Aliyah II

It's actually not strange at all that so few young couples make aliyah. As many of the commentors to my last post pointed out, moving to Israel generally means leaving family and friends, a more difficult financial horizon, etc. It takes a lot of ideology to buy into all that and, regerttably, the institutions that are theoretically espousing that ideology (Zionism, yishuv Eretz Yisrael) do a miserable job of it. Indeed, they really can't be taken seriously at all.

As one commentor pointed out, even in the best of circumstances, kids learn from what they see, not what they hear. If you get up early to go to a shiur or a minyan, there is a chance that your son will follow suit. If you don't but simply tell your son that he has to go to minyan, you are wasting your breath.

Even if the schools and shuls did a better job of inculcating the concept of yishuv Eretz Yisrael, kids would be skeptical about such a message coming from people living in galus.

But the truth is that yishuv Eretz Yisrael simply isn't the goal of those institutions. They can say Shabbat Shalom instead of Good Shabbos and Shacharit instead of Shacharis all they want but that is pretty much the extent of their commitment to yishuv Eretz Yisrael. Talking about the "matzav" in Israel, raising money, and going to rallies are all well and good but they are very different from talking about kedushas Eretz Yisrael with passion. When was the last drasha you heard about that? How many shuls or schools have shiurim on the teachings of Rav Kook (for example)?

The shuls and schools are generally content with inculcating a love of Eretz Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael that is nationalistic, not really religious or spiritual. And, in the face of the relative luxuries of our galus, yishuv Eretz Yisrael has no chance.