By Rabbi Josh Wander

The United States national debt has now crossed $40 trillion. Stop for a moment and let that number sink in: $40,000,000,000,000. It is so enormous that it has almost lost its ability to shock us. We hear “trillion” thrown around in Washington as casually as previous generations spoke about millions. But this isn’t simply another statistic on a government website. It is a warning light flashing on the dashboard of the world’s most powerful economy, and it should get you thinking about your future.

Every great civilization rises, reaches its pinnacle and eventually declines. The trick is recognizing where you are standing on that timeline while actually living through it. Rome did not disappear overnight. Decline accumulated through political dysfunction, military commitments, monetary problems, debt, social instability and declining confidence. To those living through much of it, life continued normally—until it didn’t. America is not Rome, and $40 trillion doesn’t mean the United States collapses tomorrow. But pretending the present trajectory can continue indefinitely is equally foolish.

The federal debt has more than doubled since 2017, while annual interest costs have climbed above $1 trillion. Increasingly enormous amounts of money must be spent not building infrastructure, defending the country or providing services, but simply servicing yesterday’s borrowing. And debt compounds. Continued deficits require more borrowing, which produces more interest, which contributes to still larger deficits. Unless something changes dramatically, the arithmetic becomes increasingly unforgiving.

There is no painless solution. Washington would need some combination of major spending reductions, substantially increased revenues, exceptional economic growth, inflation that reduces the real value of the debt, or continued borrowing on an extraordinary scale. Every option carries serious economic or political consequences. That is why successive Republican and Democratic governments have continued kicking the can down the road. Eventually, however, you run out of road.

The entire system ultimately depends upon confidence. The United States Treasury constantly sells debt to finance government operations and refinance previous borrowing. Americans, banks, pension funds, foreign investors and governments buy it because U.S. debt is considered among the world’s safest assets. That gives Washington an extraordinary ability to borrow, but confidence is not a law of nature. The question most Americans never ask is: Who will continue financing America’s deficits, and at what interest rate?

If investors eventually demand substantially higher returns to hold American debt, the consequences won’t remain on Wall Street. Government borrowing becomes more expensive. Mortgages, consumer loans and business financing can cost more. Interest consumes an even greater share of government revenue, increasing pressure for higher taxes, spending reductions, inflationary policies or still more borrowing. This is how $40 trillion eventually reaches your kitchen table.

Consider just one extreme example: Social Security and America’s enormous network of government assistance programs. Millions of retirees have structured their lives around the assumption that Social Security payments will always be there. Yet according to the government’s own Social Security Trustees, the retirement trust fund is projected to exhaust its reserves in 2032. Under current financing, incoming revenue would then cover only about 78% of scheduled retirement and survivor benefits. Imagine millions of Americans suddenly discovering that the government cannot deliver everything they were promised.

Now expand that picture beyond retirees. Tens of millions of Americans receive assistance through Medicaid, SNAP food benefits, housing assistance, Supplemental Security Income and other programs. These programs are funded differently and are not all approaching some single moment when the money “runs out.” But ultimately the government must retain the financial and political capacity to fund them. During a genuine fiscal crisis, pressure to reduce benefits, tighten eligibility, increase taxes or borrow still more could become enormous.

Imagine significant benefit reductions arriving during a broader economic crisis. Retirees struggle to pay for housing, food and medical care while economically vulnerable families see assistance reduced. Millions of people who organized their lives around government promises suddenly believe those promises have been broken. America has experienced riots and cities burning over grievances involving far fewer people and far less direct economic pain. What would financial desperation on that scale do to the social fabric of the country?

Meanwhile, Americans are already experiencing the rising cost of living through groceries, housing, insurance, medical expenses and utility bills. People may not understand Treasury yields or debt-to-GDP ratios, but they understand when their paychecks no longer stretch as far as they once did. That is when an abstract debt crisis becomes a kitchen-table crisis, a kitchen-table crisis becomes a political crisis, and a political crisis can become a social explosion.

For American Jews, there is another element in this equation that would be dangerously naive to ignore. All of this is happening while antisemitism in America has become increasingly visible, aggressive and, in some circles, disturbingly normalized. According to the American Jewish Committee’s 2025 survey, 86% of American Jews believe antisemitism has increased since October 7, 2023. Nearly one-third reported personally being targeted by antisemitism during 2025, and more than half said they had changed their behavior because of fear of antisemitism.

We haven’t even reached the hypothetical economic crisis I’m describing. This is happening now. America has witnessed Jews murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, Jews attacked with Molotov cocktails in Boulder, Colorado, and an arson attack on the residence of Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor. Antisemitic rhetoric that not very long ago would have brought immediate condemnation can now be heard openly on social media, campuses, demonstrations and within political discourse.

Now combine those trajectories. Imagine millions of people suddenly unable to afford their homes, food, medical care or retirement. Imagine benefits being reduced, unemployment rising and purchasing power collapsing. People will demand to know who did this to them, and human beings have an unfortunate tendency during periods of profound social distress to search not merely for explanations, but for someone to blame.

