Should Jews leave America now?

DIN: In the video below, you have "debate" between  Rabbi Elchanan Shoff and Rabbi Michal Weichbrod

 I am in the midst of taking apart this discussion and exposing the half-truths and all lies of  Rabbi Shoff! 

by Avraham Shusteris

The below article is a response to a recent podcast debate between two American Rabbis who discussed whether Othodox (frum) Jews in America should be making aliyah now. The entire debate can be seen above.

The question is asked. And after the Sydney massacre it is being asked again. It is whispered in the shuls of Brooklyn and shouted in the study halls of Lakewood.

We hear the great excuse, the terrible shield behind which the American Jew hides his fear and his comfort.

"How can I make Aliyah? What about the children? What if they go off the derech? What if they fall?"

And so, to "save" the children, we sentence them to the graveyard of the Exile.

It is madness! It is a tragedy of logic that only a Jew in Galut could invent. You are afraid that in the Holy Land, the land God’s eyes are upon from the beginning of the year to the end, your child will lose his way? But in America- the land of filth, of materialism, of the worship of the Golden Dollar-there he will be safe?

Let us speak the truth that hurts. The risk of staying in America is not a "risk." It is a certainty. It is a guarantee of spiritual rot. It is a guarantee of a life filled with the pursuit of pleasure, money and entitlement. With antisemitism rising exponentially, America is , sadly, not a guarantee anymore of actual life, but that is not the main reason for aliyah.

Look at the frum yungerman in America. He wears the velvet yarmulke. He knows the Gemara. He eats Glatt Kosher. But look inside! He absorbs the air of the street, the drive for the dollar, the obsession with the house, the car, the prestige. Who does he see featured week after week on the cover of the frum magazines - wealthy frum Jews. He sees the ads in magazines advertising Glatt Kosher gambling cruises and Mehadrin trips to Thailand with flashy singers and speakers. He learns that the purpose of life is comfort, glatt kosher style.

This is a Jew who has lost his soul while keeping his rituals. This is a "Deck of Cards" Judaism. It appears solid from the outside. It looks tall. But it is hollow. It has no base. It has no Mesirus Nefesh-no concept of self-sacrifice. A Jew who cannot sacrifice, a Jew who demands guarantees, be they guarantees of a comfortable salary or even guarantees in chinuch (educating his children) success - this is not the Judaism of Abraham, who did not get any guarantees and didn't ask for them! This is a fake, phony, plastic Judaism that will collapse at the first wind of history, just as it collapsed in Europe before the war.

The "Off the Derech" (term for leaving religious life) rate in America is happening right in front of your eyes, but it is a spiritual Off the Derech where the mouth gives praise to the Gedolim (great rabbis) but the eyes and heart look up to the Gevirim (wealthy).

And then comes the second excuse, the refuge of the coward: "My Rabbi didn't tell me to go."

We respect and live by the words of our Gedolim. We drink their Torah as living water. But do not play games with the truth. You cannot expect a Rabbi in America to order you to have Mesirus Nefesh. A Rabbi can tell you the law. He can tell you what is Kosher and what is Treif. But he cannot command you to have the fire of sacrifice in your stomach. That must come from you. That is your test.

You want the Rabbi to take responsibility? If you fail in Israel, you want to blame him? "The Rabbi told me to go!" No. The Jew must own his decision. He must plan, he must struggle, he must sweat. That is what it means to be a free Jew in his own land.

And for those who say, "But the great Rabbis of the past did not go!"-I tell you, stop hiding behind the dead to justify your comfort among the living! The greatest Sage of our own time, the Prince of Torah, Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l, told every Jew who asked: "Go. Go to Israel."

Is that not enough? Or do you pick and choose which Gadol to listen to based on which one lets you stay in your comfortable house?

But don't take my word for it, who am I? Learn the Gemara in Tractate Ketubot. Look at Rebbi Zeira! He wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. His own teacher, the great Rav Yehudah, was vehemently against it. And what did Rebbi Zeira do? Did he argue? No. He evaded his master and escaped in the night!

Why? Because Rebbi Zeira knew that there are times when the soul of a Jew screams a truth that overrides all calculations of the mind. He knew that to be a small Jew in Eretz Yisrael is greater than being a giant in Babylon. And he became the Torah luminary of his time, the Gadol Hador, of the Land of Israel.

Yes, there are challenges in Israel. Yes, there are risks, both physical and spiritual. But Judaism is not a religion of comfort. It is not an insurance policy or a guarantee. It is a challenge. It is the willingness to be bothered, to be burdened, to struggle for the Will of God, Ratzon Hashem.

And -

Stop expecting guarantees. Stop worshiping safety. Tear up the deck of cards before it falls on its own. Come home to the struggle. Struggle is in our nation's DNA- it is in our very name- Yisrael- which means "one who has struggled with God." This was the name given to our Patriarch Jacob by the Angel who confronted him and wrestled with him throughout the night..

Yisrael is our name and it is likewise our essence. This is what God chose us for. Now it's time to live up to it. and stop hiding. Come home to the God of Israel who waits for His children to stop being Americans and start being Jews.