et amecha Yisrael (look down from Your holy abode in heaven and bless Your people Israel), for the eretz zavat chalav u’devash.
In the Torah, Eretz Yisrael is often called “a land flowing with milk and honey.” This phrase appears 3 times in our Parashah.
Surprisingly, the phrase never appears in Sefer Bereishis, which is when Hashem spoke to the Avos about the gift of this land. Instead, the phrase first shows up at the Sneh, when Hashem tells Moshe about the land we will one day enter, or later when recalling His promise to bring us there. The phrase is also never used in the present tense. The Torah doesn’t declare, “we are now in a land flowing with milk and honey.” Did the flow stop?
The Torah praises the land for the Shivas Haminim, wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. Yet milk and honey aren’t on that list. A simple reason might be because they are derivatives of animals and bees instead of direct produce of the land. Still, their absence feels pointed.
If honey is so central to the identity of the land, why does the Mishnah rule that honey in the Ketores makes it invalid? Why was it left out entirely?
The Ramban1 explains that Hashem didn’t need to describe the land as “flowing with milk and honey” when speaking to the Avos. At that time, it already was and therefore to say it outright would have been stating the obvious.
What does it actually mean for the land to flow with milk and honey? Last I checked, our local makolet was rationing milk to two liters per customer.
There are various ways to understand what is meant by milk and honey, I would like to explore some here.
Almost Literally
Rashi2 explains that “milk and honey” isn’t the cow milk and bee honey we think of. The milk flows from goats, and the honey from dates and figs.
The Mizrachi asks: if that’s the case, the milk and honey don’t come straight from the soil but from goats and fruit, so how can the Torah call it a land flowing with them? He answers that the milk and honey actually spill onto the land itself, so it’s still accurate to call the land “flowing.” The Maharal sharpens the point: the land earns the adjective זָבַת by association, since it produces and sustains the goats and dates that create those flows.
Interestingly, Rashi3 teaches that any fruit nectar is called honey. So why here do we insist it refers to fig honey? The Birkat Asher explains that the pairing of chalav and devash is deliberate. Goats often gather under fig trees4, so their milk and the fig’s honey mix right there on the ground. We’ll circle back to this later, but for now it explains why Rashi singled out those two examples, goat milk and fig honey.
Rav Reuven Margolis5 takes this in a different direction. He suggests that the “milk” refers to the white wine of Eretz Yisrael, pale as milk. If so, when the Torah praises the land as “flowing with milk and honey,” it is pointing to two of its finest fruits: grapes and figs. The “milk” is the white wine, considered the healthiest and most refined of wines, and the “honey” is the fig’s sweetness. Thus the correct phrase would be: a land flowing with Moscato and Silan or as my wife corrected me - Chardonnay and Miele di fichi (Fig Honey).
Yonason ben Uziel offers another take. He reads it as a metaphor: a land whose fruits are as rich as milk and as sweet as honey.
Hashgachas Hashem
Let’s rewind to the story of the meraglim. In Bamidbar 14:8, Yehoshua and Kalev declare that it is indeed a land flowing with milk and honey. The meforshim pause on that phrase and explain its significance.
The Sforno6 explains that “milk and honey” means the land produces on its own, without human labor. He understands “honey” as a way of saying the produce is excellent.
Rav Moshe Wolfson, quoting the Chasam Sofer, adds another dimension. The very air of Eretz Yisrael inspires greatness in those who breathe it. Therefore there’s something even more intense about the food grown here. The fruit of the land holds a concentrated holiness, and when someone eats it, Eretz Yisrael itself becomes part of their body. It is connection, in addition to sustenance, with each bite drawing the consumer closer to Hashem. It was for this reason that Moshe implored the meraglim to eat from the fruit of the land. Ultimately though they would not eat it, because they were too intimidated by the physical qualities of the fruit to appreciate the spiritual qualities.7
The Netziv has a different approach. Most lands need Hashgachas Hashem only at the start, when they are first settled. After that, nature takes over and the land yields as expected, unless God intervenes with punishment like in Sodom. Eretz Yisrael, though, is unique. Even after it has already proven itself a land flowing with milk and honey, we still need Hashem’s constant blessing so it won’t be ruined by catastrophe. That is why Kalev and Yehoshua stressed the goodness of the land: its blessing depends on sweetening of judgment, not just on natural cycles.
The Ohr HaChaim adds to that idea, highlighting that in the words “it flows with milk and honey,”, with the emphasis on the word “הוא - it,” Yehoshua and Kalev were insisting that no other land could match the excellence of Eretz Yisrael.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch raises a sharp point about the word zavas. In Tanach, he notes, the term doesn’t usually mean “overflowing” in the sense of natural abundance. More often it describes a pathological discharge or a miraculous flow. Its use here signals something intentional: Eretz Yisrael blossoms only when Hashem tends it, from the first day of the year to the last. When the heavens open, it flourishes; without that, it hardens.
For Rav Hirsch, that dependence is the essence of the phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey.” The land itself makes morality non-negotiable. Its fruit depends on its people living with awareness of Hashem.
What Milk and Honey?
