By Rabbi Josh Wander

There is a remarkable confluence this year between Parshat Lech Lecha and the approaching American elections. As millions of Americans prepare to cast their ballots, determining the political direction of the United States for the coming years, the Jewish people will be reading the very passage in the Torah in which Hashem commands Avraham Avinu to leave his birthplace, his family, and his familiar surroundings, and journey to the Land that Hashem will show him. “לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך” — “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” (Bereishit 12:1). The irony is almost too extraordinary to ignore.

Millions of religious Jews living throughout the Diaspora will enter their synagogues this Shabbos, listen attentively to the Torah reading, and hear about Avraham Avinu’s willingness to abandon everything familiar in obedience to Hashem’s command. Their rabbis will undoubtedly deliver beautiful sermons about faith, sacrifice, spiritual journeys, and the importance of stepping outside one’s comfort zone. Yet how many will dare to suggest that perhaps the most obvious lesson of Lech Lecha is precisely what the Torah actually says? Leave your foreign homeland and go to Eretz Yisrael! And with the American elections approaching, this raises an extraordinary question about where religious Jews are investing their political influence and national aspirations.

Imagine, for just a moment, an entirely different political reality in the State of Israel. Imagine if the millions of religious Jews currently residing in America, Europe, and elsewhere had taken the Torah’s message literally. Imagine if, instead of building flourishing Jewish communities in foreign countries, they had brought their extraordinary Torah knowledge, educational institutions, financial resources, professional expertise, and commitment to Jewish life back to the Jewish homeland. Imagine if they had purchased homes in Jerusalem, Tzfat, Chevron, and throughout the country, established businesses, created jobs, paid taxes, developed industries, built neighborhoods, founded yeshivos, and strengthened the economy. Imagine if they had assumed the same civic responsibilities they so willingly accept in the countries of their exile, including contributing to the defense and security of the Jewish people.

And yes, imagine if they voted! Not in elections between Republicans and Democrats to determine the future of America, but in Israeli elections to determine the future of the Jewish nation in its own sovereign homeland. Consider the implications. Millions of additional Torah-observant Jews participating in Israeli society would fundamentally transform the country’s political, cultural, and religious landscape. The balance of power in the Knesset could be dramatically different. The national conversation about Jewish identity, education, Shabbos, the character of the state, and the relationship between Torah and government could be transformed beyond recognition. Perhaps most astonishingly, these Jews might discover that the very society they have spent generations praying for could actually be within their power to help create.

Imagine a Jewish country governed according to Torah principles, a society in which Torah learning and national responsibility complement rather than contradict one another, and an army infused with Torah values, defending the Jewish people while respecting and accommodating religious observance. Imagine a country dedicated to fulfilling the mitzvos that can only be observed in Eretz Yisrael, restoring the institutions of Jewish sovereignty, and ultimately preparing for the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash. Is this not what we have been praying for three times a day, for nearly two thousand years? The tragedy is that so many religious Jews look at Israel today and complain that it is not religious enough, not sufficiently governed by Torah, or not the kind of Jewish state they envision. Yet they remain thousands of miles away, voluntarily surrendering their opportunity to shape its future. They complain about the outcome of a national project in which they have chosen not to participate!

This observation is hardly my own chiddush. Rav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtel Hy”d, writing his monumental Eim HaBanim Semeicha during the Holocaust, confronted precisely this contradiction. He had himself belonged to circles that opposed the Zionist enterprise, but the catastrophic destruction of European Jewry compelled him to reconsider the religious significance of returning to Eretz Yisrael and actively rebuilding Jewish national life. Rav Teichtel argued that the religious Jewish world had made a profound historical mistake by failing to participate in the rebuilding of the Land. Rather than dismissing the enterprise because it was being led largely by secular Jews, Torah-observant Jews should have recognized the extraordinary opportunity before them and taken an active role in shaping the emerging society. His argument was not that Torah should be compromised to accommodate the state. Quite the opposite! His concern was that by refusing to participate, religious Jews had surrendered much of the initiative to others, and then complained about the results.

