Immigration to any country is difficult, but immigration to Israel is even more difficult because it's a very strange and troubled place. How so? For starters, it's a new country that was formed via war and continues to endure military conflict even if much of that is its own doing. It sits in a region that is hostile to it (for a variety of reasons) and to which it is hostile (for a variety of reasons) and is very different culturally from the kind of place it tries to be. It tries to be some kind of cholent of Western European/Eastern European/North American culture and politics cooked along with Jewish potatoes. But mostly it fails. Meanwhile, the countries around it are Islamic Arab. It's quite a contrast. Israel would be a contrast to the countries of any region. And that contrast creates problems galore and drains the limited energy and resources of the country and the people who live in it.
France is a Western European country that sits in Western Europe. Japan is an East Asian country that sits in East Asia. Uruguay is a Latin/Hispanic country that is positioned in South America around other Latin/Hispanic countries. If you go from Japan to South Korea you don't feel like you are entering a new world. You see those Asian characters on the store signs. You see people who are indistinguishable visually from those of the country you just left. It's the same with France and Belgium and Bolivia and Peru. The sign says Bienvenidos a Peru (Welcome to Peru) but you don't feel as though you have just passed through a time and space portal when you leave Spanish speaking Bolivia and enter Spanish speaking Peru. That's because all of these countries emerged naturally.
Not so Israel. Israel would be an anomaly in any region, but in the Mideast it produces head scratching bewilderment: "Where did these guys come from?" Not that you are even permitted to travel from several of the neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Syria. But if you go from the ones where relatively recently permission was granted -- Egypt and Jordan -- it IS like passing through a time and space portal. Even the language spoken in Jewish Israel is different from every country around it, and it's a revived language that was largely dormant as a language spoken by the masses for millennia.
That leaves you in a tiny little space, half of which also happens to be off limits. You drive along in Israel and see signs informing you that it's dangerous and illegal to turn right and drive down the road before you because it's Area A or B as defined by the Oslo Accords. That is to say, it's an Arab village as governed mostly by the Palestinian Authority. You can't go there. And then there's Gaza, 20 miles from my house, that is run by Hamas and presently is a pile of rubble. How close is Gaza? I hear the Israeli bombs exploding every day. I hear them from my bedroom.
You even tremble passing through the Arab villages that are within the legal limits of the state of Israel proper, as happens in Jerusalem or the north of the country. So much of this tiny little country is off limits that you can't help but wonder, "What do they mean that this is home?" Which three square centimeters of this place is home?
You start to feel like a monkey on the monkey island at the Biblical zoo. This makes for a very weird and draining life experience. As a result of its own struggles for survival, there is little in the way of support for the immigrant. In Israel, the immigrant is on his own. Don't let the con artists at Nefesh b'Nefesh fool you. They put on a big show to get you here, but they disappear after that. You are on your own.
And don't plan on the Israelis coming to help you. The neighbors in our first apartment building [not a Haredi building] didn't even speak to us even though we were brand new olim with the big lift in the parking lot. I never stepped foot in any of their apartments. [I later received some hospitality from Yiddish speaking anti-Zionists on the other side of town.] I found that Israelis, at least the ones I met, also don't help with Hebrew. I requested several times for help with translation of business documents. The best I ever got was a quick glance with five or six words of description. "It's from the iryah. Something about arnonah." That's not very helpful when they don't even translate the key words. Iryah is city. Arnonah is local tax.
And that's the Israelis who speak any English. Most do not. One of the aliyah evangelists who lied to me as they all do assured me that nearly all Israelis speak English. It's hard to fathom the basis for this statement. Where he lived, maybe 5% speak any English, and he didn't speak any Hebrew as he only retired here as do many of the most ardent evangelists, hypocrites that they are! Maybe he satisfied himself with the handful of Anglos in his shul and irresponsibly projected that outward all for the cause of aliyah evangelism. For some reason, and you can theorize, people cast off the burden of responsibility when pushing aliyah. All rules of good counsel are ignored. You don't have to make sense, you don't have to be accurate, not even about healthcare which is grossly inferior in Israel. Just get them to Israel. That's the attitude. [Side note, I speak of this man in the past tense because he died as a result of not getting immediate medical care after suffering a stroke, as he lived one hour from a hospital.]
The line that the aliyah evangelists use and overuse is that Israel is home because on some theoretical level it's "the homeland for Jews." But what that really means is that 2,000 years ago, when the world was an entirely different place, it was home, and after Moshiach arrives, when the world will be an entirely different place, it will be home again. In other words, it's not home now. It's not even close. In some vague, abstract way it's a kind of promised home. It's the promised land. It's a some day kind of thing. It's not now. It's like Moshiach. He'll be here someday, but he is not here now. And Israel is not home now.
