Go’el Jasper (host of Aliyah Revolution): Before we get started I would just like you to take the listeners back to the 1980s, when you made the decision to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel).
Rabbi Riskin: I actually made the decision much earlier. I made the decision when I first met my wife, in the summer of 1961. I had spent the last year in Israel and spent the summer as a tour guide and teacher for tourists. We met and fell in love and we both felt very deeply that the place to live was Israel. It took a while for me to realize the dream, for many reasons. But let me put it to you as clearly as possible. For me it was a no-brainer. Number one: the Torah commands it. Bamidbar [Numbers] 23:53 says, “You must conquer the land and dwell in it.” Because G-d gave the land to the Jewish people.
And according to the Ramban (Nachmanides), who was a major rishon (early Torah sage), it was a clear mitzvah. I always say that it is a pity living in Israel is not a chumra (stringency) like cholov yisrael or glatt kosher or yashan – because then everybody would rush to it, particularly the more religious Jews would rush to it. It is a specific and central mitzvah and the Ramban goes so far to say that the only place we really perform the commandments is in Israel. That if you perform the commandments outside Israel, it is only so that you should remember how to do it when you come to Israel. That should be reason enough for anyone who considers himself a G-d-fearing Jew.
Secondly, Israel – the State of Israel and the opportunity it presents – is the greatest adventure of our people in 2,000 years. I think it is madness not to take advantage of that opportunity.
And finally, whatever happens in the Diaspora is, at best, a footnote to Jewish history. In Israel we are writing out the chapter headings. And if G-d gives us one chance at life, I would much prefer to be a part of a chapter heading than part of a footnote.
Go’el: What were the challenges you faced having to leave a synagogue as popular as the Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan?
Rabbi Riskin: Look, I say again, for me it was clear as day what I had to do. I must say, however, in all honesty – I did await an opportunity. I don’t think I would have just come with no opportunity whatsoever. And I had many false starts. As my children grew we came every summer and I would look for a pulpit, a community, a teaching job, but nobody wanted to hire me…
I did wait for an opportunity and got the golden opportunity of trying to establish a city between Hevron and Jerusalem.
I saw that I had done whatever I could do at Lincoln Square, and the years were good years, and if I have an opportunity to reach out toward redemption - establishing a town between Hevron, the place of our people’s birth and Jerusalem, the place of the culmination of our history – how could I pass it up. And I was very fortunate in that my wife believed in me even more than I did.
Go’el: The legend goes that Rabbi Riskin got up in 1983 and moved his synagogue to Israel and that is how he was able to make it work. What actually happened?
Rabbi Riskin: What really happened is that first I met a very special human being named Moshe Mushkovitz, who is really a wonderful person – he is now the Director-General of Yeshivat Har Etzion. And I was invited to be scholar-in-residence at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim in Israel, between 1975 and 1983. In 1976, I met Moshe Mushkovitz. He was the mayor of the entire area. He had been in Gush Etzion during the War of Independence and, unbeknownst to me, he had been to my synagogue, to Lincoln Square. It was a high-profile synagogue and Yitzchak Rabin, of blessed memory, had been there the same Shabbat. And [Mushkovitz] said to me, “How would you like to come to Israel to live?” and I said, “I would love to come.”
So he [later] took me in his car to an empty hill in Gush Etzion. He told me that he had a dream to build the city of Efrat there. He said Golda Meir agreed, but said it had to be founded by a group of Jews from America and South Africa and asked me to be his partner. “I will be the mayor and you will be the rabbi,” he said. We shook hands and prayed mincha (the afternoon prayer) at the spot. I believed it could happen and that’s when it started. I started an organization called Reishit Geula. We had 190 people who gave us deposits of $1,500. Ultimately, they all came to Israel, about 60 of them to Efrat. They were not only from the shul (synagogue) itself, but also from the shul’s periphery, because word spread further than the synagogue itself.
But they didn’t come with me; they didn’t come at the beginning. In the beginning everybody thought they were humoring me. And though I said that I was leaving the shul and coming to Israel, they announced it as a year’s leave of absence because they were sure I would come back after a year with my tail between my legs. Thank G-d that did not happen and the best decision I ever made, after the decision to marry my wife, was the decision to move to Israel.
Go’el: There is a concept that American rabbis need to stay in America because “someone has to be there to turn out the lights.” What are your thoughts on the power of a rabbi making Aliyah in terms of encouragement of others versus a rabbi staying in the US to motivate Aliyah?
Rabbi Riskin: Let me tell you very, very seriously. A rabbi can never truly and effectively preach something he does not practice. Most of the rabbis who took non-mechitza [partition between men and women] synagogues never really put in a mechitza. Because the congregation felt, and justifiably so, that if the rabbi was praying without a mechitza, it can’t be so bad. And a rabbi who preaches Aliyah and still lives in the Diaspora, will never effectively move his people to Israel. It has to be "acharai", "after me," just like IDF generals say. And if you go back to The Jewish State, by Theodor Herzl – when he pictures mass Aliyah, he says “rav rav u'kehilato” – each rabbi with his congregation. The rabbi has to come set a personal example, first and foremost. I think without that, he’s not going to be an effective inspiration.
Go’el: Do you think mass Aliyah is possible? Other than if forced by anti-Semitism or persecution. Is mass Aliyah from North America possible and how can it happen?
Rabbi Riskin: I have been in outreach all my life. Do I think that the overwhelming majority of Jews are going to do teshuva (repentance/return)? Well, the Rambam promises that that will happen. He says that that is the promise of Parshat Teshuva in Deuteronomy 30. Teshuva has a double meaning – returning to the land and returning to G-d. I think it will happen, I think it must happen. And I think increasingly Jews will look around and see that the Diaspora is very difficult. Very difficult to live their lives as Jews and very difficult to direct a Jewish society. It is difficult in Israel, but it is more difficult outside Israel. And look, the fact is that the American Jewish community is halving itself and assimilation is clearly taking over in just about every country in the Diaspora.
Go’el: So how can mass Aliyah happen?
Rabbi Riskin: I think educators, teachers, rabbis, have to once against establish Aliyah as a priority. You know Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said that there are two ways of reforming Judaism. One is by declaring the specific mitzvah no longer necessary to do, G-d forbid. The other is simply by not talking about a mitzvah. And the “A-word” – Aliyah - is generally not spoken about. Not in our yeshivot and not from our pulpits…And that is tragic. I think that once again Aliyah must become a priority and people will respond.
Go’el: One last thought for the listeners?
Rabbi Riskin: The most important word I can tell you is that the greatness of living in Israel is hearing little children speak Hebrew. It is waking up to the radio news at 5 AM with Kri'at Shema before the news begins. Even if you are watching television at night, before the television stops broadcasting, it ends with the verse-of-the-Torah of the day.
The glory of living in Israel means relating to every person one the street, whether he is a black Ethiopian or a very light-skinned Scandinavian, as a brother and a sister because everyone is Jewish. It means not really fighting for survival but struggling to achieve redemption. And I thank G-d every day that I have the great privilege of living here.
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