When I was younger, when people talked about aliyah, what came to mind were the videos of aliyah flights 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 my husband and I made aliyah with our children, seven 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 imagine a life here.
But then COVID hit. Then more terrorism. And then October 7th and war.
And moving to Israel, I would imagine, has been both a harder sell and a moral imperative for many.
Either people have been saying: I can’t wait any longer; I want to go home.
Or people are saying that it is too hard to move to a war zone. I totally get that too. That part of it is not fun. I won’t pretend otherwise.
This week, in the Israeli school system, the kids are taught to celebrate aliyah on Yom HaAliyah, and this Shabbat, the Torah reading is Parshat Lech Lecha. So the journeys people take to reach Israel are on my mind.
On a personal level, I feel a hundred times safer in Israel than anywhere else in the world. Honestly, most of the time I don’t even want to leave the country ever. 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. I know it’s not without risks, danger, and adrenaline. (Though you can argue that it’s hard everywhere. We choose our “hard.”)
The pre-messianic timeline was never promised to be easy. But my sense that that is our current experience is strong.
I’ll say this: When I read the daily headlines about the rise of antisemitism in the Diaspora from my home in Israel, I find them frightening. When I imagine not having the Israeli army to protect us, I feel more vulnerable than I once would have. From the big scary catastrophic fears like pogroms, to microaggressions (or just actual aggression) for being identifiably Jewish and Zionist, I’m worried. I know you in the Diaspora worry about us in Israel, but we in Israel worry about you Jews the world over too. We care about the safety of our brothers and sisters all over the globe.
It may well be that what differentiates this era from any other of Jewish history — as they are all replete with immigrants and refugees — is that Jews are back in the land. To my mind, that establishes the proximity of the current moment to mashiach, the messianic era.
It’s undeniable that we Jews have brought this land back to life. And this land brought the Jews back to life, too, after millennia in exile. 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.
But here is where my concern intensifies:
For the 10 years prior to my aliyah, I said, “I would rather be an immigrant than a refugee.” Thank God, I and my family became immigrants and will be for the rest of our lives.
My concern is that many Jews are likely to come to Israel relatively soon because their worlds have shifted around them. Not because they planned to leave, but because their circumstances have begun to move. Sometimes, aliyah begins with longing; sometimes, 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 is time to move on and answer the louder call of impending redemption. A reunification with people and land.
The prophets talk about this phenomenon.The prophet Isaiah 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?” (60:8).
Rabbi Abraham Isaac 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 deep inside of themselves, they remember.
Rav Kook told the new immigrants who arrived after being forced out of Germany that even those who came like clouds pushed by circumstance can discover within themselves the heart of the the dove who returns because this is home.
And when that inner recognition awakens, the words of Isaiah 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” (51: 11).
So…If you are considering aliyah because your heart is called to come, 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 here and want you here.
This is a land of immigrants and refugees who are building something, 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
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