In addition to the national divide in the region, there's the cultural divide within the Jewish portion of Israel. I have never been in a society where there is more cultural discord. Every day, every Israeli newspaper rants derisively about Haredim. In America, I had a boss who used to say to me, "Don't you have to leave now for the Sabbath?" And Israel? Let's not even get into it. There is such hostility. Strangers have walked up to me on the street and confronted me about Haredim and the army, not that I look Israeli Haredi, but I do wear a yarmulka and a jacket. Fortunately, since my Hebrew is so weak, I can't really respond, which saves me from another enervating battle. In America, there is overlap between Haredim and the Modern Orthodox. In Israel, there is a canyon.
The reverse is also true, the religious people complain constantly about the non-religious. The animosity is palpable. It's much worse than Democrats and Republicans in America. Here the different groups are like different societies, within this tiny little country half of which is off-limits. They say that Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey. Half of that is uninhabitable desert. Half of the remainder is Arab. The frum part is like a small county in Vermont, if even that big. That's your whole world. If you are American or Canadian, you just went from millions of square miles to a half-hour drive.
They say that there are 10 Haredi cities. I have been to nearly all of them. Most of them are really Haredi neighborhoods within secular cities. If there were no traffic, you could drive from one side to the other of the Haredi parts in 10 minutes. I think even the frum parts of Jerusalem could be traversed in 30 minutes if there were no traffic, Bene Brak even less.
For the baal teshuvah, aliyah is even more difficult. Why is that? It's because even the tiny frum part of Israel is alien to the baal teshuvah, and that's because Orthodox Judaism is alien. The BT is already an immigrant.
Yeshiva guys can't understand this because they tend to see themselves as the owners of the truth. They think, "Who would want to be anything but the truth, to be anything but us?" It's similar to the propaganda line about Israel, that it's home. The yeshiva guy figures that you are in bliss now because you are in the yeshiva world. Shouldn't that feel like home?
It's for home him because it's how he grew up. It's not home for the BT. Some of the mitzvos feel right, some don't. Some of the Torah feels familiar or true. Some does not. Most of it is not understandable in part because of the cryptic way it's written and because of the Hebrew that the schools generally fail to teach but for lots of other reasons as well.
As for frum society, for most baalei teshuvah, or certainly many, it's Mars. This applies to clothing, the food, the attitudes, the clichés, and certainly the language. I know a frum man who grew up in frum neighborhoods in the Midwest and went to a Great Lake in his childhood only one time! I know a frum woman who lives in Monsey who has not been to the ocean in two decades. I'm not talking about swimming. She hasn't even seen it. To the BT, or to most any human, that is unusual.
Being a BT is a life long struggle, not only because of all that the BT gives up but because the frum world is so alien and is largely unwelcoming. Becoming a baal teshuvah and staying in the game is an enormous challenge. Many BTs will tell you that after many decades, the challenge doesn't stop. It's really hard.
So are you going to add to the challenge of being a baal teshuvah the challenge of being an immigrant in one of the most stressful and unwelcoming countries on earth? You want to task him with being a double immigrant?
Do you want to risk your own Olam Haba, because if you overload the BT and drive him away from Judaism you have just harmed yourself in a severe way. This applies also to those who push BTs into the Kollel life. You have so more to lose than gain. You want to be reckless? That's your choice, but I don't recommend it. I have seen the carnage. Come with me sometime, I'll show you all the ruined lives that resulted from mishandling baalei teshuvah. I can show you ruined marriages of BTs who moved to Israel. I can't show the punishment in gehennom that is happening right now to reckless handlers of BTs. That's hidden from us, but we can imagine and should imagine.
Tehillim 34 tells us ס֣וּר מֵ֖רָע וַֽעֲשֵׂה־ט֑וֹב, Turn from evil and do good. This means that first you turn from sin and then perform the positive mitzvah. We see this in the rabbinic prohibition of not blowing shofar on Shabbos Rosh Hashanah. It is more important to not violate the Sabbath than it is to perform the mitzvah of blowing shofar.
Isn't that odd? Blowing shofar is so symbolic, so central, and the blowing is not a melacha as we see from the blowing on weekday Rosh Hashanah. However, there's a slim chance that you might carry the shofar into a public domain to ask a rabbi a question about it. For fear of that slim chance, the rabbis decreed that none of us should ever blow shofar on RH Shabbos. ס֣וּר מֵ֖רָע וַֽעֲשֵׂה־ט֑וֹב
We see this principle also in the halachic obligation to spend all one's money to not violate a lav, but only 20% of one's money to perform an aseh.
The baal teshuvah's first task is to observe the Sabbath, which means not doing malacha. He or she has to observe the rules of family purity as well as sexual restraint. He or she must change over his or her entire diet and keep kosher. This is where we start. And none of that is easy.
