Heaven is my witness that my soul longed for the LORD's court. From the day I knew my own mind, at the age of twenty-five, so it was, day after day, that my eyes looked toward there and my heart yearned. Whether because of the place's sanctity or out of great love for the Land, throughout the great passion of learning Torah and permanently seated at my studies, I did not budge from my love a single day… It seems clear to me, on the basis of the past as well as what is yet to come, with God's will, that going to the Land of Israel, in the sense mentioned, suffices on its own to annul even the obligation to the public's needs, for it is known to all that I will find a place worthy of my learning in the Holy City, and Torah study is equal in value to the sum of all the commandments