spiritual homeland. Here, at the age of sixty-nine, he was in exile from his beloved household, writing lamentations to the ruins of Jerusalem and to the distant family he was never to see again.
Were his ardent compositions about aliyah merely academic, meant to influence others, but not for him or his family to take seriously? Was this a matter of teaching lehalakhah ve-lo lema’aseh (in theory but not in practice)? Was he, like many others, so involved in his creative life in the Diaspora that he didn’t make any serious plans for settling the Land with his family? The last three years of his life were fulfilling, but empty. He was in Zion, but alone.
Perhaps, the Rihal was the most sorrowful. After a lifetime of singing to Zion, he finally made the decision and began his pilgrimage. He was a tragic figure, like the biblical Moses who was commanded by God to view the Promised Land from Pisgah but not to cross over. So Yehudah Halevi stopped just short of realizing his lifelong dream. His Pisgah was Alexandria, but it was not God who commanded him to remain there. For about half a year he remained in Egypt , just a short journey from Palestine . Something in his own psyche prevented him from consummating his coveted aspiration.
The cases presented in this essay show the mner conflict of those who wish to go settle in the Holy Land. It is not surprising that the would-be ofim might be ambivalent about leaving their family and familiar surroundings, abandoning the comforts of their native environs. to undertake an arduous and often dangerous journey to a land known to them only in holy books. How could they make a livelihood for their family, study Torah, and observe the obscure
commandments connected only with the Land? Would they find a Jewish community like the one they left back home?
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