You Can Take The Jew Out Of The Ghetto…

You can take the Jew out of the Ghetto, but it’s much harder to take the Ghetto out of the Jew, if not impossible. This unfortunate Ghetto mentality has been a part of the Jewish psyche since the days of Egyptian slavery. Two-thirds of all Jews in Egypt chose to stay rather than leave Egypt with those Jews who joined Moshe in the Exodus from captivity. For those fainthearted Jews, life in Egypt was preferable to the unknown dangers awaiting them should they join their brothers and sisters in escaping Egyptian bondage. They had, in a sense, become Egyptians and had no desire to accept the Torah or conquer Eretz Yisrael. This disdain for the Jewish Land has persisted for three millennia and still corrupts authentic Jewish teaching on the obligation to make aliya and settle the land.

The Jews of the Diaspora have a great temptation to transform themselves into Englishmen, Americans, and Australians, amongst other nationalities. They think of themselves in terms of Jewish Americans, etc. This was the great malady of those Jews who refused to leave Egypt. Seventy-six years after the establishment of the restored Jewish State, many Jews have still not been cured of their love for the Exile and their disdain for the Land of Israel.

Unfortunately, the Diaspora Jew cannot comprehend their predicament while ever they are detached from the continuity of their own situation with that of the Exodus from Egypt.

Till Jews of the Diaspora are taught and understand the meaning of the existence of the State of Israel, they will continue to suffer the Ghetto within.