In a recent conversation with a rabbinic friend and colleague—a discussion that echoed many others I have had over the years—I remarked that I believe every Jew who is genuinely committed to Torah and Judaism should live in Israel.
“But what would you say,” he asked, “to someone who insists that making Aliyah is simply too difficult? It means leaving family and friends, giving up a career, learning a new language, and adapting to an entirely different culture.”
“That’s certainly true,” I replied. “But someone who has never observed Shabbat faces an equally daunting adjustment: no work, no shopping, no travel, no television, no phone. Judaism has never promised that keeping the mitzvot would be easy.”
“But that’s not a fair comparison,” he responded. “Whether living in Israel is actually a mitzvah is itself disputed. The Ramban counts it among the 613 mitzvot, while the Rambam does not. No such dispute exists regarding the obligation to observe Shabbat.”
My colleague was referring to a well-known halakhic debate that emerges from a verse in this week’s parasha, Matot-Masei.
The Torah commands:
“You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess” (Numbers 33:53).
The Ramban understands this verse as a mitzvah requiring the Jewish people to settle the Land of Israel, ensure that it remains under Jewish sovereignty, and establish it as their permanent national home. In his glosses to the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvot, he sharply criticizes the Rambam for omitting this commandment from his enumeration of the 613 mitzvot.
At first glance, my colleague’s argument seems compelling. If the very status of living in Israel as a mitzvah is disputed, then it cannot be compared to an undisputed obligation such as Shabbat.
I believe, however, that this argument fails for two reasons.
First, the Rambam himself writes unequivocally:
“A person should always live in the Land of Israel, even in a city whose majority are idolaters, rather than live outside the Land, even in a city whose majority are Jews.” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 5:15).
If the Rambam considered living in Israel so important that he ruled it preferable to dwell among idolaters there than among Jews abroad, why should it matter whether he formally counted it among the 613 mitzvot?
More fundamentally, I struggle to understand why, when discussing the importance of living in Israel, so much weight is placed on whether the Rambam included Aliyah in his formal enumeration of the mitzvot.
After all, the very first mitzvah God gives Abraham is Lech Lecha: “Go forth from your land… to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1–3). That command introduces the two great promises that define the covenant: God will make Abraham into a great nation, and He will give his descendants the Land of Israel. These promises are repeated to Isaac and reaffirmed to Jacob.
By the opening chapters of Exodus, the first promise has already been fulfilled. Abraham’s descendants have indeed become a great nation. From that point onward, the Torah’s overarching narrative is devoted to fulfilling the second promise: bringing that nation to the Land.
The Book of Exodus recounts how God hears the cries of His people, remembers His covenant with the patriarchs, redeems Israel from Egyptian slavery, and leads them toward the Promised Land. At Sinai, He gives them the Torah—not as an abstract religious code detached from history and geography, but as the blueprint for the life of a covenantal nation living in its own land.
Although that journey is interrupted by profound failures—the Golden Calf, the Sin of the Spies, and even Moses’ own sin—the Torah never loses sight of its destination. Indeed, the entire Book of Deuteronomy consists of Moses’ final effort to prepare the next generation to build a just and holy society in the Land, faithful to God and His commandments.
The centrality of the Land is reflected not only in the Torah’s narrative but also in its mitzvot.
Many commandments can be observed only in the Land: the Sabbatical year, agricultural tithes, the gifts to the poor from the harvest, and many others. Even the festivals are deeply rooted in the agricultural rhythms of the Land, while the Torah’s laws of charity are presented within the broader vision of creating a just society there (Deuteronomy 15:4–11). Likewise, the Torah’s legislation concerning warfare, kingship, courts, and national leadership (Deuteronomy 7; 16–17; 20) presupposes a sovereign Jewish people living in its homeland.
In a few places, the Torah says explicitly that all the mitzvot are to be observed in the Land:
“See, I have taught you laws and rules, as the Lord my God has commanded me, for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and possess.” (Deuteronomy 4:5)
And again:
“These are the laws and the rules that you must faithfully observe in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you to possess.” (Deuteronomy 12:1)
Given that the Land lies at the heart of the Torah’s narrative, its commandments, and God’s vision for His people, does it really matter whether the Rambam formally counted living in Israel among the 613 mitzvot?
To invoke the disagreement between the Rambam and the Ramban whenever the obligation of Aliyah is discussed is, in my view, to miss the point entirely. It is to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Why, then, is this debate raised so frequently?
Perhaps some have simply failed to appreciate how central the Land of Israel is to the Torah itself. More likely, however, the debate serves as a convenient halakhic justification for those who have already decided to remain in the Diaspora.
If so, one cannot help but wonder whether, when we one day stand before God in judgment, such an argument will satisfy the One who gave us not only the Torah and its mitzvot, but also the Land in which He intended them to be observed.
Shabbat Shalom.