For Jews, that should sound painfully familiar. Economic antisemitism is among the oldest forms of antisemitism. For centuries Jews have been accused of controlling banks, manipulating currencies, engineering wars and secretly controlling governments. These absurd conspiracy theories survived because they provided frightened and angry populations with a convenient target for complicated problems. That mythology hasn’t disappeared. It is already circulating again.

What happens if severe economic distress collides with an environment in which antisemitic conspiracy theories have already become acceptable within parts of both the political left and right? History cannot tell us precisely what will happen in America, but history can tell us what can happen. The danger isn’t simply $40 trillion in debt, Social Security’s approaching funding crisis, welfare, the rising cost of living or growing antisemitism. It is the possibility that all of these forces eventually converge.

American Jews have enjoyed an extraordinary period of freedom, prosperity and security, and that deserves tremendous gratitude. But gratitude must never become complacency. Jewish history is filled with communities that believed the country in which they lived was different—until suddenly it wasn’t. Today, however, there is one profound difference: for the first time in nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people have somewhere to go.

We have returned to our ancestral homeland. We have sovereignty. We have an army. We have rebuilt Jerusalem. Millions of Jews already live in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. Nobody knows whether America’s fiscal problems will unfold gradually over decades or whether some unforeseen event will accelerate them dramatically. Nobody knows whether today’s antisemitism will recede or become considerably worse. But waiting until you know the answer defeats the entire purpose of recognizing warning signs. You don’t buy fire insurance after your house catches fire, and you don’t wait for history to repeat itself before learning from history.

Some of the inspiration for this article comes from my friend Rabbi Leo Dee and his new book, The Business Case for Israel: Can You Afford Not to Be There? Rabbi Dee argues that Israel should not be viewed only through the lenses of Zionism, religion and Jewish identity, but also through economics, growth, resilience and opportunity. There is a business case for putting not merely your heart, but your future and capital, in Israel.

The more specific idea of purchasing property in Israel while continuing, if necessary, to rent in America was reinforced by a recent podcast conversation between my good friends Yishai Fleisher and Ari Abramowitz. Their discussion crystallized for me a remarkably practical idea: instead of waiting until circumstances force a decision, establish a foothold in Israel while you still possess the freedom, resources and time to do so intelligently.

So what should an American Jew actually do? I believe the time has come to seriously consider something that would have sounded radical only a few years ago: sell your American home while you can still sell it from a position of strength, and put at least a meaningful portion of that capital into Eretz Yisrael. I’m not necessarily telling you to pack your bags tomorrow. I’m telling you to stop keeping every egg in the same basket.

If your livelihood and family circumstances require you to remain in America for now, remain there. Rent if necessary. Continue working and planning. But why must your largest asset remain tied to the very country whose long-term economic and social stability you are beginning to question? Establish a foothold in Israel instead. Buy an apartment, a house or a piece of land—something real that belongs to you. Under ordinary circumstances it can potentially generate income and appreciate in value; under extraordinary circumstances it could become something infinitely more valuable: your family’s insurance policy.

Normal insurance costs money every year, and if nothing happens, the premiums are gone. This insurance leaves you owning an actual asset. No investment is guaranteed to appreciate, but Israeli property can potentially produce income, diversify your assets geographically and provide something no American retirement account can offer: a physical foothold in the Land of Israel. If everything I’ve warned about turns out to be wrong, wonderful. Your “insurance policy” remains property you can rent, visit, leave to your children or eventually live in yourself.

But what if I’m right? What if America’s fiscal deterioration accelerates? What if economic frustration becomes social unrest, and today’s increasingly normalized antisemitism becomes considerably uglier when frightened and angry people begin searching for someone to blame? If the moment arrives when you decide it is finally time to leave, you don’t want to begin figuring out where you’re going. You want the key already in your pocket.

Jewish history has taught us that there is an enormous difference between leaving while you choose to leave and leaving when you have to leave. Assets that appear enormously valuable during normal times can become difficult to sell during a crisis. Markets can freeze. Currencies can move. Flights can disappear. And when thousands of people simultaneously reach the same conclusion, prices and availability can change very quickly. Preparation means acting before everyone else does.

For two thousand years, our ancestors would have given almost anything for the opportunity today’s American Jew possesses. You can move money to Israel, purchase property, make Aliyah and build a home in the country generations of Jews could only face three times a day in prayer. You don’t have to abandon your present life tomorrow in order to begin preparing for your future today.

Diversification protects you from having everything dependent upon one market, currency or economy. For the Jew, there is another kind of diversification worth considering: geographic Jewish diversification. Keep earning in America if that is presently where your livelihood is, and rent there if necessary, but begin transferring your center of gravity toward Israel. Don’t think of this merely as running away from something. Think of what you are investing in: the Land of our ancestors, the rebuilding of the Jewish homeland and a place for your children and grandchildren.

No one rings a bell announcing that the comfortable period of history has ended. That is why insurance is purchased before the emergency. If you wait until everyone agrees that it is time to leave, you have waited too long. Sell while you can sell from strength. Invest while you can invest from strength. Establish your foothold while doing so remains a choice rather than a necessity. And if the storm never arrives, perhaps you will have made an investment in the one place that was always supposed to be our destination anyway: Eretz Yisrael.