A question is occasionally raised in certain modern circles, posed as a legitimate ideological dilemma: What is better—to be a secular Jew living in Eretz Yisrael, or a religious, Torah-observant Jew living in Chutz La’aretz?
Astonishingly, some contemporary educators and public figures refuse to give a clear-cut, definitive answer. They treat it as a nuanced debate, offering arguments for both sides (צדדים לכאן ולכאן), and they go so far as to publish and publicize this equivalence.
The sheer absurdity of this position is staggering.
Let us analyze the premise. The choice being presented is between a Jew who openly tramples upon 612 mitzvos—and whose fulfillment of the 613th (living in the Land) is highly tenuous, given the Torah’s explicit warning that the Land will vomit out those who defile it—and a Talmid Chacham, an oveid Hashem in Chutz La’aretz who meticulously guards 612 mitzvos (albeit not in the ideal way - הציבי לך ציונים].
To suggest that these two spiritual states are somehow comparable is harrowing.
This is the profound confusion that arises when an entire hashkafa is compressed into a single mitzvah, at the expense of the rest of the Torah. We are commanded to keep all the mitzvos. The notion that it could somehow be preferable to be a mechalel Shabbos b’farhesya, a consumer of neveilos u’treifos, and completely detached from the foundations of taharah, rather than a righteous servant of Hashem abroad, is a dangerous - and all too common - distortion of Torah values.
