Keilim, Chapter 1, Mishnah 6. Masechet Keilim opened with the levels of tumah, moving from the lighter forms of impurity to the more severe, each level stricter than the one before it. Now the Mishnah turns the ladder around and begins to climb in the opposite direction: instead of ranking degrees of impurity, it ranks degrees of kedushah, holiness, place by place. The first rung of that ascent is the Land itself.
The Mishnah declares: "Eretz Yisrael mekudeshet mikol ha'aratzot", the Land of Israel is holier than every other land. And because a statement of holiness that has no practical expression is only a slogan, the Mishnah immediately asks: "umah hi kedushatah?", in what does that holiness actually consist? What is the halachic detail that shows us the Land's higher status? The answer is given in three mitzvot, three offerings that may be brought only from produce that grew in Eretz Yisrael.
The Omer
The first is "shemevi'im mimenah ha'omer", that from it the Omer is brought. This minchah, a meal offering prepared from the season's freshly harvested barley, is offered on the sixteenth of Nisan, the day following the first day of Pesach. Its offering is what releases the year's new grain for ordinary use. Before that moment the new crop, known as chadash, is off limits, and the prohibition covers each of the five grain species: barley, wheat, spelt, oats and rye. And the very Omer that opens the year's grain to us may be taken from no barley other than that which grew in the earth of Eretz Yisrael.
The Bikkurim
The second is "vehabikkurim", the first fruits. Each year the Torah asks a person to carry up to the Beit Hamikdash the earliest ripening produce of the seven species with which Eretz Yisrael is blessed. Upon arrival they are given into the hands of whichever kohanim are on duty in the Mikdash at that season. And this mitzvah too is limited to fruit grown in the soil of the Land; produce raised outside it cannot be brought as bikkurim.
The Shtei Halechem
The third is "ushtei halechem", the two loaves. These are the two breads offered in the Beit Hamikdash on Shavuot, and they must be baked from wheat that grew in Eretz Yisrael.
The Mishnah then seals the matter by noting that from no other land, "mikol ha'aratzot", are such offerings brought at all. There lies the exact measurement of the Land's kedushah. Its holiness is not painted for us in lyrical language; it is defined by what this soil alone can contribute to the avodah of Hashem: the barley of the Omer, the fruits of bikkurim, and the wheat baked into the two loaves of Shavuot come from here and from nowhere else. Having established this first rung, the Mishnah is now ready to keep rising, moving from the Land in its entirety to the places within it that carry greater and greater holiness.