Why the Land of Israel Was Chosen

A question was asked last SHABBAT. Why, with any country available, did God lead Jews to Israel?

A possible answer may be found in Deuteronomy 11, as we learned.

Deuteronomy 11:10,11
For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, where thou sowed thy seed and watered it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs. But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven,

This chapter also contains the second paragraph of the SHEMA.

Deuteronomy 11:13,14
And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, that `I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn and thy wine and thine oil.

The import is - the Empires surrounding Israel, the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian, are situated in land where the crops are naturally watered by Rivers. Therefore the gods of these Empires were chthonic - deities of the Earth; or spirits of the underworld. The focus of the worshipers was downward.

But Israel depends on rain from above for its sustanence so that the focus of Israelite worship was forced upward, to Heaven.

And even when God appeared to Jews in the wilderness, he appeared at the top of a mountain - to cause the Jews to gaze up to heaven.