“Wrong address, Return to Sender” is a postal and delivery term. It refers to mail or a package that cannot be delivered to the intended recipient.
And so it is that for more than 2,000 years the Jewish people have wandered the globe and never quite settled. During this millennia-long sojourn, there have always been individuals who heard the call of their homeland and settled in Israel even as it was ruled by any of a number of less-than-friendly cultures. More recently, over the last 200-plus years, significant waves of Jews have made their way to the Holy Land and, of course, since 1948, we have seen unprecedented numbers of olim.
Throughout the Babylonian Talmud, we see sentences like “Ki assa Rav Dimi,” or “B’maarava amri” (In the west [Israel] they said), as this was the gold standard for the Jew. Similarly, the authors of our siddur make no secret of the fact that the Diaspora Jew is engaged in an ongoing sense of loss as he hopes and prays for his return to Zion. At the same time, the Jews of Cape Town or Teaneck, Boro Park or Antwerp are just as Jewish as the Jews of Bnei Brak, Tiberias, and Jerusalem. All of them have a divinely-gifted share in the Land of Israel.
So, what’s aliyah? Aliyah is a Change of Address and a Return to Sender; it’s coming home.
Dedicated to the Finkelsteins on the momentous occasion of their forthcoming aliyah.