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TheGathering of Israel (Hebrew:קִבּוּץ גָּלֻיּוֹת,Modern: Kibbutz Galuyot,Tiberian: Qibbuṣ Galuyoth,lit. 'Ingathering of theExiles'), or theIngathering of the Jewish diaspora, is the biblical promise ofDeuteronomy 30:1–5, made byMoses to theIsraelites prior to their entry into theLand of Israel.
During the days of theBabylonian captivity, writings by the Israelite prophetsIsaiah andEzekiel encouraged their people with the promise of a future gathering of the exiles to the Land of Israel. Since the destruction of theSecond Temple in 70 AD, the continual hope for exiledJews' return to the Land of Israel has served as a core theme ofJudaism.[1]Maimonides, a prominent medieval Jewish scholar, connected the materialization of this return with the coming of theDavidic Messiah.[citation needed]
This gathering of the Jewish diaspora became the foundation of theZionist ideology and later the central theme of theIsraeli Declaration of Independence. It definesaliyah, the act of diaspora Jews migrating toIsrael, since Israel is considered to be spiritually higher for the Jewish people than any other of the world's lands. Since 1948, the mass migration of diaspora Jews to Israel has been likened toThe Exodus fromancient Egypt, especially in the context of theJewish exodus from Muslim-majority countries.
In the latter parts of theBook of Deuteronomy, when Moses' death was near, he prophesied about the destiny of the people of Israel. Their destiny would not be promising – curses would come upon them and they would go intoexile – but when they return to their homeland later, their situation will be as good as it had been in the past, and so said Moses:
1. And it will be, when all these things come upon you the blessing and the curse which I have set before you that you will consider in your heart, among all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you,
2. and you will return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice according to all that I am commanding you this day you and your children,
3. then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations, where the Lord, your God, had dispersed you.
4. Even if your exiles are at the end of the heavens, the Lord, your God, will gather you from there, and He will take you from there.
5. And the Lord, your God, will bring you to the land which your forefathers possessed, and you will take possession of it, and He will do good to you, and He will make you more numerous than your forefathers.
— Deuteronomy 30:1-5[2][better source needed]
TheNevi'im (Prophets) prophesying after the destruction of theFirst Temple had encouraged theBabylonian exiles by reiterating the words of Moses.
In chapter 11 theBook of Isaiah says (the gathering here is mentioned as being done for the "second time". What this means remains cryptic[citation needed]:
11. And it shall come to pass that on that day, the Lord shall continue to apply His hand a second time to acquire the rest of His people, that will remain from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Sumeria and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
12. And He shall raise a banner to the nations, and He shall gather the lost of Israel, and the scattered ones of Judah He shall gather from the four corners of the earth.
— Book of Isaiah 11:11-12[3]
In chapter 29 theBook of Jeremiah says:
14. And I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will return your captivity and gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will return you to the place whence I exiled you.
— Book of Jeremiah 29:14[4]
In chapter 20 theBook of Ezekiel says:
41. With a pleasing savor I shall accept you when I take you out of the nations, and I shall gather you from the lands in which you were scattered, and I shall be hallowed through you before the eyes of the nations.
42. And you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land that I lifted My hand to give to your forefathers.
— Book of Ezekiel 20:41-42[5]
In Law of Kings, Maimonides writes:
1. The Messianic King will arise in the future and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its former state and original sovereignty. He will build the Temple and gather the dispersed of Israel. All the laws will be re-instituted in his days as they had been aforetimes; sacrifices will be offered, and the Sabbatical years and Jubilee years will be observed fully as ordained by the Torah.
2. Anyone who does not believe in him, or whoever does not look forward to his coming, denies not only the other prophets but also the Torah and of Moses our Teacher. For the Torah attested to him, as it is said:
"then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations... Even if your exiles are at the end of the heavens, the Lord, your God, will gather you from there, and He will take you from there. And the Lord, your God, will bring you... (Deuteronomy 30:3-5).
These words, explicitly stated in the Torah, include all the statements made by all the prophets.
— Maimonides,Mishneh Torah, Law of Kings 11:1-2[6][better source needed]
Other Jewish scholars view this differently from Maimonides. They argue that the Torah attested to a period, not a person, the period in which the People of Israel return to their homeland, the land of Israel. The act of ingathering of the exiles of Israel in the land of Israel, aKibbutz Galuyot, will bring about the coming of the messiah, as the hand of God is in the events of the creation of the State of Israel, obviously a different reality then Maimonides depicts, though they see the writings of Maimonides as a way of learning the importance of the role of the messiah, since the Maimonides was a scholar not a prophet, and did not live up to see the event of the establishment of the State of Israel.[7]
Zvi Yehuda Kook, one of the leaders of theReligious Zionist Movement, used to quote from theResponsa book,Yeshuot Malko, ofIsrael Yehosha of kutna, in conjunction with Aliyah (10:66): "There is no doubt that this is a greaterMitzvah (a commandment of the Torah), because the gathering is anAtchalta De'Geulah[8] ('the beginning of the redemption'), as attested, "I will yet gather others to him, together with his gathered ones" (Isaiah, 56:8), and seeYebamoth, page 64, "the Divine Presence does not rest on less than two myriads of Israelites",[9] especially nowadays in which we have seen the great desire inasmuch as in men of lesser importance, mediocre ones, and upright in heart, it is more than likely that we would gleam with the spirit of salvation, fortunate are the "ones who" take part in "bringing merit unto the masses"[10][better source needed]
Haredi Judaism andChabad movement takes the writings of the Maimonides literally: The messiah is assigned the mission of completing the ingathering the exiles of Israel. Until then, the Jewish community living in Israel is defined as a Diaspora of Israel, though they give their consent to the Jewish rule of Israel, and see the advantages of it.[citation needed]
1.Cyrus's Declaration (538 BC), Ezra 1:3[11][better source needed]
Who is among you of all His people, may his God be with him, and he may ascend [va'Yaal / Aliya] to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and let him build the House of the Lord, God of Israel; He is the God Who is in Jerusalem.
