The Long, Big Picture of Jewish History

On Wednesday night we hosted the Hollywood launch of the OU’s GenAleph parenting program (https://genaleph.org ). One strategy Dr. Norman Blumenthal mentioned for dealing with the stress and anxiety brought on by the current situation in Israel (in adults and children) is to try to remind ourselves of the resilience of the Jewish People throughout our history. Rav Hirsch makes a similar point from Parshat Lech Lecha. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch says there is significance in the fact that G-d told Avraham, the first Jew, to go out and look at the stars.

If a person is accustomed only to looking at “our world”, at earth, he gets into a mode of thinking that everything is “nature”. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. There are laws of physics. Everything is a set pattern that is never broken.

This natural order of things is perhaps appropriate for the nations of the world, but it is not appropriate for Klal Yisroel.

“You, Avraham, have to go out and look at the stars.”

Amidst the vast constellations, one has a clearer view of the Hand of G-d. One becomes more aware that there is a concept of Hashgocha Pratit, Divine Providence- that there is a G-d out there who directs and takes interest in a person’s and a nation’s life.

As Rav Hirsch puts it: “Therefore, maybe Avraham, it appears to you that you are childless. Maybe by looking merely at this earth and this world, you get into the mindset that ‘I am childless I never have had children; I never will have children.’ But look up into the Heaven, into the realm of the stars where that Hand of G-d is more apparent. That is your lot Avraham, and the lot of your children. Yours is not a destiny and a future of ‘Nature’ (teva), it is a ‘super-natural’ (L’ma-ala min haTeva) destiny and future.”

Some have noted that Avraham was born in the Hebrew year 1948. And 75 years later (in the jewish year of 2023) Hashem told Avraham that the destiny of his descendants would be in the Land of Israel. In the secular year of 1948 the State of Israel was born. Now 75 years later we are being called upon to recommit to focus on Israel, support her and make clear to the world that the Divine promise to Avraham lives on in the modern Jewish homeland.

 When one looks at history, where are the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Babylonians? Where are all these great powers that ruled the world? There is only one nation that is still around after 4,000 years. That is Klal Yisroel. This is ‘above the course of nature’. This is what G-d wanted Avraham to see by looking at the stars: Jewish history and Jewish destiny defies logic and rules of history. We must do what we can but ultimately we can rely on no one but Hashem Himself.