By Rabbi Josh Wander

The Jewish people are described in the Torah as עם קשה עורף — “a stiff-necked people.” We are stubborn. That stubbornness has preserved us through thousands of years of persecution, dispersion, and attempts to erase us. But stubbornness can work in both directions. Sometimes it keeps us faithful when the entire world demands that we surrender, and sometimes it keeps us clinging desperately to something long after Hashem has opened the door for us to leave it behind. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in our relationship with Galus.

For nearly two thousand years, the wandering Jew (from which my family name stems from) became one of the defining images of Jewish history. We were expelled from one country after another, tolerated when convenient and banished when we were no longer wanted. Christian polemicists even turned our homelessness into theological “proof” that the Jewish people had been rejected and replaced. The Jew without a homeland became, in their eyes, evidence against the covenant itself. And then history reversed course. Against every reasonable expectation, the scattered, persecuted, and seemingly powerless Jewish people returned to their ancient homeland. Hebrew came back to life, Jerusalem returned to Jewish sovereignty, and a people dispersed across the globe rebuilt a state in the very Land from which Rome had driven them. The wandering Jew suddenly had somewhere to go. You would think that would have been enough. It wasn’t.

We had seen this pattern before. When Ezra called upon the Jews of Bavel to return and rebuild Jerusalem, most stayed behind. Babylon had become comfortable. Businesses had been established, communities built, and lives normalized. Jerusalem was the dream; Bavel was home. The same phenomenon repeated itself in modern times. Zionism did not arise merely because Jews suddenly rediscovered their love for Eretz Yisrael. For many, it took antisemitism to shake them awake. Herzl was transformed by the realization that assimilation would not solve the Jewish problem. Then came the Holocaust and its aftermath. Across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, Jewish communities that had existed for centuries were uprooted. Again and again, large-scale Aliyah happened not when the door to Israel opened, but when the doors of Galus began slamming shut. Most Jews did not leave early. They left when remaining became unbearable.

That should frighten us, because we can see the pattern beginning again. The most dangerous Galus is not necessarily the one in which Jews are persecuted. It is the Galus in which Jews are comfortable enough to forget that they are in Galus at all. A Jew running from a pogrom knows something is wrong. A Jew with a beautiful house, successful career, kosher supermarket, thriving synagogue, excellent schools, and a vacation home can convince himself that exile has somehow become redemption. The worst Galus is the one you don’t realize you’re in.

Meanwhile, the headlines grow darker. Antisemitism is widening across Europe and America, increasingly wrapped in the respectable language of “anti-Zionism.” Israel is singled out, Jewish institutions require extraordinary security, Jewish students are intimidated, and rhetoric once confined to the political fringes has entered mainstream discourse. Yet instead of asking whether Hashem might be telling us something, we begin searching for the next comfortable address. New York becoming uncomfortable? Move to Florida. Florida becomes uncomfortable? Perhaps Australia. Maybe somewhere else will buy us another twenty years. We keep kicking the can of Galus down the road.

Chazal teach in Masechet Megillah that when the Jewish people fail to respond, Hashem can raise up a king whose decrees are as harsh as Haman’s, forcing Israel back toward the proper path. History has repeatedly demonstrated the principle: when gentle reminders fail, the reminders become less gentle. Whether one views Mamdani as a cause, a symptom, or merely another warning light on the dashboard, “Hamandani” has become an almost too-perfect nickname for a much larger phenomenon. The point is not one politician. The point is the Jewish response. “We have to leave our beloved New York?” Our ancestors once asked essentially the same question about their beloved Berlin, Baghdad, Warsaw, Alexandria, Fez, and countless other places they were certain were home—until suddenly they weren’t.

This does not mean that every Jew outside Israel must panic, pack a suitcase tonight, and flee. It means something much more uncomfortable: we need to stop treating Galus as the permanent address of the Jewish people and Israel as an optional lifestyle choice. If we truly believe that the return to Zion is part of Jewish destiny, then Aliyah cannot forever remain something for our children, our grandchildren, or some theoretical future generation. At some point, somebody has to stop kicking the can.

For generations we prayed for the return to Zion because we could not return. Today millions can return but choose not to. That is an extraordinary historical reversal, and perhaps an extraordinary spiritual test. What happens when Hashem finally opens the door we spent two thousand years praying would open, and we decide we would rather stay in the waiting room? Geula is no longer merely a distant dream whispered about at the end of the Pesach Seder. We are watching the physical infrastructure of Jewish redemption being assembled before our eyes: the Land rebuilt, Jerusalem flourishing, Jews gathered from the four corners of the earth, Torah thriving, and Jewish sovereignty restored after nearly two millennia. The question increasingly is not whether Hashem is bringing the Jewish people home. The question is whether the Jewish people are willing to come.

There will always be another excuse to wait. The children need to finish school. The business needs another few years. The mortgage needs to be paid. The grandchildren live nearby. Israel is too expensive. Israel is too difficult. Israel is too dangerous. Maybe after retirement. Maybe after the next election. Maybe when Moshiach arrives. There is always another reason why now is not the right time, and that is precisely how you kick the can of Galus down the road for another generation.

But roads eventually end. We can read the writing on the wall and move willingly, gratefully, and deliberately toward the next chapter of Jewish history, or we can continue clinging to Galus as though it were a present rather than a punishment, waiting until circumstances once again make the decision for us. For two thousand years, Jews asked Hashem when the exile would finally end. Perhaps the question now being asked from Heaven is what exactly are we waiting for?