(לד) ד"א ואבדתם מהרה - אע"פ שאני מגלה אתכם מן הארץ לחו"ל, היו מצויינים במצות; שכשאתם חוזרים לא יהיו לכם חדשים. משל למלך שכעס על אשתו, וחזרה בבית אביה. אמר לה: הוי מקושטת בתכשיטיך, וכשתחזרי לא יהו עליך חדשים. כך אמר להם הקב"ה לישראל: בני, היו מצויינים במצות, שכשאתם חוזרים לא יהיו עליכם חדשים, שירמיהו אמר (ירמיה לא) הציבי לך ציונים - אלו המצות שישראל מצויינים בהם. שימי לך תמרורים - זה חרבן בית המקדש, וכן הוא אומר (תהלים קלז) אם אשכחך ירושלם תשכח ימיני. שיתי לבך למסלה דרך הלכת - אמר להם הקב"ה לישראל: בני, ראו באלו דרכים הלכתם ועשו תשובה, מיד אתם חוזרים לעריכם, שנאמר שובי בתולת ישראל שובי אל עריך אלה.
(34) "and you will go lost quickly … (18) And you shall place these, My words, upon your heart": Even though I am exiling you from Eretz Yisrael, be observant of the mitzvoth, so that when you return they will not be new to you. An analogy: A king was angry with his wife and she returned to her father's house. The king: "Continue wearing your jewels, so that when you return, they will not be new to you." So, the Holy One Blessed be He to Israel (in exile): "My children, be observant of the mitzvoth, so that when you return, they will not be new to you." As Jeremiah said (to the Jews going into exile, Jeremiah 31:20) "Set up signposts (tziyunim) for yourselves": These are the mitzvoth, in which Israel are distinctive (metzuyanim). (Ibid.) "Make high heaps for yourself": reminiscent of the destruction of the Temple, viz. (Psalms 137:5) "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten." (Jeremiah, Ibid.) "Set your heart to the road, the way on which you came.": The Holy One Blessed be He says to them: "My children, give heart to the ways in which you walked, and repent (of them), and immediately you will return to your cities, viz. (Ibid.) "Repent, O virgin of Israel — Return to these, your cities!"
Judaism as a Practice is anemic...
A. D. Gordon the great labor Zionist wrote:
The Jewish people has been completely cut off from nature and imprisoned within city walls for two thousand years. We have been accustomed to every form of life, except a life of labor- of labor done at our behalf and for its own sake. It will require the greatest effort of will for such a people to become normal again. We lack the principal ingredient for national life. We lack the habit of labor… for it is labor which binds a people to its soil and to its national culture, which in its turn is an outgrowth of the people’s toil and the people’s labor. … We, the Jews, were the first in history to say: “For all the nations shall go each in the name of its God” and “Nations shall not lift up sword against nation” – and then we proceed to cease being a nation ourselves. (see)
Similarly, Ben Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew writes:
“True literature can emerge only in a social environment speaking the language in which that literature is being written. Haskala literature in Russia is artificial, alienated from the sources of true artistic creativity – life itself. (see The Making of Modern Zionism, Shlomo Avineri p 85)
The Divide between Jews of the Exile and the residents of Israel (Am HaAretz):
In popular culture, the term Am Ha-Aretz” is used to refer to an ignorant Jew. Since this derogatory label translates as “People of the Land” it makes sense that this pejorative actually refers to Jews who had a special connection to the land of Israel. Writes Aharon Oppenheimer in his classic: The Am Ha-Aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, 1997 (note to page83):
There have always been a category of the commandments which are only practiced in the land of Israel (מצוות התלויות בארץ), but Rashi (based on the Sifrei Deuteronomy 43) is saying something much more radical here…. Namely, that Judaism can only be practiced in the land of Israel!
This is also the position of the Ramban which is that the fulfillment of even personal obligations in the Diaspora is meant to serve as training for fulfilling those same mitzvot in Israel; rituals, rites and commandments fulfilled in exile serve as signposts, leading the way back to living in the Land of Israel according to the Torah. (Source?)
Rabbeinu Bachya similarly holds with regard to all mitzvot for which the essential obligation is in Israel, “These are the statutes and judgments which you shall observe to do in the land” (Devarim 12:1) — for all the mitzvot are the judgments of the God of the land. (Source?)