ALIYAH: CONFLICT AND AMBIVALENCE

he went to settle in Egypt , which was forbidden according to his own 50 code.

It is permitted to dwell everywhere in the world except in Egypt . It is forbidden to settle anywhere in its domain, because the Torah warms us in three places not to return to Egypt :

The Lord has said to you,“You shall never return that way again”(Deut. 17:16).

[ promised you that you shall never see(Egypt ) again (Deut. 28:6).

The Egyptians that you see today, you will never see again(Exod. 14:13).

Maimonides comments that there are certain permissible exceptions:“It is permitted to return to Egypt for trade and business or to pass through to conquer other lands. The only prohibition is to settle there.”™' Here lies the great difficulty. The Rambam did not go to Egypt for trade, business, or war, but to sett/e there. He does not explain this deviation from the halakhot that he himself codified. We may be able to find a vague hint of a futuristic halakhic justification for settling in the Land of the Nile , however, in his explanation in the same reference,“If a King of Israel conquered Egypt with permission of a beit din... it would be permitted to settle there...” His explanation, of course, did not refer to his period of time. His style of codification is also puzzling in his comparison of leaving Eretz Yisrael with leaving Babylon. He concludes his laws of aliyah and yeridah with the following:“Just as it is forbidden to leave the Land of Israel, so it is forbidden to leave Babylon.

All these rulings, of course, have their roots in the Talmud and related rabbinical literature, yet the juxtaposition and the emphasis are

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