The Mitzvah of Eretz Yisrael

Rav Shlomo Katz brings a halacha from Even HaEzer that might surprise you: when a couple disagrees about making aliyah, the side refusing to move could lose their halachic standing. Based on the Gemara in Ketubot, we explore powerful rulings that prioritize living in Eretz Yisrael—even over major marital contracts. Whether moving from chutz la’aretz to Israel or from Israel to Yerushalayim, halacha sees aliyah as a spiritual elevation. A fascinating look at how seriously Chazal took the mitzvah of settling the Land.

What is The Mitzvah of Eretz Yisrael?

In "The Mitzvah of Eretz Yisrael," Rav Shlomo Katz takes us deep into the heart and soul of one of Judaism's most profound and debated mitzvot. What does it really mean to conquer, dwell, and truly live in the land of Israel today? Is it merely about physical settlement, or is there a deeper spiritual conquest at play? Drawing on Torah sources, Chassidic insights, and practical halacha, we’ll explore questions like: How central is living in Eretz Yisrael to fulfilling our Jewish destiny? Can the mitzvah be achieved spiritually outside the land? What is our role in actively building and nurturing the land given to us by Hashem? Join us as we journey to reveal the extraordinary dimensions of this holy mitzvah.

ישר כוח, בוקר טוב לכולם. Welcome back. Josh Cantor and שלום עליכם to Eli Barnett over there hiding in the corner. ברוכים השבים.

And I want to give שבח והודאה לקדוש ברוך הוא that my dear friend Moshe Palak was in a could have been a really bad פיגוע. But ברוך השם, הקדוש ברוך הוא saved you on the road the other day. אשרינו שזכינו של אריכות ימים בעזרת השם. אמן.

So, we're going to learn a wild הלכה today. ממש a wild הלכה. Based on אבן העזר, it speaks about, can you force, if it's a couple that has a preference of where they want to live, can one force the other where they should live? And it's very problematic because you never know who's gonna, you know, who's going to be on what side of the program here. It's not so simple to force someone to move somewhere unless the ענין is, can we move if we live amongst a place that the רוב is non-Jews, then you could say you could force the person to move to a place where there are where it's a רוב that are Jews.

That's the situation whether they're both people or whether it's happening in חוץ לארץ, where there's a שאלה of, should we move to a place where there's more Jews, or whether it's in ארץ ישראל, should I move to a place where there's more Jews? But listen to the הלכה. I took it down from, I think Sefaria here, listen to this from אבן העזר, this is סימן עה, סעיף ד. Listen to this. אמר האיש לעלות לארץ ישראל.

Now let's say they're in חוץ לארץ, and there's a dispute between the couple where to where to move. אמר האיש לעלות לארץ ישראל, והיא אינה רוצה, תצא בלא כתובתה. Yeah. זה ממסכת כתובות.

אה? זה ממסכת כתובות. אמרה היא לעלות, והוא אינו רוצה, יוציא ויתן כתובה. והוא הדין לכל מקום מארץ ישראל לירושלים. שהכל מעלין לארץ ישראל ואין הכל מוציאין משם.

הכל מעלין לירושלים ואין הכל מוציאין משם. What does what does this הלכה saying? That if you're in חוץ לארץ and one of the sides says, I want to move to ארץ ישראל, so if it's the wife that says, I don't want to move, then you you could leave and you don't have to pay what you signed on the כתובה. If she says, I want to move, and he says, I don't, no, I want to stay, she's out and she gets the כתובה. So, זאת אומרת, we see that when it comes to ארץ ישראל, all these דינים are very, very powerful, very potent.

It's not סתם. But the way the מחבר all set it over here, הכל מעלין, even if you're in ארץ ישראל, you want to move to ירושלים, it's the same thing. Whatever you're closer to the center of קדושה, and there's a רצון to be there as opposed to not, מעלין לשמה. And like יחיאל was saying before, the גמרא in מסכת כתובות goes into this into greater detail.

For our intents and purposes what we learn in the morning, to להדגיש את החשיבות של מצוות ישוב הארץ. Again, another day that we all have the זכות to מקיים that מצוה right now, אשרינו שזכינו.