ALIYAH: CONFLICT AND AMBIVALENCE
Maimonides(1138-1204) recorded the Talmudic statements about Eretz Yisrael almost literally. Did he assume these halakhot as a guide for his own life? He wrote in Hilkhot Melkhim:“One should always live in the Land of Israel, even in a city which is mostly gentile, and not outside the Land in a city that is mostly Jewish , because one who leaves for the Diaspora is like an idolater.”™ Yet, when he and his family left Spain in 1160, they migrated to Fez, Morocco . He remained there for five years until his friend and teacher, Rabbi Judah ibn Shoshan, was arrested and executed by the Moslems .
Maimonides feared that the same fate might await him, so on April 18, 1165, he fled with his family by boat for a safe haven in Eretz Yisrael. After a stormy voyage he arrived in Acco about a month later, on May 16, 1165.” He continued his work on the Mishnah commentary in Palestine and traveled to Jerusalem and other parts of the Land. At the end of 1165 or the beginning of 1166, he
emigrated to Alexandria , Egypt . The entire period of his residence in the Land was slightly more than half a year.
The Rambam codified the following laws in Hilkhot Melakhim about leaving the Land of Israel for the Diaspora and especially for
It is forever prohibited to leave the Land of Israel except to study Torah or marry a woman or to save a person from the pagans or for trade, but it is forbidden to settle in the Diaspora, except if the famine there[in Palestine] is so severe that a dinar’s worth of wheat is sold for two dinars. However, if the staples are inexpensive, but one has no money or possibility of earning a living and all savings have been spent, he may go to any place where he can subsist. Even
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