Why the Jews, one might reasonably ask? Clearly, it is not because the Jews are a strong and powerful people, great in number. On the contrary, God chose the Jews because only a small number of people belong to this select nation.
“Not because you are the biggest of the nations did God desire you and choose you but because you are the smallest of the nations." (Deuteronomy 7:7).
The Jews were set aside among the nations to be a holy people,
created to observe God’s law. As a nation, you might have noticed, for
thousands of year, we did not attempt to swell our ranks by recognizing
patrilineal descent, or through creative new conversion ceremonies. We did not
need to swell our ranks. Because we are meant to be small and select, yet meek
and dependent on God. It’s about faithfulness to an idea: that we will strive
to be what God wants us to be, where God wants us to be, no matter what.
When we talk about the Jews being a “stubborn” nation, it
means exactly that. We don’t care that our numbers shrink—or what people say
about or do to us. We will only continue to persist as a nation for persistence’s
and God’s sake. The core of our nationhood, then, is strong.
One of the most moving expressions of this understanding is seen when terror survivors and victims’ families tell the world that they will continue to be faithful to God’s commandments and bring light into the world. Rabbi Eitan Schnerb, injured along with his son, during a terror attack that stole the life of his 17-year-old daughter Rina, for example, issued just such an expression of Jewish faith. Responding to condolences from the former Prime Minister Netanyahu, Rabbi Schnerb said that Rina was a martyr of the people of Israel. “With God’s help,” said Schnerb, “we will grow stronger, we will build more, study more Torah, be stronger. My wife and I, this is our message."
To paraphrase Rabbi Schnerb, as members of the Jewish
nation, the Nation of Israel, we will persist and you will not deter us. We’ll
build more homes in the Land of Israel, land promised to us, and we will continue to learn God’s Torah. In spite of what you
do to us, to our children, we will become stronger, no matter our numbers, and
this will always be our message to our enemies, to the world. You cannot and
will not make us disappear.
Our nation may be small, but there is strength in coming together as one people, all in one place. In that sense, every member of the Jewish nation counts; when Jews make Aliyah and live in Israel, they make Israel that much stronger. Israel needs every warm Jewish body as a bulwark against those who covet the relationship between God and the Jewish people, those who would harm the Jewish nation and steal Jewish land.
The purpose of being a Jew is, first and foremost, to be a Jew. The purpose of a Jew is to live in Israel and observe God’s commandments. The first of those commandments is to bring new Jewish generations into being, to continue on after us. But it is important to remember that we are meant to raise those generations in Israel. There can be no nationhood, no nationality, without an associated territory, and the entire world, no matter what it says, knows that the territory in question is Israel.
This Passover, this Pesach,
as you sit at your seder and remember
the Exodus from Egypt, remember too, that God brought you out for a reason. To coalesce
as one people in Israel, not a large nation, but a strong nation, one secure in its faith and
destiny—a destiny meant to be fulfilled in the Promised Land of Israel,
promised by God to the Jewish people, alone.
Chag Kasher V’Sameach, a kosher and happy holiday to all.
(Dedicated to Rodin New York.)
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