ALIYAH: CONFLICT AND AMBIVALENCE
medieval poskim. Rather, the mitzvah merubah of not removing his wife and son from danger or not leaving her an agunah was sufficient reason to nullify a publicly made vow.
The Tosafist, Rabenu Haim Cohen, completely negated the halakhic requirement to settle in the Land of Israel for his generation. In his commentary on the Talmudic controversy of whether couples may compel one another to go to the Holy Land,” R. Haim claimed that this debate was irrelevant in his day for two reasons:( 1) danger and(2) the impossibility of observing mitzvot.
1. Compelling one’s spouse to 20 to the Land may be applied only to the period when the roads are safe, but is not observed in our time because of the danger of traveling. He cannot treat her as a mere object to force her to go to a den of lions and highwaymen.**
2. In our day, one is not obligated to live in Eretz Yisrael because there are many commandments which must be kept in the Land and many penalties[for their neglect], of which we cannot beware or fulfill.”
Many pietists went on aliyah to observe those precepts that could be kept only in the Land. Many of these Land-bound commandments(mitzvot ha-teluyot ba-aretz) were related to the Temple. and others had not been kept for centuries. These laws and regulations were not fully understood. As a result, settling in the Land might result in violation rather than observance of these mitzvot.
Rabbi Moses B. Joseph Trani(Mabit, 1490-1580) rejected the first ruling of R. Haim for the following reasons:
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