Time to Make Aliyah

This was delivered as a sermon at Ner Tamid Greenspring Valley Synagogue, Baltimore, MD, before Yizkor on Yom Kippur. 

I could not believe it; they were taking pictures of us.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of taking a short trip to Poland. I walked through the ancient cemeteries filled with scholars whose works I have labored over my whole life; among others, Rav Tzadok HaKohein, one of the most profound and inspiring teachers of Chassidic Torah, Rav Yisrael Meir Kagan, otherwise known as the Chafetz Chaim who revolutionized the way we relate to gossip and who wrote an essential commentary on Jewish Law known as the Mishna Berura. I prayed in the shuls of great Jewish leaders like the Rema, Rav Moshe Isserlis, the preeminent Halachic authority for Ashkenazi Jews. These shuls must have been filled to the brim every day of the week with people and the sound of heartfelt prayers. I spent time studying in the buildings that once housed the great yeshivas of old, like Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, an imposing and stately structure that housed the crème de la crème of budding Torah scholars and future Jewish leaders.

As we walked through the old Jewish quarter of Crackow, I noticed that tourists were taking pictures of us, me and my group of Yarmulka-wearing Jews. That’s right. They were taking their phones out and snapping pictures of us.

And it actually made a lot of sense. After all, this was the country that early historians described as the Jewish Paradise, a country that for a thousand years boasted the largest Jewish community in the world, a country that was a center of Torah scholarship and Jewish culture like no other, a country that up until World War Two had a population of over 3 million Jews. And yet, aside from cemeteries and empty shuls and yeshivas, there was hardly a Jew in sight – except for us. Like the staff dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms in Colonial Williamsburg, we provided the tourists with an excellent photo-op of what once was.

As I walked those streets, I wondered if my ancestors who likely walked those same streets, could have imagined the emptiness and death that would follow? Was there ever a point in time when they wondered, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to go?

There was one gravestone in Lublin that was hit by a shell and now has a gaping hole in the middle of the stone, almost to say, killing you once was not enough; we will gas you, strangle you, and then burn your ashes. Did my great-grandparents know what devastation lay ahead?

Some did and left. But 90% of the population stayed behind. And now all that’s left of them is marked and unmarked cemeteries, empty buildings that generate tourist dollars, and a sickly stench of death.

How many years from now do you think our descendants will walk through the streets of Baltimore and have someone take their picture? “Ooh, look, a Jew!”

Will my great-grandson go on a tour of what once was Jewish Baltimore? “This bagel shop used to be filled every day by young and old.” I could just imagine a young man looking a whole lot like me, rummaging through the internet, trying to figure out where his great-grandfather lived and worked. And he’ll come upon a big building, maybe it will be a small private school, with a funny W-shaped roof, and based on the discoloration of the stones, what looks like the shape of a Menorah that used to grace its front walls. He’ll try peeking through the windows, and he’ll imagine what this building used to look like when it was a shul; how many people filled the seats of the sanctuary – now a school auditorium – on the High Holidays? And my grandchild will wonder, do you think my grandfather had a clue of what was to come?

How many years do you think it will take? 10? 20 years? 40 years? Poland the 1000-year Paradise turned into hell. How much longer will it take for this Goldena Medina to turn into arsenic?

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a bold proposition to make. If there is one thing we learned this past year – and we learned a lot, it is time to make Aliyah.

Now before you start reminding me that I have a few years left on my contract, allow me to explain:

Moving to Israel is called Aliyah, which literally means, going up, because we consider Israel to be the highest place on earth, spiritually speaking. But there is another form of Aliyah which has nothing to do with moving to Israel.

One of the graves I visited was that of Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo, otherwise known as ‘The Genius of Vilna’ or the Vilna Gaon. His grave was actually moved by the Lithuanian authorities who wanted to build a highway over his grave – truly emblematic of their love and respect for the Jewish People…

There is one teaching of his that I was taught as a child; it’s a piece of commentary on the following verse found in Proverbs, the Book of Mishlei: “Orach Chayim l’malah, The path of life is upwards.”

Explains the Vilna Gaon, and I quote: “Ha’adam nikra holeich, Humans are called travelers, she’tzarich lei’leich tamid midarga l’darga, because a human must constantly travel from level to level. V’im lo ya’aleh l’maalah, And if one does not go up, yeireid matah matah c’v, one, Heaven forbid, goes down and down. Ki bilti efshar la’amod b’darga chada, because it is impossible to stand at one level.”

My teacher taught this to me by using the metaphor of a down escalator. “Life,” he’d say, “is like a down escalator. If you are not going up in spirituality, in personal growth, you are by definition being pulled down by the yetzer hara.”

Aside from the fact that any time you say, “Life is like” you sound a lot like Forest Gump, more importantly, that is a superficial read of this profound teaching. The Vilna Gaon is not just reminding us that we must be vigilant in overcoming the evil inclination. The verse he is interpreting states, “The path of life is upwards.” The Vilna Gaon is addressing the age-old philosophical question, what is life? In what way is a human different than an animal? How do we reply to those who accuse us of being a sophisticated collection of molecules?

It’s a question that has been grappled with since the beginning of time. Socrates famously said that it was the unexamined life that was not worth living; life is about an understanding of self. Plato broadened his teacher’s definition and suggested that life is about knowledge. And Nietzsche argued that life was defined by the use of raw power.

