Yom HaAliyah: The call to move to Israel

Here is a message to those who are considering aliyah to Israel:

This week in the Israeli school system, we celebrate aliyah, and this weekend we read Parshat Lech Lecha. So here is what is on my mind.

When I was younger, when people talked about aliyah, what came to mind were the flight videos where there was music and dancing and emotional speeches and friends clinging to each other as they said goodbye, and (if you were lucky) parents who gave you one last blessing, hands upon your head, before you got on the plane.

The music pulled the chords of your heart eastward, and then appeared on the screen, happy faces of new immigrant families and their sweet children, young singles, newlywed couples, and retirees, who were excited to move across the world on a grand adventure.

I even made a couple of those videos when we made aliyah ourselves, 7 years ago. I am so grateful to have those beautiful memories captured in time.

Back then, thank God, with the creation of Nefesh B'Nefesh, aliyah was a relatively easy prospect. Yes, there was bureaucracy, and paperwork, and birth certificates, and all sorts of red tape. But we moved here during a period of peace. At least peaceful enough to reimagine a life here.

But then Covid hit. Then more terr*rism. And the Oct 7th and w*r.

And moving to Israel, I would imagine, has been both a harder sell and or a moral imperative for many.

Either people have been saying- I can't wait any longer, I want to go home.

Or there are people who say that it's too hard to move to a "W*r zone." I totally get that too. That part of it is not fun. I won't pretend otherwise.

On a personal level, I feel 100x safer in Israel than anywhere else in the world. Honestly, most of the time I don't even want to leave the country. To be among my people, with our army, with God's presence felt in every season- I feel more seen, more safe, more Jewish, more aligned since making aliyah than I ever have in my lifetime. No, it's not without risks, d*nger, and adrenaline. (Though you can argue it's hard everywhere. We pick our hard.)

The pre-messianic timeline was never promised to be easy.

But I get it.

I'll say this: In Israel, we read headlines every day about the rise of antisemitism in the diaspora. It's frightening for us to read, imagining not having our soldiers to protect us and feeling vulnerable. From the big scary catastrophic fears like pogroms, to microaggressions (or just actual aggression) for being identifiably Jewish and Z*onist- we're worried. I know you worry about us- but we worry about you too. We care about the safety of our brothers and sisters all over the world.

In my opinion, the only thing that differentiates our generation from any other of Jewish history (which is filled with immigrants and refugees) is that we are back in our land and our proximity to mashiach. The whole "it couldn't happen here" is very 80 years ago.

I believe we are firmly in the ingathering of the exiles- as evidenced by how Jews from all over the world have come home to Israel since the creation of the state and rebuilt and replanted anew.

It's an undeniable fact that we Jews have brought this land back to life. And this land brought the Jews back to life, too, after millennia in exile.

But here is where my concern intensifies.

For the ten years prior to my aliyah, I said, "I would rather be an immigrant than a refugee." Thank God, my family were immigrants and will be for the rest of our lives.

Many will come soon because the world they are in has shifted around them. Not because they planned to leave, but because the ground itself began to move. Some aliyah begins with longing; some begin with necessity.

Leaving their places of birth because it's become untenable. Unsafe. Problematic to be Jewish. Unaccepted- at school, at work, in public.

In some places, it may already be too dangerous. In others, it may just be a wake-up call that it's time to move on and answer the louder call of impending redemption. A reunification with people and land.

The prophets talk about this phenomenon.

In ישעיהו ס:ח, the prophet marvels at the return to Zion:

"מִי אֵלֶּה כָּעָב תְּעוּפֶינָה, וְכַיּוֹנִים אֶל אֲרֻבֹּתֵיהֶם" — “Who are these who fly like clouds, like doves returning to their nests?”

Rav Kook explained that these two images describe two different paths of return. עָב, a cloud, is moved by forces outside itself. Winds push it where it goes. Some Jews, he said, return to the Land like clouds -driven by storms of history, by exile, danger, displacement, or the collapse of the worlds they came from.

But יוֹנָה, the dove, returns to its nest out of longing, recognizing where it belongs. Some come home because something inside them remembers.

Rav Kook told the new immigrants who arrived after being forced out of Germany that even those who came כָּעָב, like clouds pushed by circumstance, can discover within themselves the heart of the יוֹנָה, the dove who returns because this is home.

And when that inner recognition awakens, the words of Yeshayahu are fulfilled:

"וּפְדוּיֵי ה' יְשׁוּבוּן וּבָאוּ צִיּוֹן בְּרִנָּה וְשִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם עַל רֹאשָׁם" (ישעיהו נא:יא) —

“Those redeemed by God will return and come to Zion in song, crowned with everlasting joy.”

So...

If you are considering aliyah because your heart is being called, come.

If you are considering aliyah because your birthplace no longer feels resonant or safe, come.

Israel is, undoubtedly, the best place to be Jewish in the world.

We need you and want you.

This is a land of immigrants and refugees who are building something mindblowing, together.

We are creating and recreating our scattered people in our indigenous land.

We are living history.

We are living miracles.

Every journey is personal. Every timeline is individual. But if your soul is stirring- listen to it.

לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ

וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ

וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ

אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ

"Go for yourself, from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you."