Why I Want to Make Aliyah

By Barry Verstaendig for Kumah

I want to make aliyah because:

Hashem gave the land of Israel (the entire land!) to the Jewish people and intended that we live there. That is why so many of our 613 commandments can only be done in the land of Israel. Furthermore, the opening line repeated in many paragraphs throughout the Torah And when you enter the land conveys the idea that winding up in the land of Israel is a major goal to both the Jewish people as a whole and to individual Jews. In fact, we are commanded to thank Hashem for giving us the land every time we eat a meal. (And you will eat, be satisfied, and bless Hashem, your God, for the good land that he gave you [Deuteronomy 8:10]. This is one of the two blessings that the Torah itself requires us to say.) The Torah (Numbers 23:52-56) stresses that the land must be divided up among the Jews such that each family will get its very own fair share of the land.

According to some rabbinical opinions, settling in the land of Israel is a commandment, while others maintain that one is merely rewarded for doing so, though no commandment to settle in Israel exists. There are no opinions (to my knowledge), though, which maintain that it is preferable to live outside of Israel.1 Thus, it would seem to me, that one would want to generate as much reward for himself or herself as possible and live in Israel.

While it is true that Hashem exiled us from the land of Israel many years ago, he promised to redeem us eventually and return our inheritance to us. It seems to me that this time has arrived. The Jewish people are reluctant to accept this now because there have been many previous instances in Jewish history when significant portions of the Jewish nation thought that the exile was about to end, only to be bitterly disappointed. For example, 300,000 members of the tribe of Ephraim were murdered while they tried to escape from Egypt prematurely. However, the present time is surely different because the State of Israel has become firmly established among the countries of the world and it has become established only because of events that can only be described as miracles. This would not be the case if it were merely another hoax. For that reason, I have no qualms about referring to the State of Israel as the first flowering of our redemption. (Religious reason)
The Jewish people will never be safe in any other land. Though the people we live amongst may seem perfectly willing to accept us and though our lives in exile may be very comfortable, the nasty truth will one day be revealed: the people of the countries we live in would prefer to kill us and expropriate our property. It was revealed in Germany in 1933 and in Iran in 1979. It is becoming clear in Western Europe today, and I have no doubts that it will become clear in America tomorrow. The Western European nations, many of which helped their Jewish citizens during the Holocaust, are beginning to enact anti-Semitic laws similar to those that were enacted in Germany after Hitler came to power. Western Europe, along with the western half of the United States and all of Canada, has recently been the scene of many bias crimes. The New York area is the best place for Jews of the Diaspora to live in today and it is soon going to be the last safe haven for Jews outside of Israel. But one day, its turn will come as well. (Secular Zionist reason)
It will help the State of Israel survive. Since the State of Israel is a representative republic, it will only retain its Jewish character for as long as it has a Jewish majority. And the Arab population in Israel is currently growing much faster than the Jewish population is. If the Palestinian Arabs are counted together with the Israeli Arabs, then there are almost more Arabs than Jews in Israel today. Although the Palestinian Arabs may not be able to vote in Israeli elections, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the Jews to remain in control of a land where they are outnumbered. No army can control a land where the majority of the inhabitants do not want them in control. Furthermore, the Jewish people must show to the world that we wish to remain in control of certain areas by settling in them. (That is the only way to let the world know that we seriously believe that we have a right to control those areas.) Last week ten illegal settlements in the West Bank were dismantled because nine of them were uninhabited and one had two families living in it. If each of those settlements would have had 100 families living in it, then the government would not have dismantled them. (Political reason)
I think that King David was correct when he sang Behold! How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together! (Psalm 133). Have you ever gone someplace where there were hardly any Jews (if you, say, were driving across the United States and stopped in a hick town) and seen someone else wearing a kippa? Did you feel that you were not strangers, but rather long lost friends?

No Jews are strangers to each other because we are one extended family. In Israel, a camaraderie that does not exist anyplace else exists because everyone belongs to the same family. What could be more fun than living in a place like that? (Social reason)
My children will be raised in an all Jewish environment, and Jewish holidays will be the national holidays. Israel is the only place in the world where our Jewish identity need not be compromised with any other national identity. (Cultural reason)

I know that in certain ways moving to Israel will be very difficult. There is no doubt in my mind that there will not be times when I will wish that I had remained in the United States. There are certain things about the United States that the State of Israel cannot match at this time. Israel does not have the natural or human resources of the United States. I cannot think of any economic reason to move to Israel.

But I will invoke Channah Spiegelmans comparison of a Jews desire to make aliyah with Dorothys desire to return to Kansas in The Wizard of Oz. The land of Oz was a beautiful, exciting, and colorful place while Kansas was dull, boring, and black and white. Strangely, though, Dorothy wanted to leave Oz and return to Kansas more than anything. Why? Because theres no place like home. And for the same reason, Jews should want to leave America and go to Israel.

Money isn't everything. After a hundred and twenty years, the amount of money one makes or the house one lives in or the business one runs will not matter. But whether or not one fulfills a commandment will matter. Whether or not one experienced a higher level of spirituality during life because he or she lived in a land watched by Hashem from the beginning of the year until the end of the year (Deuteronomy 11:12) will matter. And whether or not one helped fulfill his or her nations national aspirations will matter.

In any case, working to increase the economic production of the United States is futile because empires come and go. Just as the Roman Empire came and went, so, too, will the United States of America disappear in a few hundred years. In fact, the United States is already starting to disintegrate because its federal government has, over the past sixty years, assumed more power than it is supposed to have under its constitution. If the State of Israel is really the first flowering of our redemption, though, then it will be around forever.

I considered staying in the United States and doing all sorts of things. I considered joining the US Navy and I considered going for a Ph.D., among other things. I decided against the US Navy because it would be impossible to practice Judaism there. It is not the place for a Jewish man to be in. And, once I realized that, I realized that no place in the United States is an appropriate place for a Jew. A Jew belongs in Israel.