If we fast-forward a bit, we reach the story of Korach. Dasan and Aviram accuse Moshe of taking them out of a land flowing with milk and honey, only to let them die in the midbar, without even bringing them to a place of milk and honey. What are they talking about?
The Ramban, based on the Sifre, explains that “a land flowing with milk and honey” praises the core strip of Eretz Yisrael, the land of five nations: Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Hivite, and Jebusite. We know that there are seven nations, so two are left out because the Perizzite’s land is not included, and the Girgashite emigrated. So only that five-nation heartland is called “flowing.” That is why bikkurim in our parashah ties to a land of milk and honey. First fruits come from that heartland, not from Transjordan. In other contexts “Canaan” can act as a broad umbrella. Here it refers to the specific nation among the five, which explains the exclusion.
So what “land of milk and honey” were Dasan and Aviram invoking? At first glance it is confusing. Maybe they meant Goshen, Egypt’s fertile region. Maybe “milk and honey” was just a euphemism for plenty.
Notice something else. Dasan and Aviram were from Shevet Reuven, whose portion lay across the Jordan. Ever HaYarden is never called a land flowing with milk and honey. They were never destined to receive it in the first place. Their protest wanted what was not theirs.
Honey as Oneg
The Yerushalmi says even a drop of honey would overwhelm the fragrance of the ketores. Either its sweetness would be too intense, or there is a din-quality within honey that clashes at that level of avodah.
Dasan and Aviram wanted sweetness without measure and called it holiness.8
Rav Kook expounds on the idea that Honey represents oneg, pleasure itself. In its highest source, oneg is holy. When revealed too directly, it overpowers the vessels and collapses them. Korach and his chevre reached for holiness without gevulim, delight without balance, and it destroyed him. This is the Torah’s boundary: “Any Se’or, leaven and any honey you shall not offer”9. Se’or, the natural force of bodily strength, sustains life through bread, but if you bring that root of physical energy into the fire of holiness it drags holiness downward. Honey is similar. The One who knows the secrets of life sets a limit so that the flow remains pure.
Rav Kook ties this back to the promise to Moshe. For the nations who are lacking spiritual depth, abundance dulls or corrupts. Yisrael, the holy nation, was promised milk and honey precisely because it can raise pleasure into joy before God. The land demands this.10
The Torah
More classic meforshim explain that “milk and honey” is the land of Torah itself.
The Alshich11 explains that the phrase refers to the sanctity of Torah. It echoes the words of Shir HaShirim, “honey and milk are under your tongue,” describing Torah’s sweetness and holiness.12
Rav Abba Tzvi Neiman develops this further13, tying the phrase to Bnei Brak. Known today as a center of Torah learning, it also belonged to the tribe of Dan, and in the time of Chazal was the seat of Rabbi Akiva’s court. The Gemara14 relates that Rami bar Yechezkel once saw goats eating figs in Bnei Brak. The figs oozed honey, the goats dripped milk, and together they formed a stream. He declared: this is the land flowing with milk and honey.
He points to Shir HaShirim’s verse, “milk and honey under your tongue”, which Chazal interpret as Torah. Honey symbolizes sweetness, milk purity, and “under the tongue” alludes to the Oral Torah. Torah is not merely law; it is covenant. Unlike the Magna Carta or any civil code, it transforms a people into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” That’s why we dance with Torah scrolls on Simchas Torah.
The Sfas Emes adds that Hashem delights in the Torah transmitted and developed by human effort, the Oral Torah, as well as the written Torah. Just as the blessing over the land was added to Birkat HaMazon once Bnei Yisrael entered Eretz Yisrael, Hashem treasures what we bring forth from the land. So too, He treasures the Oral Torah that we bring forth from His written word. In this sense, Eretz Yisrael itself represents the opportunity to live Torah as an ongoing covenant.
No wonder Bnei Brak became Rabbi Akiva’s home. If Moshe embodies the written Torah, Rabbi Akiva embodies the Oral Torah. The seder night, centered in Bnei Brak, is the quintessential act of oral transmission: speaking Torah into the mouths of children and students. And in an almost ironic twist, the Gemara tells us that even descendants of Haman ended up teaching Torah in Bnei Brak. If Purim was the moment the Jewish people reaccepted the Oral Torah, it is fitting that his descendants would take part in that ongoing stream.
There’s something unique about Torah in Eretz Yisrael. Chazal already tied “milk and honey under your tongue” in Shir HaShirim to Torah itself. Outside the land, Torah can remain on the tongue, words spoken, studied, repeated. In Eretz Yisrael, though, it seems to move deeper. The Torah becomes sweet under the tongue, as if absorbed straight into the bloodstream. It doesn’t just pass over the lips, it courses through the body.
That’s the difference between Torah as an external possession and Torah as life itself. In the land of milk and honey, Torah is learned and metabolized.
A Deeper Idea
The explanations so far are beautiful,15 but they leave me wondering if something else is happening beneath the surface.
I’d like to suggest a different approach, perhaps more kabbalistic, one that Rabbeinu Bachya16 opens for us. He explains that “a land flowing with milk and honey” isn’t about physical abundance alone. The phrase points to the higher land above, the spiritual counterpart of Eretz Yisrael, which channels Divine will. Milk alludes to mercy, honey to judgment, and together they describe the flow of both chesed and gevurah.
