At the request of the recent Emergency Aliyah and Klita Conference, HaRav Shmuel Eliahu, the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, has written a letter to Rabbis and Jewish community leaders in Israel and in the Diaspora, calling upon them to encourage Aliyah in response to the increase in anti-Semitism and assimilation throughout the world. The letter reads:
To the Honored Rabbis and Leaders of Jewish Communities in Israel and the Diaspora.
At this time when anti-Semitism is increasing greatly toward a situation which threatens Jewish lives (pekuach nefesh), and when assimilation is constantly escalating –
In this emergency situation, violence against Jews can erupt at any moment. A scenario could very well develop that in certain countries all flights to Israel may be canceled.
Therefore, there is a need to encourage Aliyah to Israel and to support Jews who wish to do so, and to advise them to begin the Aliyah process by opening an Aliyah file and by gathering all of the necessary documents.
Surely, everyone who strengthens the hands of olim has a part in the mitzvah of gathering in the exiles and in returning the Shechinah to Zion.
“Then the Lord thy God will turn your captivity and have compassion upon you, and will return and gather you from all of the nations amongst whom the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts be at the uttermost parts of heaven from there will the Lord your God gather you, and from there He will fetch you; and the Lord your God will bring you into the Land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it” (Devarim, 30: 3-5).
With blessings,
Shmuel Eliahu, Chief Rabbi of the city of Tzfat.
While Rabbi Eliahu is deeply concerned about the increasing anti-Semitism throughout the Diaspora, he emphasizes that in making Aliyah, the Jewish People should be motivated first and foremost by a love for the Holy Land and a yearning to come closer to Hashem by living in the Land He bequeathed to the Nation of Israel for all eternity. For several years now, he has spoken of the need to further the ingathering of the exiles through the understanding that herein lies the key to returning the exiled Shechinah to Zion. He teaches:
“HaRav Yosef Caro explains that Moshe sent the Spies to tour the Land of Israel in order that they return full of its praises and thus ignite a passionate yearning for the Land throughout the Nation. This loving fire in their hearts for the Promised Land would then burn away all impurity remaining from the sin of the Golden Calf, making them worthy of entering and conquering the exalted Holy Land.
“In the book, ‘Eim HaBanim Semeicha,’ HaRav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal teaches that just as the Spies went from tent to tent spreading negative propaganda about the Land of Israel, in order to rectify their transgression, we have to do the counter action of going house to house, shul to shul, community to community, speaking in praise of the Land to inspire Jews to yearn to dwell there.
“There are people who say that they live in the Diaspora because transgressors abound in Eretz Yisrael, but they are mistaken. The holy Kabbalist, HaRav Avraham Azuli, author of, ‘Chesed L’Avraham,’ wrote: ‘Everyone who dwells in the Land of Israel is called a Tzaddik, even if they don’t seem to be outwardly, and even if they act in an evil manner, for if they weren’t Tzaddikim, the Land would vomit them out, as the Torah testifies, ‘The Land will vomit out its inhabitants….’
“In a similar light, HaRav Teichtal cites that the Spies rebelled against the command to enter the Land, maintaining that the Nation would lose the high spiritual level it had achieved in the wilderness where they were free of all worldly burdens and could learn Torah from Moshe Rabanu himself day and night. This reasoning if still heard today, with the claim that Jewish education of children would suffer if a family moved to Israel. But the facts are very different. 20% of the children in Israel learn in the Dati-Leumi school system, and 20% in Haredi institutions. There are some 130 high-school yeshivot with approximately 38,000 students. Close to 170,000 students learn in yeshivot and 72 Hesder programs, 38,000 in 390 yeshivot gedolot, and there are more than 1,250 Kollels with close to 90,000 Avrechim. One should also not deny children the opportunity to learn in the special air of Eretz Yisrael which grants wisdom, producing great Torah Scholars, and more per-capita Nobel Prize winners than in any other country.
“The Spies maintained that the Children of Israel should remain in the wilderness because it was dangerous to enter Eretz Yisrael. This reasoning continued to be heard throughout the generations. However, in the Shulchan Aruch, in the Pitchei Tshuva, (Even HaEzer, 75:6), we find that all of the Poskim, HaRishonim and HaAchronim (early and later Torah Authorities) maintained that the mitzvah of Yishuv HaAretz (dwelling in the Land) applies in all times, and that if merchants travel there on business, then the argument of danger does not apply. Today, even in a time of war, foreign tourists enjoy vacations all over the country. How much less does the argument of danger apply when talking about Aliyah and the Torah commandment for a Jew to dwell in the Land of Israel!
“There are absolutely no justifiable reasons to settle outside the Land of Israel. Our Sages teach that the mitzvah to dwell in Eretz Yisrael is equal in weight to all of the commandments of the Torah together. All of the Prophets emphasized the eternity of the Covenant and the return of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael. Anyone who does not make Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael neglects to fulfill a positive commandment of the Torah. So all-encompassing is this commandment that a person performs it even while he sleeps. What a pity to miss out, every second, the observance of such a vital mitzvah, upon which all of the Torah is founded. My Father, HaRav Eliahu, the Israel Chief Rabbi of blessed memory, said that the very first commandment a bar mitzvah boy performs is Yishuv HaAretz, because just by being here, he carries out the Torah precept which the Ramban, and all of the Torah authorities before and after him decreed to be a Torah commandment in all times, even during the time of Exile, as we mentioned earlier in reference to the Pitchei Tshuva in the Shulchan Aruch.”
