It is hard to explain why the distance between the intention to act and the action itself is sometimes impossibly long. Why, year after year, do we keep saying "Next year in Jerusalem" instead of abandoning our "fleshpots" and returning to Eretz Yisrael? Each and every one of us has a legitimate excuse. Each and every one of us sincerely believes that this time the procrastination will end and the decisive step will be taken. However, everything stays as is and we stay put in our exile.

The tragedy of modern Zionism lies in the fact that during its 100 years of existence it has been unable to facilitate a mass return of the Jews to the land of their forefathers based solely on the necessity to end the exile and to return home. True, the aliyah never stopped during the two millennia that we were separated from our homeland. There was never a moment in history without the Jews returning to Eretz Yisrael. "When, in 438, the Empress Eudocia removed the ban on Jews’ praying at the Temple site, the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call "to great and mighty people of the Jews" which began, "Know then that the end of exile of our people has come"! (1)

The names of many famous Jews who through personal examples encouraged others to return are well known. The scholar Nachmanides, the "Ramban", the poet Yehuda Halevi, and the pseudo-messiah David Reuveni are just a few of them. However, it is not they but hundreds of thousands of Jews whose names are forgotten that kept the stream of the returnees alive. It is about them that the Jesuit Father Michael Naud wrote in 1674, "They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere… The love of the Jews for the Holy Land…is unbelievable. Many of them come from Europe to find a little comfort, though the yoke is heavy" (1). A monument should be erected in Israel to the unknown JEW who left his home and his property, his family and his friends, who wandered from country to country and finally reached his destination -- the land of his dream Eretz Yisrael.

Almost until the end of the eighteenth century, while Judaism and the Jewish tradition played major roles in Jews’ lives, the conviction that "the merit of living in the land of Israel equals the merit of observing all the commandments of Torah" fueled our desire to return. What happened next is explained by historian Walter Laqueur, in A History of Zionism, who writes,

It would not be correct to say that these assimilationists betrayed Judaism, since, how can one really betray that in which one does not believe? They were simply lost for the Jewish people. While the Jewish tree remained standing some branches withered and fell off.

It was unfortunate that by the time that modern Zionism arrived on the historical scene the Jews were so tired and exhausted from struggling for their survival, they could not force themselves to believe that this time it was for real. Of course there were still enough idealists among the pioneers of the first and the second aliyah who, while absolutely not religious, instinctively behaved as if they knew The Code of Maimonides, that stated in Book XIV,

However, the majority that followed the Zionists’ appeal did it simply because their lives were in danger and they hoped to find escape in Palestine. This became especially obvious when the Nazi Germany made it clear that it planned to eliminate the Jews. The only crack in the door to the Nazi European death chamber was the minuscule quota for Jewish emigration to Palestine so barbarically slashed by the British with the infamous White Paper. The several thousand Jews who managed to slip through this crack were a gruesome reminder of the Jewish people’s failure to comprehend the necessity to end the exile.

The majority of the Jews who went to Palestine were from the poor class. The indifference of upper and middle class Jewry to Zionism can be easily proven by a fact mentioned by Laquer, who wrote that

Nevertheless, by May 14, 1948 there were 650,000 Jews in Palestine, and one must admit that the reestablishment of the Jewish state was indisputable proof of the victory of Zionism. Unfortunately, even after the state was created our attitude towards exile did not change dramatically. The trickle of the returnees turned into a stream but it was far from the mighty river that could have eliminated the Arabs’ dreams of getting rid of the Jewish state once and for all. Even the 1967 victory did not awaken us and we did not understand "that the end of exile of our people has come."

It appears that today, when the Jewish state is again on the brink of losing the lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha), the only way to prevent this is through a massive aliyah of the western Jews to Eretz Yisrael. By voting for the lands of Yesha through settling there we can keep them in Jewish hands.

It is time to realize that the future of the Jewish people is only in the land of Israel. Although only one third of all the Jews in the world lives in Israel, six out of every ten newborn Jews are born in the Jewish state. Especially interesting is the fact that while the Jewish citizens of Yesha and the orthodox Jews constitute only 11% of the Israeli Jewish population the number of children born in their families is one and a half times greater then the number of children born to the 89% of the secular Israeli Jews. (2)

The preliminary statistical numbers show that by its 100-th anniversary the population of Israel will reach 12.4 million, 10 million of them Jews. (2) These statistics takes into account an aliyah of only one million Jews in the next 50 years, or 20,000 a year. Considering that in the last ten years 900,000 people have come to Israel from the former Soviet Union it is obvious that the aliyah numbers are very conservative. It does not appear that the statistics take into account any substantial aliyah from the western countries.

We must prove the statistics wrong. Today is the time for the western aliyah. "We should not be looking for ways to preserve our Exile. We should be reading the writing on the wall and wake to the reality that we are in Exile. Now is the time for all Jews to seriously make plans to come home to their only permanent homeland, Israel."(3)

Maimonides wrote that

If we continue saying "Next year in Jerusalem," instead of moving there this year, our greatest achievement will be a line in our will with a last wish to be buried there.

We should not wait any longer. We should not run away from our destiny. Sooner or later, today or tomorrow, we will have to decide. We must honestly ask ourselves what keeps us from not making the last step. What is it? Weakness? Cowardice? Indecisiveness? Our comfortable lifestyle? By saying "yes" and at the same time refusing to act we simply destroying our integrity. Our inaction can lead only to a multiple personality syndrome. If we are Jews and we want to continue being Jewish we must end our exile. After all, is it really such a heavy burden to have to live in a free and independent Jewish state?