But they were all wrong. Socrate’s focus on self-awareness can be indulgent, had Plato known about computers that would be far more knowledgeable than mortals he would likely retract, and we all know where Nietzsche’s philosophy led the Germans. What makes us unique, suggests the Vilna Gaon, is our capacity to change and to grow. That is what justifies our existence and that is the definition of human life. “Orach Chayim l’malah, The path of life is upwards.”

What I am suggesting this morning is not that we move to Israel; I am suggesting that we live. And the only way to live is to go up, to not stagnate, to face every challenge that life sends our way and to figure out how to overcome it and to grow from it – and if you are blessed to not feel challenged in any way, then create your own challenges. Because without a mountain to climb, what are we doing here? Without personal growth, without constantly reinventing ourselves we are not alive.

That journey may take you to Israel, but Aliyah could also take place in Baltimore. It’s true, Jewish Baltimore may not be here forever, but guess what? Jewish Israel may not be here forever. When G-d gave us this incredible mind-blowing gift called the State of Israel, He did not provide a lifetime guarantee. Show me the prophecy that says that after 1948 the Jews will remain in Israel for all of time. It does not take much imagination, with so many enemies surrounding her, to envision modern Israel transforming into modern Poland. Heaven forbid.

But you know what will last? You know what will live on past Holocausts and nuclear wars, heaven forbid?

Those great rabbis whose graves I visited in Poland, they are alive and well. They dedicated their lives to endless growth; they overcame their lower selves, they constantly pushed themselves to change. Whenever I am struggling spiritually or emotionally, Rav Tzadok Hakohein, who died over a hundred years ago speaks to me and inspires me. Every step of my day is guided by the Chafetz Chaim and Rav Moshe Isserlis, the two most prominent Ashkenazic Halachic authorities, even though the latter has been dead for centuries.

And it’s not just the rabbis. When I visited Majdanek, yes, there were ashes and shoes and crematoria and gas chambers, but that’s all history. What is alive are the stories of self-sacrifice of one Jew looking out for another in the depths of hell. What is alive are the stories of our brothers and sisters being gassed while singing Ani Maamin, we believe!

So many of you in this room today are remembering loved ones. And all of us, I hope, are meditating on our mortality; we are not here forever. What lives on, in this world and the next, is our growth. Homes don’t last. Countries don’t last. All physical things come to an end. A life of Aliyah lives on forever.

These past twelve months, the Jewish People have experienced an unprecedented amount of bloodshed, of death. But we have also experienced an unprecedented amount of life, of people who chose to make Aliyah, to push themselves like never before, people who chose to live in the truest sense of the word.

Nefesh B’Nefesh will tell you that 29,000 people made Aliyah this year. But they are wrong. Every soldier who went out to battle made Aliyah this year. Every spouse who held it together while their loved one was far away made Aliyah this year.

And it’s not just in Israel. And it’s not just the soldiers.

It’s people like Sara Cohen, a woman you never heard of, who decided this year that Fridays in her home were too hectic and stressful and unpleasant for her family, so since October 7^th, she started getting ready on Thursday nights. She too made Aliyah.

It’s people like Noa Simon, a high school student in Plano, Texas, who goes to public school, and since October 7^th has worn a kippah and tzitzis. He too made Aliyah.

Or Jonathan Miller, a lawyer who works in Manhattan at a prestigious law firm with crazy hours, who decided on October 7^th, to start going to Shacharis with a minyan and has done so ever since. Or an anonymous woman I know who forgave her ex-husband, despite the terrible way he treated her. Each of those people made Aliyah this year in their own way.

In a few moments, we will chant the haunting words, ‘Who will live and who will die?’ And we wait for G-d to answer that question.

But it’s not a question for G-d. It’s a question for us.

Will you live this year, growing and changing, or will you stagnate and be counted among the living dead? Will we look around us and smugly smile knowing that there are so many people who are not as good as we are? Or will we climb the never-ending ladder to self-betterment and personal growth? Reshaim afilu b’chayei’hen k’ruyim meisim. Tzadikim afilu b’misasam k’ruyim chaim. (Berachos, Yerushalmi, 15b)

We do not get to decide how many years and how many days we will spend on this planet. That is totally out of our control. But life in the fullest sense of the word? Chaim?!

Who will live and who will die is entirely in our hands.

Personally, I do not care if my great-grandson knows what I did in my lifetime. If I lived a good life, if I am a ben or bas Aliyah, constantly growing, then my values and my accomplishments will be alive and well, coursing through my great-grandson’s veins and heart. And like the faith of the millions of unnamed men, women, and children gassed in those chambers and like the strength of the 695 soldiers who fell on the battlefields who inspire us all, whether we have children or not, whether it’s through our children or not, our actions, our growth, our Aliyah, lives on.

Will the US be a safe place to live in a few years? Who knows. We’ll watch the news with caution, and if need be, we’ll pack up and leave.

One thing is for sure, we cannot allow external and physical Aliyah to act as a substitute for the real thing, for spiritual Aliyah.

For each and every one of us, climbing higher means something else. Please take some time this morning to reflect on what it means for you. I beg you, let’s not leave this room without a firm commitment to dedicating this year to life, to Aliyah.

Going up?

Yes, we are.