British Jews – The Land of Israel is Waiting for You!

Haredi Jewry in Britain was alarmed by the passing of the "Schools Bill" in its third reading.

This is a law that undermines all foundations of Torah education and does not allow a commandment-observing Jew to send his children to study in an educational institution in the United Kingdom without being exposed to content that is most difficult for anyone with a spark of fear of Heaven in his heart.

Despite repeated attempts to protest and to evoke mercy before the authorities, the train of progress is racing forward toward the destruction of humanity, and in its path, it tramples every value belonging to the old world, where sanity and normalcy reigned. Haredi education truly had no chance of surviving the steamroller, and now Haredi Jewry in England stands in helplessness.

Against this background, a flyer from the protest organizers reached my hands, in which it was stated: "We will remain faithful to our Creator and sacrifice all that is necessary for this. We will make no compromise." Sharp words from one who understands that he must sacrifice what is most dear to him in order to remain a Jew.

I hope that the awakeners will indeed stand behind their words. It is not easy to sacrifice the most precious of all, but unlike the Jewish past saturated with blood and tears, there is now no need to die for Kiddush Hashem (the Sanctification of G-d’s Name). One must do one simple thing, buy a plane ticket and ascend to the Land that G-d chose, and in which, despite the persecutions and harassment of the Torah world, it is still possible to live as a Torah and commandment-observing Jew, to establish a magnificent Torah world with institutions of all ages for boys and girls, to educate as our heart desires, and most importantly, to fulfill our obligation in the world within the framework of the covenant we made with the Creator of the world regarding the inheritance of the Land, with the aim of reaching the day when the entire Land will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem and the rule here will be the rule of Torah.

We stand today nearly eighty years after the establishment of the State of Israel, a state established by those who threw off the yoke [of Heaven] and in its first years caused hundreds of thousands of Jews to abandon their religion. Precisely in this state, the Torah world merited a flourish that has no precedent in history, while the Jewish communities in the Diaspora are dwindling. In the USA, there are indeed still Yeshivas and educational houses that succeed in producing some spiritual reality, but there too everyone knows: a Yeshiva student who wants to ascend more in Torah and fear of Heaven, travels to the Land of Israel, and if he truly wants to dedicate his life to Torah and to the building of a home of Torah, he ascends to the Land of Israel and builds his home there.

Whoever is not immersed in the world of Torah in the USA, the danger of assimilation and spiritual absorption hovers over his head. And in Europe, the situation is much harder!

The illusion according to which Jews could remain in the suffering Exile and establish prosperous Jewish communities there, is shattering. Both on the physical level, with the strengthening of antisemitism from all directions, from right and left, from Christians, from Muslims, and from progressive atheists, and on the spiritual level, with the increase of secular coercion and the narrowing of the steps of Haredi education, the picture is becoming clearer, according to which the Creator of the world is weary of the Exile, and He will not allow a Jew to remain within it.

As long as we had not returned to our Land, we could preserve our uniqueness within the lands of the Exile. We suffered hardships and persecutions, poor physical conditions, and every few decades we were forced to take up the wanderer’s staff. We gave our lives to pass the heritage from generation to generation, and we saw fruit in our labor, the magnificent Torah world of Europe rose and stood within all the difficulties. But after the Creator of the world opened the gates of our Land and allowed us to establish a state of our own, to return to live before Him in the Land He chose, in which and only in which the Torah was intended to be fulfilled, no reason remains for the existence of the Exile, and he who did not understand this himself, is forced to understand it now, as the "Causer of Causes" sees to closing the lid on the futile attempt to remain in the Exile when the Land of Israel is waiting for her children.

No, Jews of Britain, you do not need to sacrifice your lives [lit. give over the soul], you do not need to sacrifice your sons and daughters. The Land of Israel is waiting for you, and not only for you, for all Jews in Europe, and also in America, where it is hard to know what will arrive first, the physical destruction or the spiritual, or perhaps both as one. There is a destiny for the world, there is a purpose to creation, there is a course to history. The Holy One, Blessed be He, did not return the People of Israel in a process that has no brother or peer in human history, so that Jews would sit in the Exile and study Torah there, which was intended to be fulfilled only here in the Land. It is still possible to leave before the wrath of Hashem is poured upon you. It is still possible to pack suitcases and ascend to Zion with song. It is still possible that the words of the Prophet (Isaiah 52:6-12) will be fulfilled in you: