Dear Aliyah Commandos:
How can you seriously advocate Aliyah today? Firstly, Israel is at war with barbaric enemies and it is dangerous to live there. Secondly, the country is a mess with escalating internal conflicts bordering on civil war. Thirdly, while you cite esteemed Rabbis who believe that living in Israel is a Torah commandment beholden in all times, we have equally esteemed Rabbis who state otherwise.
Reply:
Thank you for your query. Let me try to answer your questions in their order. I will attempt to do so briefly without entering into long Halachic explanations. Yes, Israel is at war. In fulfilling Hashem’s command to live in Israel, our first forefather, Avraham, fought a war. In following Hashem’s command to conquer and dwell in the Land of Israel, Yehoshua fought wars. King David fought wars. The Maccabees went to war. Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kochba went to war. It is true that war is unpleasant but there is a commandment of the Torah, known as Milchemet Mitzvah, which commands the Jewish People to go to war to conquer the Land of Israel and to defend it and the Jews who live there against enemies who rise up against them. This commandment applies in our day as well. It is an obligatory commandment even though danger is involved, and it is incumbent upon all of the Jewish People wherever they live, just as all Jews the world over are obligated to keep Shabbat. It naturally follows that just as all Jews are obligated to make Aliyah they are obligated to fight in Israel’s wars. As an outcome of this, if only the religious Jews remaining in the Diaspora made Aliyah and participated in the military, the IDF would be ten times more powerful and wars would be no more.
Regarding your second contention. The Torah commandment to conquer and dwell in the Land of Israel is not dependent on the political atmosphere of the time, nor on the fact that the government is secular or religious, nor on the fact that taxes are high or that Jews are called upon annually to serve in the army reserves. When our forefather Avraham came to the Land, only idol worshipers lived here. There were no synagogues, no mikvehs, no Jewish communities and yeshivot. The situation was the same when Yehoshua followed Hashem’s command to lead the Jews into the Land of Israel. We perform the mitzvot because Hashem tells us to – not because they are pleasing in our eyes. Just as a Jew must keep Shabbat even though there are sacrifices involved, he or she is obligated to live in the Land which Hashem chose for the Jewish People. Also, it is important to note that if the religious Jews remaining in the Diaspora made Aliyah and participated in Israeli elections the religious-rightest block would be increased to the point where the political Left would become an impotent minority unable to cause division in Israeli society.
Thirdly, one only has to open one’s eyes and see how Hashem has resurrected the Jewish People from the ashes of exile and returned us to the Promised Land in fulfillment of biblical prophecy. One only has to open one’s eyes to see that Hashem has transformed Israel into one of the most powerful countries in the world and made it the Torah center of the nation – all without waiting for Mashiach to come. The long list of Rabbis who believe that living in Israel is a commandment of the Torah which applies at all times is not something to be lightly disregarded. They believe that the Rabbis who think otherwise are mistaken. Yes, a person has free choice. Nevertheless we know from the Torah and from our Sages that Hashem frowns upon Jewish life in foreign gentile countries. We know that He considers it a rebellion when Jews turn away from living in the Land of Israel for life in other lands. We know from the Torah that when Jews offered all kinds of reasons for not living in Israel and for not taking an active concrete part in conquering and settling the Land, Hashem rejected them all. Everyone has free choice to obey the mitzvot or to avoid them, but when it comes to a mitzvah which the Sages consider to be equal in weight to all of the commandments of the Torah, a person must examine the true motivation leading him or her not to perform the mitzvah. Is it truly because some Rabbis state that Aliyah is not an obligatory commandment today, or is it because of powerful materialistic addictions, or because of the difficulty of the mitzvah, or out of fear of army service, or fear of failure, or does the negation stem from a result of egotistical factors like losing community or professional standing which can stand in the way when there is a need to change comfortable life conditions for a greater and far more exalted challenge?
