ourtesy authorEver since I made Aliyah forty years ago I have been writing in English about the great differences between Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora with the hope of inspiring people to embrace the supreme Torah commandment of living in the Promised Land. High on the list of excuses to which Diaspora Jews cling is the claim that they have to remain where they are to take care of aging parents. The truth is that medical care for the elderly in Israel is available at a very professional level, with a range of living options, dependable and affordable caregivers, and obvious spiritual benefits. We are not speaking of cases where a parent is battling for life in a hospital intensive care unit in South Florida. In cases like these, hurrying a dying patient off to the nearest airport could be an immediate danger. But when mom or dad recovers, there generally is no substantial medical reason for remaining in galut when excellent care is available in the Jewish Homeland. The Rambam lists certain reasons why a person can temporarily leave the Land of Israel, but he emphasizes that when the mission is accomplished the person must return to Israel “for settling down to dwell outside the Land of Israel is forbidden” (Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 5:9). While the Rambam is not directly addressing the matter of Aliyah, the general intent of his words is clear. Jews belong in the Land of Hashem.
People who claim that they are prevented from making Aliyah because they cannot leave again parents behind are often hanging on to a seemingly justifiable excuse in order to hide their own fears or their addiction to the “good life” in gentile lands where they needn’t worry about learning a new language, finding a new livelihood, adjusting to a different culture, and having to send their children to join the Israeli army.
Certainly, the obligation to make Aliyah with aging parents is a question of halacha depending on the circumstances of each individual case. As with all major life decisions, consultation with a Rabbi is proper, preferably a Rabbi who lives in Israel and who is free of local congregational pressures and other factors which might prejudice his advice.
Since this week marks my mother’s yahrtzeit, may her memory be a blessing, I will use my personal experience to demonstrate that bringing one’s aging parents to Israel is not only possible but the very best thing a child could do for them.
In my case I was already living in Israel with my wife and seven children when I brought my aging and ailing parents to Israel to live. One day, my aunt phoned me and said that something was happening to my mother and that I had better come to Florida as soon as I could. It turned out that the forgetfulness and sudden explosive bouts of anger she was experiencing was Alzheimer’s Disease. My eighty-year-old father, who suffered from medical issues of his own and an increasing anxiety over the strange and sometimes hostile changes in his wife’s behavior, could not deal with the situation alone. Ever since I moved to Israel I did everything I could to persuade my parents to follow, but they were ensconced in America which had for myriads of Jews of their generation become the Promised Land in their eyes. But now, with the drastic change in their situation, my father didn’t argue when I insisted they make Aliyah immediately. So I told my mother that I was taking them to Israel for the bar mitzvah of a grandson. Then I filled four large suitcases with a selection of their clothes and photo albums, visited all of their physicians to gather their medical histories, stocked up on a three-month supply of their medicines, and away we flew, leaving my uncle in Boca Raton to sell their house and car.
Mom’s neurologist prescribed sedatives for the long plane ride to make sure she didn’t have one of her unruly “I want to go home!” incidents on the flight. After a full-day trip, when we entered the luggage claim area of Ben Gurion Airport, my mother gazed around and said, “There sure are a lot of signs in Hebrew for Florida.” At the time my family was living in Shilo. We found a small apartment for them and decorated it to feel like home. But when it turned out that I was spending more time with them than with my wife and children, we moved them into our house. Then, when the daily trips to Jerusalem to meet their new team of doctors wore us all down, we decided to move to the Holy City where their neurologist, heart doctor, eye doctor, dentist, gastroenterologist, psychiatrist, foot doctor, orthopedist, and geriatrician were located. Fortunately we found two available apartments in the same building. We hired a foreign worker to look after my parents, and my family resided two stories above them, on call around the clock.