That’s why the Torah juxtaposes “a land flowing with milk and honey” with Shema Yisrael17. The point is clear: the land is given to anchor us in mitzvos and in the unity of Hashem. The enlarged daled of echad itself hints at this fusion of mercy and judgment.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali18 writes along similar lines to Rav Hirsch, that to merit the flow of milk and honey, we must live in alignment with Hashem, keeping mitzvos and walking in His ways. The word zav usually describes a menstrual flow. When the body is in balance, that flow produces chalav and devash, nourishment and sweetness. When the body is out of balance, the flow is blood, symbolic of din.
When the people of Israel live rightly, the land flows with milk and honey. When they do not, the flow turns harsh, a torrent of judgment instead of blessing.
Read this way, “milk and honey” becomes code. Milk is chesed and honey is gevurah. Eretz Yisrael is the place where judgments are sweetened, hamtakas hadinim. It is where chesed fills the cup and washes over gevurah, softening its bitterness.
That casts Dasan and Aviram’s rebellion in a sharper light. Their sin was beyond slandering Moshe and accusing him of profiteering. They claimed Egypt was “a land flowing with milk and honey,” as if there had been balance there. But Egypt was the opposite, as it was pure constriction, the epitome of gevurah, laced with suffering. By contrast, the desert was pure expansiveness, unbounded chesed. Only Eretz Yisrael holds both together. It’s the land where opposites meet, where milk and honey truly flow.
This is similar to the idea of mixing meat and milk. Milk represents chesed. It is white, the color of kindness, produced by a mother’s own body to nourish her child. Meat, by contrast, represents din. It comes through taking a life and carries the color red, the hue of judgment. Both are nourishing, but either one on its own becomes dangerous, too much dairy or too much meat and the body falters. For health, you need both, in balance.
The same is true in life. Sometimes we must lean toward kindness, sometimes toward firmness. When raising children, rules are necessary, but if a home becomes only about rules, the child suffocates. A parent must know when to bend or even set a rule aside, so the child feels both the structure of din and the love of chesed. Without that balance, rebellion is almost inevitable.
Eretz Yisrael is the land where milk is rationed and missiles are overhead, yet at the same time a taxi driver will throw himself into danger to shield an elderly passenger. It’s the land where gevurah is everywhere, but so is chesed. Having both forces meet is what makes it the land flowing with milk and honey. Here is where Torah is learned, kindness is lived, and courage rises. This place takes the harshness of din and the softness of chesed and forces them to meet, to sweeten each other, bringing a measure of sweetness to the entire world.
Every Jew carries a piece of Eretz Yisrael inside ourselves. Deep in each of our neshamos lies a space that no one else can touch, the inner ground where we wrestle with life’s ups and downs, where milk and honey flow together.
That deep, inner place demands balance. Each of us holds chesed and gevurah within our generosity and our limits. When we let them meet, through a deep constant awareness of Hashem, we create our own hamtakas hadinim, a sweetening of judgment.
Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook pointed out in the name of his father that both milk and honey are exceptions in halacha. Normally, what comes from the tamei remains tamei. Yet honey, though it emerges from the bee, is pure and milk transforms what seems base into nourishment. That is the deeper secret of Eretz Yisrael: its power to sanctify the ordinary, to draw holiness even from what looks like it should remain mundane.19
The same is true within us. Our “inner Eretz Yisrael” is the place where daily life, work, food, family, art, even struggle, can become kedusha. Not everything is innately holy, but almost anything can be elevated if we live it in alignment with Hashem. That’s what it means to have milk and honey flowing inside. The land inside us asks us to do the same work, to bring our contradictions into harmony, and in doing so, to draw sweetness into the world.
Devarim 26:15
Shemos 13:5
Vayikra 2:11
as described in Kesubos 111
haMikra vHaMesorah
Bamidbar 14:8
Sacred Soil
I was initially thinking that perhaps the reason there is no honey in the Ketores is because of this, but I have not seen any source for this to know if it an accurate idea.
Vayikra 2:11
Olas Reiyah - Korbanos
Shemos 3:17
one of the sources to eat dairy on Shavuos
Landscapes of the Spirit
Kesubos 111b
Another approach worth noting is that of Erich Fromm, in The Art of Loving, who notes that a mother does far more than preserve her child’s life. She instills in the child a love for living itself, the sense that it is good to be alive, good to be a little boy or girl, good to be on this earth.
Fromm even turns to our language of “milk and honey” to capture this. Land, he says, is always a mother symbol. The promised land is described as “flowing with milk and honey.” Milk represents the first act of love, the mother’s care and affirmation. Honey represents the sweetness of life itself, the joy in simply being alive.
Our first relationship, our mother, gives us not only sustenance, but also joy in existence. So too the land. Eretz Yisrael nourishes, but it also gives us sweetness, the sense of home and contentedness that mirrors the embrace of a mother.
Devarim 6:3
Devarim 6
Devarim 11:9
Likkutei HaReiyah Volume 1 page 83