The Blessing of Being Spread Across the Globe

Parshat Va'etchanan

by Rabbi Avi Billet

In the middle of Devarim Chapter 4, Moshe describes what will happen some time in the future when the people will abandon God in pursuit of some kind of idol. “God will spread you among the nations, and you’ll remain small in numbers among the peoples where you will have been directed. Then you will serve gods, things which are man-made. Wood and stones which do not see, do not hear, do not eat, and can not smell. And from there you will seek out God, and you will find Him, when you seek Him with all your heart and soul.” (4:27-29)

Interestingly, when all these things happen, or as the next verse says, when “they find you,” the time will come when “you will return to Hashem your God and you will listen to His voice.” (4:30)

Also interestingly, when the turnaround will come, Moshe does not say “you will return to the land.” He says, “You will return to God.” And so I wonder, is verse 27 a curse or a blessing – “You will remain small in numbers among the peoples where you will have been directed” – meaning, is it a curse that you’ll be ousted from the land and that you’ll be small in numbers, or is it a blessing that your long-term survival is assured?

A literal reading of this might take a very dark leap off the page and suggest that the persecution Jews have experienced over the millennia is a fulfillment of this. If we were promised we would remain small in numbers and yet significant, how else do we remain small in numbers but through the hands of oppressors?

An opposing view would certainly shout down such a horrible sentiment. How dare we suggest we understand reasons for persecution? Are we really to believe that all efforts at stemming the tide of Jewish growth, anywhere in the world, is still a fallout from the original idolatrous practices that caused our ancestors to be removed from the Holy Land? Perhaps we can blame evil people for the evil they commit?

Rather, I would suggest, that the appeal of being part of the Jewish people, sharing in our triumphs, and also in our miseries, is something only a select few will join in, were they not born into our people. Just to compare in history, the two major religions credited with spreading themselves by the sword were able to grow and spread across many lands through threats and violence. Even if that ancient form of proselytizing is not as common today, there is no question that their “success” worldwide goes back to the original efforts of globalization through violence, which continue today through missionary work in different forms.

The Jewish people never really engaged in this practice. So our growth has been by and large more of the organic nature – stemmed in many generations by oppression and genocide – aside from the losses we’ve experienced in more recent times on account of assimilation and ignorance-of-Judaism of many Jews who identify culturally as Jews, but certainly not religiously or nationally.

So, again, is the idea of being spread among the nations, only to return to God (and not the land) a blessing or a curse?

Alshikh actually says “In that you will not be completely destroyed, the exile is good for you.” Why? R Yosef B’chor Shor suggests that if Jews are going to worship idols, they are better off doing it outside of the land of Israel. (Not that it’s a good practice!)

In his Panim Yafot, Rabbi Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz gives us a different perspective on how we are to view the exile of the Jewish people, and why the first step is to return to God, rather than the land. Based on a passage in Yoma 22b, he says the Jewish people are a countable number when they do not fulfill the will of God. But when they fulfill the will of God, they are not countable, because each individual’s value and worth becomes multiplied in a manner that is priceless.

In answer to the question of the blessing v curse, however, Malbim explains that the Jewish people being spread across the globe is a blessing of not having the destiny of our people’s eggs all in one basket, such that even if there are decrees, and exile, and destruction heaved upon us in one land, there is salvation and a place of refuge someplace else.

While we are certainly blessed to live in a time when the State of Israel can be that refuge for Jews around the world, we dare not be complacent in thinking we have arrived. As we observed Tisha B’Av once again this year, we know very well that while we may be significant in the world, we will remain few in number. And even though we will remain, as promised by God, it is only the complete return to God – which must happen outside of the Land of Israel (and is a tremendous challenge as evidenced by the facts on the ground) – that will help us merit the complete return to the land from which we were exiled so long ago.

We have a lot of work to do.