So you think that everyone must live in Israel. However, great people think otherwise. I need only refer to the psak halacha of the posek HaDor Rav Moshe Feinstein and to the views and advice of the great Torah leaders Rav Joseph Soloveitchik and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Reb Moshe said that there is no obligation to live in Israel. The Rav and the Rebbe said you should live where you can do the most good, where you can function best. The BT is trying to stay frum, and that's really hard. We start with the lavim, the don't dos. By pushing people to move to Israel, you put all of that at risk. In doing so, you subject yourself to a judgement that is as heavy as a dozen Mack trucks loaded with bricks on your head.
So you love living in Israel. Good for you. Now guard your tongue. Just because you enjoy eating cauliflower doesn't mean that we all must eat it. Just because you benefited from knee surgery doesn't mean that we all need knee surgery. It doesn't mean that now you are a surgeon. Don't pretend to be the surgeon for people you have never even examined. Don't pretend to be a surgeon at all. Just do your thing and leave it at that. Don't mess with other people's lives if only because when you do, you mess with your own.
Remember the story of Korach. He was a prophet, a great man in a time of great men:
Returning to Korach himself, the following story told by Rabbi Yissachar Frand helps give us an idea of the ambiguity of the nature of Korach. The Satmar Rebbe once said that he recalled hearing his great-grandfather, the Yismach Moshe tell his own son, the Yitav Lev (the Satmar Rebbe’s grandfather) that the Yismach Moshe came to this world on three different occasions through the concept of Gilgul Neshamos (reincarnation). The first time he was in this world, he claimed, was in the period of the Jewish people in the desert at the time of the incident of the Rebellion of Korach and his congregation. Upon hearing this, the Yitav Lev asked his father to tell him about the events of that time. The Yismach Moshe told his son that all the Heads of the Sanhedrin sided with Korach and the masses of the people sided with Moshe. The Yitav Lev then pressed his father and asked him "Who did you side with?" He responded "I was neutral". The Yitav Lev asked him, how he could not support Moshe, when his greatness was so clear. The Yitav Lev told his son, “I can see that you have no inkling of what a great person Korach was. If you would have been there and you would have seen who Korach was you would not be so shocked by my neutrality.” (Article on Aish.com)
Yet, Korach became wicked. So said Moshe.
וַיָּ֣קׇם מֹשֶׁ֔ה וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ אֶל־דָּתָ֣ן וַאֲבִירָ֑ם וַיֵּלְכ֥וּ אַחֲרָ֖יו זִקְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר אֶל־הָעֵדָ֜ה לֵאמֹ֗ר ס֣וּרוּ נָ֡א מֵעַל֩ אׇהֳלֵ֨י הָאֲנָשִׁ֤ים הָֽרְשָׁעִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וְאַֽל־תִּגְּע֖וּ בְּכׇל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָהֶ֑ם פֶּן־תִּסָּפ֖וּ בְּכׇל־חַטֹּאתָֽם׃
Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, the elders of Israel following him. He addressed the community, saying, “Move away from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be wiped out for all their sins.” (Numbers 16: 25-26)
“That’s why you have to be careful, the Sefer Chasidim says, when you are dealing with a son of irreligious parents. Be careful with him because sometimes if you are too strict with him, he might go back to the ways of his parents. Whereas the son of frum people you can be more strict with him because his model is his home. A frum home.” (Tape #698, “Peril of Habit, 3 Weeks,” 1:25:23.
And you BT who is marching along just fine and see yourself in Israel. Maybe you can endure the hardships, the poverty, and lack of derech eretz, the violence. Maybe you can even handle the army experience. But can your spouse? Can your children? Usually, they become much more immersed in it than you, as you work online with your American clientele or sit in the $900,000 apartment that was paid for with money from chutz. Your children must go to school in trailers or dank buildings and deal with the shouting of their aggressive Israeli teachers or bullying of the rough and tumble Israeli classmates. Most Anglo olim have no idea what their children endure in Israel. The ignorance is shameful really. The parents are just so thrilled to be in Israel, largely because it's a fulfillment of their childhood conditioning, but their children pay the price.
Rabbi Yonah Landsofer, the author of Meil Tzedaka, held that living in the land of Israel is a mitzvah even in our times, but that one is not obligated if he cannot earn a “plentiful parnassah,” for poverty can drive a person away from G-d. Even if he is sure that he can endure a life of deprivation, he should not assume that his children can withstand it. (Me’il Tzedaka, Chapter 36, cited in Pischei Teshuvah, Even Hoezer Chapter 75 and in Vayoel Moshe, Maamar Shalosh Shavuous, Siman 3)
This applies to anybody who moves to Israel, particularly if his Hebrew is weak, his bank account thin, his family in chutz, and his sense of derech eretz of the non-Israeli variety. For baalei teshuvah, multiply by ten.
Hear my words.
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