SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

dwell in Israel but there is no mandatory mitzvah for others to live there.

The question of the religious duty to the Holy Land can be considered a moot question in which, therefore, compulsion of hus­band against wife may not be applied. For the sake of completeness, we ought to mention that there was a great deal of halakhic debate on the reverse of our question; namely, whether a person already settled in the Holy Land ought emigrate to live in the Diaspora. For a full discussion of this question, see Treasury of Responsa, pp. 167ff., where there is an account of the responsum on this subject by Yom Tov Zahalon(1557-1638), Rabbi of Safed.

Returning to the case discussed here, it is not even a question of settling in the Holy Land but a question merely of going there for a brief visit. In that regard there is not, as far as I know, any authoritative opinion at all to the effect that a brief visit is to be considered a religious duty.

Now, as to the children, if it were a question of the study of the Torah , let us say it was a choice between the parents’ going to Israel and the children studying in the Yeshiva , that question could possibly enter into the discussion. Isserlein cites the fact that in his day there was very little Talmudic study in Israel , and that fact was used as an argument against settling there. But secular education has no standing in Jewish law(although under special circumstances it is permitted), and therefore college education, unlike Talmudic education, could not be weighed against settlement. Nowadays, of course, with the many yeshivot in Israel , according to the recent official Mizrachi magazine, there is a large Orthodox settlement from the yeshivot in America . These yeshiva heads and students are

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