Including the money from the sale of their house, my parents came to Israel with about a three-quarters of a million dollars in savings and stocks. Once entering them in Chupat Holim, my father canceled their expensive medical policies in America. They both received monthly United States Social Security payments. This money covered all of their expenses in Israel until their deaths, including the nursing home my mother lived in for her last two years. While it may seem like a lot of money, there are tens of thousands, and probably a few hundred thousand, retired Jewish couples in America who have this amount of money and more.
To be sure, caring for sick and aging parents is both a great privilege and a heavy emotional and physical burden on their children. To help ease the responsibility, I hired a young, energetic companion for my father. Several times a week he would drive them to a shopping center for lunch, take them to routine doctor appointments where I wasn’t needed, and learn Torah with my dad. Two times a week they attended a dynamic Melabev group for English-speaking retirees with memory problems. While my mother sat quietly during the all-morning sessions, my father enjoyed the interactions with other men his age and always looked forward to the exercise sessions and classes about Israel geography, history, and current events. Needless to say, the daily presence of our children helped to brighten their days and they were with our loving and supportive family during Shabbat.
My father passed away at the age of ninety. He spent most of his last two years in hospitals with a series of illnesses, but he received the best medical care possible and the constant presence of his family and caregivers. After his death, my mother remained in their apartment for another two years until we made the decision to move her into a nursing home where she could receive around-the-clock care. Her foreign worker continued to be with her and I visited almost every day.
Regarding the incomparable spiritual benefits of living in the Holy Land, when my father passed away, I rushed to make plans for his burial. My first stop was a Chevre Kadisha society connected to the Har HaMenuchot Cemetery. I told them that I wanted two places side-by-side, per my father’s request. After more than sixty years of loving marriage my parents wanted to remain together in death. Guiding me to a large plastic model on a table, he informed that there were no more side-by-side plots and demonstrated their above-ground system of vaults. Declining, I asked where some other Chevre Kadisha was located. He mentioned an address not far away which turned out to be the “Guardians of the Walls” society, a very Ultra-Orthodox section on the Mount of Olives. The somber-looking fellow working in the office began asking me all kinds of questions about the background of my great grandparents and the religiosity of my grandparents and parents as if it were a KGB investigation. “What’s the bottom line?” I asked him in annoyance, eager to get on with my father’s burial.
“We are the ultra of the ultra-Orthodox,” he replied. “We can’t let just anyone be buried in our section on the mountain.”
“My parents are baale t’shuva,” I answered. “Our Sages teach that not even the greatest tsaddikim reach the level of a baal t’shuva.”
The long-bearded Chevre Kadisha director did not look impressed.
“My mother hasn’t spoken a word of lashon hara in the past ten years,” I told him. “Can you say that?”
It was true. Because of her advanced dementia my mother no longer spoke. Again the man didn’t seem impressed. I felt that the clock was ticking. In honor of the dead I wanted to find a burial place for my father. I understood that I would have to search for some other burial site. Just then the office telephone rang. I recognized the voice of the caller. It was my good friend, Meir Indor. He told the Chevre Kadisha director that he was looking for Tzvi Fishman. Meir had heard that my father had died and he was trying to find me to see if he could help.
“Fishman is sitting across the desk from me,” the director replied. To make things short, Meir knew the man well. As director of the Almagor Terror Victims Organization, where I had served as a board member for years, Meir knew all the heads of Israel’s burial societies. In addition, we had become close friends even before my aliyah. It was Meir and HaRav Yehuda Hazani, of blessed memory, who had inspired me to make Aliyah when they came to New York to create the Volunteers for Israel/Sarel project during the first war in Lebanon. Meir had met my parents on several occasions and he began to sing their praises for several minutes straight until the “Guardian of the Walls” director said, “OK OK, Meir, I get it. Don’t worry. Both Mr. and Mrs. Fishman will have places in our section. Consider it done.”
Talk about Divine intervention! Every year, twice a year, when we visit their gravesites, I am as amazed as they must be to find themselves buried in the holiest Jewish cemetery in the world. That certainly wouldn’t have happened if they had remained in South Florida!
