We were frustratingly so close – just days away – from entering the Land of Israel and launching the golden age of Jewish history. We stood merely a three-day journey from our destiny before everything unraveled.
Though we stumbled in several areas, one of the central failures was our misuse of language. Petty complaints and grumbling about desert conditions escalated into slander against Moses, which soon deteriorated into defamation of the Land of Israel itself. We must speak not with moral integrity but with ideological clarity.
This past week, two public statements by Torah personalities were deeply unsettling. To write about the sanctity of language while fueling further division would be both hypocritical and counterproductive. For this reason, I will not mention names, but I will address the substance of their remarks.
Praying for hostages
One rabbi recently declared that he does not pray for the release of our hostages because, in his view, many of them did not live halachic lives. He specifically singled out those abducted from the Supernova music festival, arguing that their participation in such an event on a sacred Jewish holiday disqualified them from his prayers.
This sentiment is deeply troubling on a moral level and was met with swift, unequivocal rejection by a broad consensus, including from within his own rabbinic circle. The hostages and their families are living a nightmare beyond words. We pray for every Jew in anguish, not because they are observant but because they are ours. They are part of us. They are in pain. They need mercy. They certainly do not need judgment or condemnation.
But this statement is not only morally offensive; it is also ideologically misguided. Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 7:15) teaches that every Jewish war is waged to uphold the honor of God. Any assault on a Jew is, by extension, an affront to God’s honor, for we are His people. All the more so, an attack on Jews living in the Land of Israel is an assault on God’s covenantal promises.
Choosing to live in the Land of Israel is a declaration of belonging to God’s people in His Promised Land. We pray for the hostages and mourn the victims of Oct. 7, not merely out of compassion but because their suffering resonates with divine consequence. Every Jew, and certainly every Israeli, is woven into the unfolding story of God’s promise, whether they realize it or not.
Their pain carries sanctity, not despite their lifestyle but because of where their story is being lived.
‘Kibbutz galuyot’
The second troubling comment this week concerned MK Yuli Edelstein, chair of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who has spent months crafting a possible solution to the painful and divisive challenge of haredi non-enlistment – a dilemma that is fraying the fabric of our society. This is an excruciatingly complex challenge with no golden solution; any path forward will demand compromise for the sake of the greater good. No one will be entirely satisfied.
A prominent rabbi who is opposed to these efforts referred to Edelstein with a harsh and degrading slur. He also said that it would have been preferable had the MK never emigrated from Russia, implying that his presence in Israel has only deepened the current crisis.
His statement is morally disturbing. It employed a crude insult against a profoundly sincere public official who has invested time, energy, and political capital in an earnest effort to promote national unity. Disagreement is inevitable – and even healthy – but it need not descend into personal attacks. The moral offense of this comment is self-evident and requires little elaboration.
Beyond the insult, the logic behind the claim is extremely flawed. The challenge of haredi enlistment would exist with or without Edelstein. Other politicians would still be working to address it. Furthermore, he is observant; it is likely that a non-observant committee chair would be far less sympathetic to haredi concerns.
And then there is the most jarring implication of all: the suggestion that Edelstein’s aliyah was a mistake. That statement strikes at the heart of one of Israel’s greatest triumphs.
One of the few national narratives that still unites Israelis across ideological lines is the vision of kibbutz galuyot, the ingathering of exiles. One of the foundations of the State of Israel is as a homeland for every Jew, from every part of the globe, who longs to return.
Israel is not just a state; it is a home for every Jew from anywhere in the world. We devote enormous resources to facilitate this return as a fulfillment of our national mission.
Russian emigration
If there is a singular success story of kibbutz galuyot, it is the return of Soviet Jewry. For decades, Jews behind the Iron Curtain endured relentless repression. For several generations, their Jewish identity was strangled, reduced to a faint and fragile echo – barely recognizable to themselves.
Everything began to shift in the aftermath of the Six Day War, which ignited the prisoners of Zion or refusenik movement, as courageous Jews refused to submit to the Soviet regime. They endured imprisonment, harassment, and exile – not for any crime but for their longing to return to the Jewish homeland.
After Natan Sharansky, Yuli Edelstein is one of most renowned among those brave souls who carried the torch of Zion, Israel, and the vision of kibbutz galuyot under the harshest of conditions. Indicted on fabricated charges, he was sentenced to three years in a Siberian prison but remained undeterred, steadfast in his dream of kibbutz galuyot.
This movement, and the courage of the refuseniks, eventually broke open the iron gates, allowing a flood of Jews to return home to Israel. As a teenager, I remember standing outside the UN in New York at annual protests, demanding freedom for those imprisoned by the Soviet regime.
In 1987, while studying at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, I recall fasting together with the entire yeshiva and the community of Alon Shvut on behalf of Edelstein and sending strength and hope to his Russian prison cell. Just a few months later, he was released, and soon after, remarkably, he joined us in yeshiva, studying Torah at our side. It was a moment that etched in me the profound sense that kibbutz galuyot was no longer a distant dream but unfolding before my very eyes.
Due to the courage of Edelstein and other refuseniks, the years that followed witnessed the emigration of more than a million Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel, transforming the fabric of Israeli society. Many arrived with education, culture, and professional skills, fueling one of the most significant economic and social booms in Israel’s modern history.
Yuli Edelstein and all the prisoners of Zion stand as enduring symbols of a dramatic milestone in the great drama of kibbutz galuyot. Their emigration fulfilled the hopes and prayers of Jews across the world that, even in the face of persecution and oppression, no Jew would remain trapped forever. Every Jew, no matter how distant or embattled, would one day find his or her way home.
To say it would have been better had Edelstein never arrived is to dismiss the entire story of kibbutz galuyot – a story he embodies so deeply. Beyond its moral offense and flawed logic, such a comment disregards one of the foundational narratives upon which Israel was built.
We must be exceptionally delicate in our speech, careful to uphold moral integrity, and even more so, to avoid clouding or distorting our historical narratives. These narratives are too profound and too hard-won to be dismissed or diminished.
The writer, a rabbi at the hesder Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, holds YU ordination and an English literature MA. His books include the recent To Be Holy but Human: Reflections Upon My Rebbe, HaRav Yehuda Amital, available at mtaraginbokks.com.