ALIYAH: CONFLICT AND AMBIVALENCE

How good it is for me to be one day in your courtyard / to visit your ruined, desolate Sanctuary/ to see, to cherish your stones and to pity your dust/ to lament over your ruins,/ for your dust in my mouth is as honey and sweets/ and I shall weep over you in the bitterness of my soul and delight in lamentation.’

This conflict between love of family and love of the Holy Land was not resolved. The last three years of his life, Nahmanides lived without his wife and children, dying in 1270. His poetry as well as his letters to his two sons, Nahman and Shlomo, give evidence of the ambivalence between his love for the members of his family and for the land of his ancestors, which could not be reconciled.®

No evidence seems to have been found of why the Ramban’s family did not voyage with him to the Land. We do not know if he had

enough time to prepare for their departure. He had long known the Dominicans’ enmity. Did he have a contingency plan to escape, as did many of his countrymen? Could the family have joined him in Eretz Yisrael at a later date? Were his wife or any of his children willing to risk the voyage or life in the desolate Land to be with their beloved husband and father? Did he ask them to come, or perhaps did he insist that they remain in Spain ? The sources are silent and so must we be.

We have seen in our exploration of the responsa and other literature the not infrequent conflict between aliyah and family. At times the conflict was resolved by the family going together to the Holy Land or remaining in the Diaspora. In some cases the families separated, with one or more going on aliyah or yeridah and the rest remaining where they were. When only a small minority immigrated

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