And here lies perhaps the most painful contradiction of all. How many Orthodox Jews spend their entire lives praying for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, and the establishment of a society governed by Torah, while simultaneously sitting back and expecting these changes to simply fall from the heavens? They await a miraculous transformation of reality, yet overlook the most obvious, practical, and readily available step toward achieving precisely what they claim to desire: get up, come home, and help make it happen! If millions of Torah-observant Jews genuinely want a Torah-centered Jewish state, what prevents them, collectively, from coming here and building one? Why must we perpetually wait for someone else to accomplish what Hashem has already given us the opportunity to do ourselves? Perhaps the miracle we are waiting for is the very opportunity we are refusing to seize. We cannot demand a Torah state from Heaven while refusing to build one on Earth.

This is not a rejection of Emunah or Bitachon. It is their practical expression. We believe that Hashem guides history, but that does not absolve us of responsibility for participating in it. We pray for Parnassah, yet go to work. We pray for health, yet seek medical treatment. We pray for the security of the Jewish people, yet recognize the necessity of defending ourselves. Why, then, when it comes to the greatest national aspirations of the Jewish people, do so many suddenly insist that human initiative is unnecessary, or even inappropriate? Imagine what Rav Teichtel would say today, witnessing a sovereign Jewish state, a flourishing Torah world in Eretz Yisrael, a powerful Jewish army, and the ingathering of Jews from virtually every corner of the globe. And yet, millions of Torah-observant Jews still choose to remain in Galus, waiting for someone else to create the ideal Jewish society they claim to desire.

Of course, moving to Israel is not always simple. Families have responsibilities, livelihoods must be established, elderly parents require care, and genuine personal obstacles exist. Nobody should trivialize these challenges. But there is an enormous difference between acknowledging legitimate difficulties and transforming permanent residence in Galus into a religious ideal. Nor is the argument that simply bringing millions of religious Jews to Israel would magically solve every problem. Torah observance alone does not guarantee political wisdom, national unity, competent governance, or moral leadership. We have ample evidence of that already. The transformation would require a willingness not merely to demand a Torah state, but to accept responsibility for building one.

And that is precisely the lesson of Lech Lecha. Hashem did not tell Avraham Avinu to remain comfortably in Charan, establish a magnificent religious community, and pray that one day his descendants might inherit the Promised Land. He commanded him to go, to uproot himself, and to undertake a difficult journey into an uncertain future, trusting that through his actions Hashem’s promises would ultimately be fulfilled. Avraham did not wait for the Land to become a perfect society before entering it. His journey was the beginning of the process. The same principle applies to us. We cannot reasonably demand that Eretz Yisrael first become the ideal Torah society of our dreams while simultaneously refusing to contribute the people, resources, leadership, and commitment necessary to bring that dream closer to reality.

Every election in Israel presents an opportunity to influence the direction of the Jewish state. But the greatest electoral revolution imaginable would not come from another political party, another campaign slogan, or another coalition agreement. It would come from millions of Jews finally recognizing that they belong here. Imagine the political earthquake if millions of religious Jews stopped viewing Israel as a destination for vacations, yeshiva years, or retirement, and began viewing it as their national home and personal responsibility. Imagine if their votes, their talents, their families, and their commitment to Torah were invested in the future of the Jewish people rather than the political fortunes of foreign nations. The objective should never be merely to increase the number of religious voters or to secure another few seats in the Knesset. The objective is nothing less than the restoration of a Torah-centered Jewish civilization in its ancestral homeland.

For thousands of years, we have prayed for the ingathering of the exiles, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the return of our judges, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the Beis HaMikdash. We have pleaded with Hashem to bring us home. Perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all is whether we are prepared to act when the doors are finally opened. As Jews throughout the Diaspora contemplate which candidates will best represent their interests in foreign capitals, perhaps they should consider an entirely different question. What might the State of Israel look like today if their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had chosen to build their futures here? And what could it look like tomorrow if they themselves finally made that choice?

The Jewish people do not lack the numbers, the resources, the Torah knowledge, or the talent to profoundly influence the future of our homeland. What we lack, too often, is the collective determination to act upon what we profess to believe. The command of Lech Lecha was not simply an inspiring story about our distant past. It established the direction of Jewish history and the destiny of our people. Perhaps the greatest vote a Jew can cast for the future of the Jewish nation is not a ballot at all, but a one-way ticket home.