By Rabbi Josh Wander – Bring Them Home (ItsTimeToLeave.com)

To the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Nefesh B’Nefesh:

Congratulations are certainly in order. Nefesh B’Nefesh has just celebrated its 100,000th Oleh since its founding in 2002. One hundred thousand Jews from North America have come home, built families, served in the army, joined the workforce and strengthened the State of Israel. It is an extraordinary accomplishment worthy of celebration. But now that the celebration is over, we need to ask an uncomfortable question: What about the millions of Jews who are still living outside Israel?

One hundred thousand Olim over approximately twenty-four years averages a little over 4,000 per year. At that rate, bringing home even seven million Jews would take roughly 1,700 years. Obviously, Nefesh B’Nefesh handles only a portion of worldwide Aliyah, so this is not intended as a literal prediction. It is intended to expose the enormous gap between the scale of Aliyah we have become accustomed to and the scale required for Kibbutz Galuyot — the Ingathering of the Exiles.

Perhaps the fundamental problem is that we have stopped clearly defining success. For a religious Zionist, that definition should be obvious. Zionism was not created simply to establish another country where some Jews could live. The objective was the restoration of the Jewish people to their historic homeland. For those of us who understand the return to Zion through the lens of Torah and prophecy, it is even greater: the fulfillment of the biblical promise of Kibbutz Galuyot unfolding before our eyes.

So let us measure success accordingly. The Jewish Agency operates an enormous international apparatus with an annual budget measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Israel has an entire government ministry dedicated to Aliyah and integration. Nefesh B’Nefesh has spent nearly a quarter-century developing tremendous expertise in North American Aliyah. Yet millions of Jews remain outside Israel. At what point are we permitted to ask whether the system entrusted with bringing Jews home is actually succeeding at its mission?

Programs are not the ultimate measure of success. Conferences are not the ultimate measure of success. Israel experiences and Aliyah fairs are not the ultimate measure of success. Connecting Diaspora Jews emotionally to Israel may certainly be valuable, but it is not Kibbutz Galuyot. The ultimate metric is Jews actually coming home.

The problem is that our Aliyah establishment has become remarkably good at processing Aliyah instead of producing it. Once someone independently decides to move to Israel, an impressive infrastructure helps navigate the process. But where is the massive international campaign whose objective is to convince millions of Jews that their future belongs in Israel? Where is the plan to bring one million Jews home within five years? Where is the national strategy for absorbing 250,000 Olim annually? Where are the housing projects, streamlined professional licensing, employment pipelines, Hebrew programs and bureaucratic reforms that mass Aliyah would require?

If those numbers sound unrealistic, that itself should concern us. We have become so accustomed to thinking about Aliyah in thousands that Kibbutz Galuyot in millions sounds radical. But millions were always the mission.

For two thousand years Jews begged Hashem to gather us from the four corners of the earth. Today the State of Israel exists. Jerusalem is rebuilt. Hebrew has returned as a living language. Millions of Jews have already come home. A journey that once required months can now be completed overnight. Perhaps Hashem has already provided much of the infrastructure. What appears to be lacking is our sense of urgency.

Nefesh B’Nefesh’s 100,000th Oleh should therefore be both a celebration and a wake-up call. Celebrate every one of those 100,000 Jews, and then put another number in enormous letters on the wall of every organization involved in Aliyah: MILLIONS TO GO. Every budget, program and strategic plan should then be judged by a simple question: How much closer did this bring us to completing Kibbutz Galuyot?

Because if Kibbutz Galuyot is actually our mission, we cannot continue measuring success by how efficiently we manage the trickle. We need to start planning for the flood. After two thousand years of exile, another 1,700 years is not an acceptable plan.