Israel and the Jewish people are outnumbered on every front – on the battlefields, in international forums, and on social media. It is understandable that this feels daunting. Practically, how can Israel survive? Ideologically, being so in the minority causes many to question the validity of our beliefs.
The answer lies in our past.
Throughout our history – and throughout the seventy-seven years of the state – we have often been few and distinct. This began with the first Jew, Avraham Avinu. Chazal explain that he was called Avraham HaIvri because he lived apart from the world (Bereishit Rabbah 42:8). Like him, the Jewish people became known as Ivrim, a people set apart, a minority with a unique purpose.
This history should inspire confidence. Just as we have survived and thrived as a minority for millennia, we can trust we will continue to do so.
Our small numbers are not accidental; Hashem chooses to keep our numbers small. Moshe tells the Jewish people that Hashem calls us the “smallest of the nations” (Devarim 7:7). Chazal explain that our small numbers are meant to teach us humility: a small nation learns to attribute success to Hashem, not to its own strength (Chullin 89a). The smaller we are, the clearer it is that survival comes from Him.
Our tefillot on Chanukah reflect this truth. The Al HaNissim prayer celebrates Hashem’s “hand” in our victory over the Greeks, describing how He delivered the “strong into the hand of the weak, and the many into the hand of the few.”
The Maccabim embody this principle. Militarily and culturally, they were a tiny minority that declared war against the vast Greek empire. Yet they knew that victory depends not on numbers, but on G-d. Yehuda HaMaccabi explained: “Victory in battle emanates not from the multitude of numbers, but from the strength given from Heaven… whatever the will of Heaven be, so shall it transpire” (Maccabees I 3:18–19).
Yet the small size of the Jewish people can teach us more than just lessons about survival. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggested that Hashem made the Jewish people small to show that a nation’s greatness and significance do not depend on its size:
“Nations are not judged by their size but by their contribution to human heritage. Of this, the most compelling proof is that a nation as small as the Jews could produce an ever-renewed flow of prophets, priests, poets, philosophers, sages, saints, halachists, aggadists, codifiers, commentators, rebbes, and roshei yeshivot; that they could also yield some of the world’s greatest writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, academics, intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and technological innovators.
Out of all proportion to their numbers, Jews could and can be found working as lawyers fighting injustice, economists fighting poverty, doctors fighting disease, and teachers fighting ignorance. You do not need numbers to enlarge the spiritual and moral horizons of humankind.”
Rabbi Sacks continues, applying this to the State of Israel:
“Nowhere is this more evident today than among the people of Israel in the State of Israel: traduced in the media and pilloried by much of the world, yet still, year after year, producing human miracles in medicine, agriculture, technology, and the arts, as if the word ‘impossible’ did not exist in the Hebrew language.
When, therefore, we feel fearful and depressed about Israel’s plight, it is worth returning to Moses’ words: ‘The L-rd did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you are the fewest of all peoples.’ Small? Yes. Still surrounded, as the Israelites were then, by ‘nations larger and stronger than you.’ But that small people, defying the laws of history, outlived all the world’s great empires, and still has a message of hope for humanity. You don’t have to be large to be great. If you are open to a power greater than yourself, you will become greater than yourself. Israel today still carries that message to the world” (A Tiny, Treasured People, Covenant and Conversation, Va’etchanan 5772).
Though Rabbi Sacks wrote this thirteen years ago, his words ring even truer today. The continued survival and disproportionate success of the State of Israel over the past eight decades – and especially over the past two years – remind us of Hashem’s role in our lives and the blessed nature of the Jewish people.
May this realization strengthen our pride and reinforce our confidence in our people, in our state, and in the One behind both of their successes.
Rabbi Reuven Taragin is the Dean of Overseas Students at Yeshivat Hakotel and the Educational Director of World Mizrachi and the RZA. His new book, Essentials of Judaism, can be purchased at rabbireuventaragin.com.