From Terah to today: The many roads that lead Jews home

For thousands of years, Jews lived in exile, far from the land of our ancestors. Scattered across the world, we dreamed of returning to the country we had once inhabited. Wherever Jewish history carried us, our hearts remained attached to the same place.

We lived in countless countries, spoke different languages, and belonged to different cultures. Through centuries of wandering, one truth remained unchanged. There is only one Jewish homeland.

The first Zionist

Though there is only one Jewish homeland, there are many roads that lead home. This was always true. Terah, the father of Abraham, was raised in a world of idolatry. Yet he felt an inner tug to leave Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, and journey toward the Land of Israel. He received no Divine command. He did not believe in the one God, yet something stirred within him, drawing him toward a distant land.

Ironically, he was the first Zionist, the first person described by the Torah as setting out for the Land of Israel from his homeland. His motives are unknown. He gathered his son Abraham and other family members and traveled toward Canaan. Along the way, Terah settled in Haran, where he eventually died.

His son Abraham later heard the voice of God commanding him to continue the journey his father had begun. Abraham traveled to the Land of Israel with a religious mission: to spread belief in the one God. Yet his pagan father had begun the journey.

Evidently, God implanted within the Jewish soul an instinctive attachment to its homeland. He gave us the ability to respond to the pull of land, peoplehood, and historical destiny even without religious commitment or prophetic revelation. At history’s dawn, this attachment could awaken even in a heart that had not yet awakened to faith.

The age of “isms”

This ancient echo reemerged millennia later. The 19th century witnessed a dramatic weakening of organized religion. The Enlightenment and the Age of Reason promised to lift humanity out of the ignorance and suffering of the medieval world. Science, discovery, and individualism propelled humanity toward an era of progress.

Organized religion, and Christianity in particular, was increasingly blamed for centuries of human suffering. Its unholy alliance with monarchy and political power had contributed to bloodshed and feudalism. Religion’s walls were crumbling.

Into this widening void emerged new ideologies. Society abhors a vacuum, and ideologies rushed to replace religion. Socialism, utilitarianism, communism, and other movements competed for the hearts and minds of Europeans.

It was the great age of “isms,” as new systems of thought offered competing visions of human identity, social order, and historical progress.

Yet perhaps the most powerful “ism” of all was nationalism. Increasingly, people defined themselves primarily by their nation rather than their religion. “John” was no longer primarily a Protestant who happened to live in England, but a proud Englishman who happened to be Protestant.

“Gustave” was no longer primarily a Catholic who happened to live in France, but a proud Frenchman who happened to be Catholic. National identity swept across a continent long shaped by religion and religious rivalries.

A Jewish awakening

Unfortunately, Judaism did not fare much better than other religions. With Emancipation, for the first time in our long exile, we were invited to become full-fledged members of an enlightened European society.

Many combined these newfound freedoms with traditional Jewish observance, but others abandoned their Jewish roots entirely.

Many Jews look back with reverence upon the great age of the yeshivot, when brilliant young men devoted years, sometimes decades, to intensive Torah study. This remarkable era helped lay the foundations for the phenomenal growth of Torah study in the modern world.

Yet there was another side to this history. Far more Jews were drawn into the universities and intellectual circles of Europe than into its great yeshivot. For many, the door swung in only one direction: away from Jewish religious life.

Millions of Jews faced the threat of losing their Jewish identity and disappearing into the surrounding culture. Traditional religious appeals no longer spoke to them. If Jewish identity depended exclusively upon religious commitment, an enormous portion of the Jewish people was in danger of being lost to history.

As Jewish identity weakened across Europe, God awakened that ancient echo. In the age of nationalism, Jewish nationalism emerged, offering Jews a way to identify with their land, their people, and their history. It captured the hearts of Jews, including many who had drifted away from religious observance.

Secular Zionism was a Divine impulse, awakening an ancient attachment to our land and people that had lain dormant for centuries. As religious commitment weakened, God stirred a different form of Jewish consciousness. Millions of Jews today express their deepest connection to their people through their commitment to our national project of return and to the modern State of Israel.

Oct. 7 demonstrated how deeply the State of Israel stands at the center of contemporary Jewish identity and how much more vulnerable Jewish life would be without it.

This became even more evident in the subsequent eruption of anti-Zionism and its frequent convergence with antisemitism, which further underscored Israel’s centrality to Jewish identity and the Jewish future. Israel has become a powerful anchor of Jewish belonging, even for Jews whose connection to religious observance is limited.

Thousands of years ago, Terah felt the pull of our land without profound religious conviction. Thousands of years later, countless Jews, far less detached from God than Terah had been, followed a similar path. They felt drawn to the same land, the same people, and the same historical destiny.

Across the centuries, Jews have found their way home through countless different journeys, shaped by different convictions, circumstances, dreams, and personal attachments. There is one home, but there are many roads which lead home.

Another road home

The roads leading to our homeland are as varied as the Jewish people themselves. Some are paved with religious conviction, others with national identity and historical consciousness.

Many Jews harbor a lifelong dream of aliyah and eventually fulfill that dream by building their lives and families in Israel. Still other roads emerge unexpectedly, shaped by circumstances, personal attachments, and the bonds of family.

My mother, of blessed memory, passed away this past Sukkot. She took a different road to our one homeland. We were raised in a Zionist home, though not an especially ideological one, and Zionism was not a central part of our upbringing.

Our family grew up in Brooklyn during the 1970s, when it was a thriving center of Modern Orthodox Jewish life, with flourishing synagogues, schools, and communities.

Moving to Israel was never part of her plan. However, her children developed a deep attachment to Israel, and all eventually moved here and built their families.

Wanting to be close to her children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren, my mother and father moved to Israel at an advanced age.

Their aliyah was not the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. It was not driven primarily by ideology or Zionist conviction. It was driven by a deep love of family.

Yet leaving behind a familiar world and beginning a new life so late in life required enormous courage and determination. I will always be grateful to my Mommy for making that sacrifice and giving us those precious years together. My mother made that journey, and now she is buried just a few minutes from our home in Gush Etzion.

There are many roads that lead home. Some are paved with ideology, conviction, and Zionist dreams. Others are paved with something simpler and more personal: the love of family.

May God bless her soul, and may her love and devotion continue to inspire our family for generations.

The writer is a rabbi and educator at Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush). Find his latest book, Echoes of Rashi: Bereishit, at mtaraginbooks.com