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Uri Pilichowski
Author, Educator and Father - Brother to All

Aliyah is an Act of Repentance

One of the perplexities of repentance is that repentance is a fundamental aspect of Judaism but isn’t obligatory. Although the Torah world stresses the need to repent during the last month of the Jewish calendar year, Elul, there isn’t an obligation to repent during that month, or even during the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Repentance isn’t just appropriate in the days leading up to and during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. There is a benefit to repenting every day of the year.

A common mistake made about repentance is that its sole purpose is to correct a sin or mistake. Repentance is more than correcting the past, it is a course correction. On a macro level, repentance is the decision to chart a better path forward. A better path forward generally requires sacrifice and pain. According to the Mishna, reward is based on pain, so the more one endures as they change the greater benefit they’ll experience from their change.

The Rabbis in the Talmud stated unequivocally that a Jew should always live in Eretz Yisrael. There are three main camps among Torah scholars about whether a person is obligated to live in Eretz Yisrael. These camps are represented by Rambam, Ramban, and Rav Moshe Feinstein. Maimonides didn’t list living in Israel in his count of the 613 mitzvos, but he did quote the previously mentioned teaching in the Talmud that a Jew should always live in Eretz Yisrael. Many understand the Rambam’s opinion to maintain there is a philosophical benefit to living in Eretz Yisrael but living in Eretz Yisrael is not legally obligatory.

Nachmonides criticized the Rambam’s omission of living in Eretz Yisrael from his list of the 613 mitzvos and maintained that it is a legal obligation for a Jew to live in Eretz Yisrael. Their opinions are mutually exclusive of each other, and throughout the years people have taken different sides in this dispute. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the preeminent halachik authority in the United States maintained that living in Eretz Yisrael wasn’t obligatory, but any Jew who lived in Eretz Yisrael was fulfilling a mitzvah. In Halachik parlance, he called living in Eretz Yisrael a “kiyum mitzvah.”

Aliyah, or the act of moving to Eretz Yisrael, was always a dream held by Jews all over the world. The two most important nights on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur and the Passover Seder, both end with the prayer, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Reb Nachman of Bratzlav famously said, “Wherever I go, I am always only going to the land of Israel. I am only here in Bratzlav temporarily.” The first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, said, “There are eleven million Jews in the world. I don’t say that all of them will come here, but I expect several million, and with natural increase I can quite imagine a Jewish state of ten million.” Israeli Prime Minister and war hero, Ariel Sharon said, “Aliyah is the central goal of the State of Israel.” Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres said, ““My family’s dream, and my own, was to live in Israel, and our eventual voyage to the port of Jaffa was like making a dream come true. Had it not been for this dream and this voyage, I would probably have perished in the flames, as did so many of my people, among them most of my own family.”

In an opinion column on Aliyah, Andy Blumenthal, Deputy Program Director at the U.S. Department of Commerce, wrote, “The importance of making Aliyah may seem counterintuitive given how anti-Zionist not only many Pro-Hamas supporters are, but also some diaspora and even Israeli Jews are. However, it is actually all the more reason for people who understand Israel’s holiness and centrality to Jewish life, prayer, and tradition to make the leap. I think in the future, we will look back at this time and the immense pressure to abandon Israel, and we will recognize the strong souls who defied the mob.”

According to Israel’s Law of Return which guarantees every Jew the right to make Aliyah and move to Israel, “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an “oleh”. “aliya” means immigration of Jews. “oleh” (plural “olim”) means a Jew immigrating into Israel. an oleh’s visa shall be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel.”

There we five famous mass immigration movements to Eretz Yisrael, then known as British Mandate Palestine, before the establishment of the State of Israel. The first Aliyah movement was started by “Chovevei Zion” and encouraged their immigrants to build farms and orchards throughout the land. The second Aliyah movement was inspired by the beginnings of the Zionist movement and was infused with nationalist motivations. The third Aliyah movement came after World War One and the Balfour Declaration. The fourth Aliyah came between World War One and Two and was made up primarily of Polish Jews. The fifth Aliyah was motivated by the Nazi rise to power in Germany and was made up of many German Jews. These five Aliyah movements came to represent to immigrants who arrived after them the importance of Aliyah to the State of Israel.

In the first decades of the State of Israel only the most dedicated American Zionists made Aliyah to Israel. Aliyah was seen as a great sacrifice and those who made the move to Israel were looked upon as something between Abraham following God’s order and a Ben-Gurion pioneer. Those who made Aliyah had the admiration of friends and family but were also looked upon as strange for making such a great sacrifice. Today things are much different. All necessities, even most luxury items, are available in Israel. There’s nothing Israel lacks that makes it seem like an underdeveloped country.

Yet, many still consider making Aliyah a great burden and sacrifice. They talk about the challenges and difficulties that come with moving to Israel. Many immigrants were entrenched in communities. Many Jews had built lives in their communities over decades and had friends who were family. They left jobs and careers that were not always easily transferrable. They left family, even aging parents, siblings, and extended family. Many of their Aliyot required ripping grandchildren away from their grandparents.

As much as Israel has improved and become a first-class country, there are few financial or materialistic reasons that motivate Aliyah to Israel. “Aliyah by choice, where immigration to Israel isn’t fueled by natural disasters, persecution, or rising antisemitism is done primarily for altruistic reasons. While many Torah scholars don’t consider moving to Israel an obligatory mitzvah, it is undeniably the general better path for each Jew. As in every case in Jewish law, there are exceptions and Aliyah isn’t for everyone. While micro-repentance is correcting past mistakes, micro-repentance is deciding to live a more meaningful life going forward. Moving across the world, to a new country, with many challenges and few financial benefits, is exactly the decision to chart a better path forward that defines macro-repentance.

About the Author
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski is an educator. As a teacher, author and speaker, he teaches Torah and Politics, where he specifically emphasizes rational thought and conceptual analysis.