excerpts from "Aliyah, The Transformation and Renewal of an Idea"

"...To be a Jew is to be claimed by three thousand years of history. The individual is the carrier of the legacy, of a covenantal promise of the Jewish people to become a holy nation . The Jewish family, therefore, was alway imbued with a national purpose: to mediate the founding memories of the Jewish people for the next generation.

"Aliyah is predicated on the premise that the I, the individual, can shape and be shaped by the we, the nation. The drama of community molds the drama of self-fulfillment. For aliyah to become a serious notion, the individual must become more community oriented. Individual self-realization must be informed by notions of shared history and memory....

"Aliyah must regain the inherent force of going up , of aspiring , and of striving for something higher. It must become a concept that challenges, that points to new possibilities and alternatives, that disturbs complancency and self-satisfied acceptance of the status quo.

"The message of aliyah should convey the idea of privilege the privilege of bringing up children with a sense of history and community.

" Aliyah is a call to the individual to arise, to assume a dramatic role in history, to participate in nation building. ... The final chapter of our people's spiritual drama has not yet been written."

by David Hartman
of the Shalom Hartman Institute