This is something that circulated around our Chug Aliyah's mailing list. I thought it was great!
In response to this past week's parsha, and the 10 negative reports from the spies about why we should go into Israel. Nefesh B'Nefesh ran a champaign that anyone who made Aliyah should write up a list of 10 reasons why we should make aliyah.
This is one such list (it's really 9):
1. But I can't leave my family members!
This convenient excuse pardons your life in exile with your great sensitivity. Have you spoken with them? Maybe they'd resist at first but eventually support your decision. Who knows? Maybe they'll even follow? Unless a serious effort has been made to confront family members, blaming them remains an easy way out.
2. But I can't make a living!
Without seriously checking career options in Israel, this is an excuse. Israel is not without good jobs. I know many people in my hometown of Los Angeles who are struggling there as much as they'd be struggling in Israel. It's true they have a support system of family and friends, but Israel is equipped with an automatic support system: fellow olim who band together to help each other succeed. Furthermore, there are plenty of companies hungry to hire English-speakers.
Until you find or create your profession in Israel, work for less and
live frugally. You may not enjoy the comfortable American lifestyle
right away, but it can be achieved with hard work and determination.
If there is the will, there is a way.
3. But I don't speak Hebrew!
It's called ulpan, and it's offered free to olim. Hebrew is not difficult to learn if you do homework and practice. I recently met an oleh who made it a point to read Hebrew newspapers everyday, and he is now reading high Israeli literature.
In addition, it's easy to get by with minimal Hebrew. English is practically a second language here, and Israelis love to exercise English with olim.
4. But I'm afraid for my life!
This past year, car accidents have been the cause for more deaths than terrorist attacks, but Americans continue to ride Israel's highways. Life can't be lived in fear. There's that well-known story about the Israeli who moved to London to escape terrorist attacks only to get blown up in a London bus. We all take precautions, and while there is a constant risk of war, isn't that why we are here? To fight Israel's battles head-on. Chazak v'amatz.
5. But I don't like the mentality!
It's hard to argue with this excuse because it speaks of preference. It says: "I prefer the American mentality", i.e. the American life. Whoever makes this "excuse" really doesn't want to live in Israel, and that's legitimate -- if you only say so!
The Israeli mentality can be abrasive at times, but I've learned to love it. People aren't fake; they tell it like it is. I don't like to be called "ma'am" all the time and constantly have to wish everyone a good day. So in response to this excuse, I say: "have a good day."
6. But I don't want to live under Olmert and Peretz!
Well, neither do I, but at least I'm here to help change that. If people lived in a country based on their approval of the current leadership, than half of Americans would be leaving the US. We get bad leaders once in a while, or often, but we weather them and work to get better ones -- or become ones.
I agree that America's (relative) free-market, presidential system is superior to Israel's socialist, parliamentary, Jewish concoction. But I believe that if more Jews steeped in positive American principles moved here, we'd consist of a serious mass poised to influence the political and intellectual landscape of Israel.
7. But I can do more for Israel in the US!
And you are making plenty sacrifices as well: your six-figure salary, your three bedroom house, your Volvo, and your friends from shul.
We don't need your favors, please. Unless you are a gazillionare supporting other olim, host a successful radio show, or raise money for pro-Israel organizations, we don't need your letters to the Senator or your rallies at the UN. Change has to occur within Israel. We can't constantly beg the American administration or people to support our cause. We must influence the leadership and people on our soil.
We have a great many Christian and conservative friends who will fight our cause in the US, and that is their rightful place. Let's be their allies from the land we're fighting for!
8. But my spouse doesn't want to go!
Is that really the case or a convenient excuse? Why should your spouse be the one to decide, while your vision of Israel remains suppressed?
A word to the wise: before getting married, agree on aliyah.
9. But I'm a rabbi or Jewish educator bringing hundreds of Jews closer to Yiddishkeit!
What is the value of teaching Judaism if you side-step the one theme that permeates the entire Torah: settling the Land. Better go on shlihut (missions) from here to the galut. Or better yet, bring your great talents to the exiled minds of the rabidly secular Tel Avivians. They need lessons in Judaism far more than the average, unaffiliated American college student. American Jewry is one big revolving door: for every Jew that enters the fold, another out-marries. Jewish
continuity -- and physical and spiritual survival -- begins in Israel. Orthodox Jews who stay in the US are, in some ways, "pick and choose" Jews. They wiggle their way out of aliyah with fancy interpretations of halachot, pitting aliyah against Torah study, making a living, and
other such ideals. Rabbis and educators who claim to believe in aliyah but remain in the US are often the excuse generators par excellence, the perpetuators of the galut.
What better way to educate Jews than to lead by example?
10. Fill in the blank. Feel free to share your favorite (in talkback or by email) or come up with your own!
In the meantime, I ask aliyah dodgers to please stop offering excuses, and instead offer real reasons, even if some of them may reveal your internal clash of values or lack of integrity. It would be much more honest and praiseworthy if you submit: I like Israel in theory, not in practice; I don't want to give up my comfortable life; it's too hard and I don't want it badly enough.
1 comment:
As a preferatory comment, I'd like to state my support for those who choose to make aliya, and my support for the Jewish Homeland (not the so-called 'Jewish' government thats on it)
Now I'd like to, as someone who has chosen for the time being to remain in Chutz L'Aretz, confront these points.
