This week’s parsha we learn about the mitzvah of bentching. The posuk seems to tie the mitzvah of bentching and Eretz Yisroel together.
There is a machlokes (Tur, Orach Chaim; 208) regarding the wording of the brocha of ‘Al hamichya’. Some reshonim (so is the Sfardic custom) take out the words ‘Venochal mepirya v’nisba metuva’ where we ask to be able to enjoy the fruits of Eretz Yisroel. Rabbianu Yona explains that in a prayer where we ask for the rebuilding of Yerushalayim, our aspirations shouldn’t be the wanting of eating of the fruits. In such a special brocha we should much rather ask to be able to fulfill the mitzvos that are special to Eretz Yisroel. The Bach defends the Ashkenazic custom. He writes that the land of Eretz Yisroel is actually blessed by Hashem and there is a spiritual manifestation in the actual soil and thus in every fruit that grows in Eretz Yisroel. The only way to get that piece of Hashem into your body is if you go and eat a part of the land- which would be a fruit. So that the prayer and yearning to eat the fruits of Eretz Yisroel isn’t merely to be satiated with delicious fruits, rather a will to ingest part of the kedusha of Eretz Yisroel into our bodies.
Every one of the seven parshios that we read after Tisha B’av has a special message of nechama in them. We could say that this is the message of the Parsha. We are fixing the first tragedy that led to the churban- the meraglim. Their mistake was that they didn’t perceive Eretz Yisroel as Hashem’s land. The Torah puts them both together - the fruits of the land and the mitzvah of bentching - to thank Hashem for what we ate and to remind us to yearn to be able to eat the much more delicious fruits- the ones that have a piece of Hashem in them.