SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

love, understanding, and consideration for one another. Parents raise their children to make mature life decisions, including their choice of profession and mate. Thus, the parents of this young man may be justly proud that their son has made a courageous decision about his future home.

The parents assert that visiting Israel should be enough for their son. This young man apparently prefers the stance of Rabbi Joseph Trani(son of the Mabit), who stated that“the essence of the mitzvah is not aliyah, but dwelling in the Land and establishing a home there, as the late Nahmanides taught. Anyone who goes there as a tourist intending to return whence he came is not fulfilling the well-known mitzvah”(Responsa Maharit, 2, no. 28).

Furthermore, if his father and mother supported their son’s decision, he would most likely fulfill the teaching of Rabbi Simeon ben Zemah Duran (Rashbatz, 1361-1444), who ruled that going abroad from the Land of Israel is permitted for only two purposes, one of which is to visit his mother and father to fulfill the honor due one’s parents(Responsa Tashbetz, 3, no. 288). The son or daughter is duty bound to maintain contact with father and mother, including traveling from the Land to the parents’ home. If this was the case in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when journeying abroad was dangerous and took many months, how much more is it a mitzvah in our day. Although the physical distance may be great, parents and children may be drawn closer together.