In a recent conversation with a rabbinic friend and colleague—a discussion that echoed many others I have had over the years—I remarked that I believe every Jew who is genuinely committed to Torah and Judaism should live in Israel.

“But what would you say,” he asked, “to someone who insists that making Aliyah is simply too difficult? It means leaving family and friends, giving up a career, learning a new language, and adapting to an entirely different culture.”

“That’s certainly true,” I replied. “But someone who has never observed Shabbat faces an equally daunting adjustment: no work, no shopping, no travel, no television, no phone. Judaism has never promised that keeping the mitzvot would be easy.”

“But that’s not a fair comparison,” he responded. “Whether living in Israel is actually a mitzvah is itself disputed. The Ramban counts it among the 613 mitzvot, while the Rambam does not. No such dispute exists regarding the obligation to observe Shabbat.”

My colleague was referring to a well-known halakhic debate that emerges from a verse in this week’s parasha, Matot-Masei.

“You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess” (Numbers 33:53).

The Ramban understands this verse as a mitzvah requiring the Jewish people to settle the Land of Israel, ensure that it remains under Jewish sovereignty, and establish it as their permanent national home. In his glosses to the Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvot, he sharply criticizes........

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