מז

And afterward — close after he had said the Torah mentioned above — I asked him zichrono livracha: "What is your intention in what you said — that Eretz Yisroel is the essential thing?" And he rebuked me and answered and said: "My intention is literally — this Eretz Yisroel with those houses." (And he said it in the German-Yiddish tongue in these words: "Ich meyn takki dos Eretz Yisroel mit di shtibber mit di haizer.") That is: all my intention is literally — that every man of Israel must come to this physical Eretz Yisroel — which is settled in those houses and courtyards standing there in Tzfas and Tiberias and other places of Eretz Yisroel. For all the commandments must be performed in their plain literal sense precisely — and it is impossible to merit holiness except through this Eretz Yisroel that is known to us — which Israel travel to. And behold — from then I understood that his wish was plainly that we all come to Eretz Yisroel. And from then and onward I greatly, greatly longed to be in Eretz Yisroel. But the obstacles were very many. For during his holy lifetime zichrono livracha — I was unable to travel to Eretz Yisroel to establish my dwelling there — for I was unable to separate from him at all. For he is my life and the length of my days — and without him I have no vitality at all. And to travel alone with the intention of returning — was also difficult for me because of several reasons — and because of the very great expense that was not in my hands. And also: how could one be separated for so long a time from Rabbainu zichrono livracha — for I was accustomed to be before him at every occasion — and heard every time the words of the living G-d that bring merit to the multitudes for generations upon generations. Through all of this I was unable to travel then. But my will was strong to travel to Eretz Yisroel at every moment when I recalled the love of Eretz Yisroel.

And he also spoke with us many times in his holy conversations and made us long for Eretz Yisroel — and informed us that it is an easy thing to come to Eretz Yisroel, and that it does not require as much expense as people think, and that it is not as dangerous as people think. And from the walls of his words I understood that he wished us to be in Eretz Yisroel at least once. As when he told about the very nature of the obstacles and the dangers that were upon him in Istanbul — and how he had been in great danger before he came to Eretz Yisroel — and so on — he then answered and said to us that we would be able to come to Eretz Yisroel easily — as if to say: that upon us such obstacles and dangers as were upon him would not prevail. And if we wished, we could come to Eretz Yisroel. And these words are embedded in my heart from then until now. And they were with me as a help to strengthen my longing to travel to Eretz Yisroel.