2. Napoleon, in hisProclamation to the Jews of Asia and Africa (1799), called for the return of the Jewish people:
Bonaparte has published a proclamation in which he invites all the Jews of Asia and Africa to gather under his flag in order to re-establish the ancient Jerusalem. He has already given arms to a great number, and their battalions threatenAleppo.
The French scholarHenry Laurens holds that the proclamation never took place and that the document supposedly proving its existence is a forgery.[12]
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."[14]
TheFirst Zionist Congress of theWorld Zionist Organization (WZO), assembled inBasel in August 1897 and adopted the Zionist platform, which came to be known asthe Basel Program, which stipulated the following goal: "Zionism seeks to establish a homeland for the Jewish people inEretz Israel secured by public law".
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Aliyah Bet was the code name given to illegal immigration byJews toMandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948,[15][16] in violation of the restrictions laid out in the BritishWhite Paper of 1939, which dramatically increased between 1939 and 1948.[15][17][18]Aliyah Bet was organized by theYishuv (the Jewish settlement in theLand of Israel before Israel's establishment as a country) from 1934 until theState of Israel began in 1948.
Aliyah Bet was carried out by theMossad Le'aliyah Bet, a branch of the Jewish Defense Association (Haganah), theparamilitary organization that was to become theIsraeli Defense Force (IDF). DuringAliyah Bet's 14 years of activity, 115,000 Jews madeAliyah to the Land of Israel. The BritishMandate for Palestine attempted to limit the number of immigration certificates in a way which contradicted the national goals of the Jewish community living there.Aliyah Bet started only modestly in the midst of the nineteen-thirties.
The idea of the ingathering of the exiles of Israel in the land of Israel (aKibbutz Galuyot) was the basis for the establishment of the State of Israel, being mentioned in theIsraeli Declaration of Independence.[19] After the Holocaust, theUnited Nations General Assembly, in its decision-making process onUnited Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, perceived this idea to be the reason for adopting the decision on aJewish State.[citation needed] Expressions of yearning for the gathering of the exiles of Israel in the land of Israel can be found in thePrayer for the State of Israel, which was authored byIsrael's Chief Rabbis during the first years of Israel's existence. Israel's bodies of authorities have expressed their opinion on this matter by passing theLaw of Return, which granted every Jew the right to makeAliyah to the land of Israel.
ThePrayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel is recited on theSabbath andJewish holidays in manysynagogues around the world. The prayer appeals to God to bless the land of Israel, to assist its leaders, and an appeal using the words of Moses:
Lead them, swiftly and upright, to Your city Zion and to Jerusalem, the abode of Your Name, as is written in the Torah of Your servant Moses: "Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you. And the Lord your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers.[20]
The prayer is commonly recited inReligious Zionist andConservative Judaism synagogues, but generally not inHaredi synagogues.
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TheLaw of Return (Hebrew: חוק השבות,Hok ha-shvut), a law passed in 1950 in memory of the Holocaust, allows every Jew the right to makeAliyah to the State of Israel and to receive a certificate ofAliyah, which grants the certificate holder Israeli Citizenship immediately. This stems from Israel's identity as the Jewish State, which is connected to the idea of the gathering of Israel.
Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) (Hebrew:יום העלייה) is a newIsraeli national holiday officially passed into law on June 21, 2016. Yom HaAliyah is to be celebrated annually on the tenth of theHebrew month ofNisan (Hebrew:י’ ניסן).[21] The day was established to acknowledgeAliyah, immigration to the Jewish state, as a core value of the State of Israel, and honor the ongoing contributions of Olim to Israeli society.[22]
Members of theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe in the literal gathering of Israel:[23] That all of thelost tribes will be returned and gathered together around the time of thesecond coming of Jesus Christ.
Members of the church receivepatriarchal blessings in which their lineage is declared.[24] They are declared as being a descendent (literal or adopted) of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Many members of the church today are a part of the tribe ofEphraim, a fulfillment of prophecy that Ephraim would have thebirthright and responsibility for helping to gather scattered Israel in the last days.[25]