I'd also like to point out that these are less reasons to move to Israel, and more answers for reasons NOT to move to Israel.
This will be long.
1. Let's examine this argument a little more in depth. The person who says this feels comfortable with their family and friends in America, and don't want to uproot their lives to resettle in a strange country. We all have many friends in Israel, but for many people thats no replacement for social and family networks in the country they grew up in. This isn't so much being restricted by perceptions about family as an uneasiness about losing the relationships at home that we've all grown up with. That's leaving out the fact that while aliya may give you vibrant new social connections, nothing can replace your own family and childhood friends.
2. How about after you check career options and find that while Israel may have certain industries with a lot of growth, it's far more difficult to find a steady job to even put food on the table without a substanial combination of luck, connections and skill. We aren't talking about maintaining the so-called 'American' lifestyle, we're talking about resting assured that your expenses for health care,food, and living are taken care of.
3. I agree. For someone who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish environment and graduated Yeshiva High School with good grades in so-called hebrew classes can pick up hebrew, given he has a good teacher and enough time. For someone who struggled with the hebrew language in high school, and is going to have to work upon entry to Israel, learning hebrew will take more than a mere ulpan. In much of Israel, it IS possible to get by with weak hebrew though.
4. While it is true that Israel isn't nearly as dangerous as the politically biased media portrays it as, it is also true that aliya isn't about fighting a war, it's about living in the holiest area of creation. All the Jews in the world would not deter the threat of complete destruction that looms in the background of Israeli life. I believe the proper way to view this, however, is to accept the danger and understand that if this is what brings you closer to Hashem, then you are willing to take that risk, war or no war. Some things are more important than danger. This is not something that most people can handle, but it's something every Jew really should aspire to handle. It's an amazing level of bitachon.
(On a side note, it's distressing whenever I hear people speak of how we can fight the Arabs. We are powerless against them. All we have is prayer. We could outnumber them and out gun them,but should it be decreed that we lose, we will lose. It seems to me that this 'Jewish Power' stuff is a mental excuse to those who don't have true bitachon that all is in the realm of Hashem and need something to protect them from the harsh reality of the Israeli-Arab situation)
5. Israelis are crazy. The environment can be a bit overbearing at times, but overall I agree, it doesn't take much to get used to, and once you do, you'll never want to be without it.
6. I have some weird ideas about government which I won't go into right now, but the basics are this. The only true Jewish government is a Theocratic Monarchy, A.K.A Malchus Beis David. Everything else will do us no good. The rest of my opinions about israeli government would take far too long to go into, and you probably are aware of most of them anyways :)
7. I agree. If a rich person actually was doing something for israel, he would give all his money to soup kitchens and israeli charities.
8. This is sick. I see sense in a lot of other things your saying at some level, but this is sick. It's contrary to Judaism in several ways, and it's just ethically and morally wrong outside of that. This touches on the negative side of aliya. The side that appeals to vanity (or 'gaiva' in hebrew) and tells young people that we need to support the cause and that we will build this pumped on vision of israel. This loses site of what aliya was about before modern activists for greater israel came and perverted it. Aliya is about living in the holy land of our fathers while waiting for galus to end and moshiach to come. Aliya is NOT a chiyuv, it is an option. There is nothing halachically wrong with living in hutz la'aretz (and while there are halachic sources who imply otherwise, they are misapplied by misguided people)
That being said.
Judaism believes in shalom bayis and in family unity. This shtuss encourages dissolving your marriage and family to support your own vanity. I could label this as A) A chillul hashem B) k'neged sholom bayis C) like I've said, completely based in gaiva, NOT any halachic obligation regarding israel, as said obligation does not exist.
Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya (i think, it may be a diff. R' Elazar), when confronted with the decision to become the leader of the sanhedrin, asked his wife before accepting. How much more so should the average guy ask his wife before making impulsive, improperly based decisions to go to Israel?
9. The person who wrote this is treading a line way on the side of k'fira, and possibly outright apikorsis. The Rambam says that little 'fancy interpretation of halacha' quite clearly in Mishna Torah, and hes quoting a gemara (in kiddushin?) This is also loshon hora about large groups of Jews, which according to hafetz haim is one of the msot egregious sins in the torah. Without hinuch in America, Judaism will die here. A Jewish educator cannot function in Israel the way he can in America, the language barrier would hinder him far too much in a Hebrew speaking country (and we both know that israeli kids mostly aren't so good with english at a young age)
Finally, Galus exists until Moshiach. Galus will exist if we all are in Israel, galus will exist until we have the Beis Hamikdash. Living in israel by itself will not elevate us, living with Torah will. Those who live with Torah know these last two statements to be contrary to Torah and contrary to common sense.
This leads to my concluding statement.
Aliya is a good thing, and a Jewish Israel is wonderful, but not at the expense of Torah values. While discussing this, we should always try to maintain an air of derech eretz and da'as torah, which are greivously lacking in the way many Olim and aliya supporters speak of hutznikim. While there are many good points on the Aliya side, their impulsive and abusive presentation clouds their cause.
with love and cookies
Yaakov Halevi
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