TRADITION Questions: Holy Travel’s Risks & Rewards
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What’s happening?
Yom Tov has long been a time for Jews to travel. In Temple times, our ancestors would ascend to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and to enjoy holidays together as one people before Hashem. The phenomenon of Yom Tov travel gained popularity once again with the advent of Hasidism. With innovations in transportation, men would travel long distances to their Rebbes’ courts to celebrate holy times and connect with mentors and friends. Modernity has seen the advent of a travel industry that has adapted itself to the Jewish consumer and his or her calendar. What began with Passover programs to destinations within driving distance has transformed into luxury travel to the earth’s farthest corners on almost all Jewish holidays. (Once, a long weekend in a 2-star Catskills lodge was opulent; today there are hardly enough stars in the nighttime desert sky to rank Passover pleasures awaiting us at Moroccan resorts.) How can the earlier era of religious travel distinguish today’s Yom Tov travel as destination and not merely escape?
Why does it matter?
The materialism of these programs was discussed with great insight by Chaim Saiman and Avital Chizik-Goldschmidt, “Materialism and the Rise of modern, Orthodoxy,” TRADITION (Spring 2024). An additional aspect of these trips is the creation of transient mini-communities without the traditional authority structures of lay and professional community leadership. Travel creates freedom from the routines of home. Without the limitations of such structure, a traveler might partake of certain religious intensification. Yet, travel might also conceal new avenues for laxity.
The market for Passover travel—estimated at $175 million in 2014—has only expanded in the decade since, with one operator reporting a 60% spike in demand between 2024 and 2025. With increasing wealth, Jews from Israel have begun to join their brothers and sisters on Pesach programs outside of Israel. The Shulhan Arukh 496:3 writes about this situation:
Residents of the Land of Israel who come to the Diaspora are prohibited from doing work on the second day of Yom Tov in settled areas, even if they intend to return. However, as long as they have not reached a settled area—even if they do not intend to return—they are permitted [to do work], since they have not yet been established as like the locals.
Anecdotal accounts suggest that many Israelis do not observe a second day of Yom Tov when abroad. Perhaps, they treat such vacation environments as non-settled areas. Perhaps, their religious experience in Israel has made them unaware of the second day of Yom Tov. Does this create pressure on Diaspora Jews from outside of Israel to join their Israeli kin in a “virtual” Israel’s one day of Yom Tov?
What questions remain?
What effect do transient mini-communities have on home communities? Are religious innovations more likely to take place in a relaxed vacation setting? How do such innovations “come home”? Will the interface of Israeli and Diaspora Jews on holiday programs lead to the weakening of norms surrounding the second day of Yom Tov in their home communities?
The power imbalances between the served and the server within the luxury travel industry have recently been questioned in secular society. How do such disparities affect kosher travel programs? How can the dignity of service industry workers—both Jewish and non-Jewish—be better honored in both travel and home environments?
Chaim Strauchler, rabbi of Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, is an Associate Editor of TRADITION