Reply To: Q&A With Rav Avigdor Miller

Rav Avigdor Miller on Moving To Eretz Yisroel or Chicago

Q:
What should be our attitude towards moving to Eretz Yisroel? Should we be preparing for making עליה to Israel?

A:
What should be our attitude towards preparing to move to Eretz Yisroel? Or to Israel? Well, there’s a big difference between those two.

We should prepare every day to go Eretz Yisroel. Every day you should be ready because when Moshiach comes you won’t have much time to prepare. You should know that the Chofetz Chaim was busy preparing. He wrote seforim on קדשים and the עבודת בית המקדש, the laws that will be in place when we rebuild the בית המקדש, so that we should know what to do when we get there. So this type of preparation surely should be made. You should be preparing all the time for that great day when Moshiach comes.

Now, if you’re thinking about preparing to go there soon yourself, without Moshiach, then it depends on your circumstances. If you’re going to go live in a very Orthodox neighborhood, which will be better than your present environment, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t improve yourself. Why not? However if you’re just going there, to Eretz Yisrael, because it’s Israel, to settle anyplace, then it doesn’t pay. Because you can move to places in Israel that are just like Chicago, like the bad neighborhoods in Chicago. If you move to Tel-Aviv, to certain neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, and many other places in the State of Israel, then it’s no different than moving to Chicago. So you have to know where you want to move. But if you have a good place to move to, where it will improve you, then why not? As long as you have parnasa, why not?
TAPE # 9