The Letter

Blaise Pascal. The king asked for evidence of the supernatural, and Pascal responded: "The Jews, Your Majesty, the Jews!" Jewish history simply doesn't comply with the rest of history; it does not make sense. Mark Twain, an agnostic and a selfacknowledged sceptic, penned this in 1899 in Harper's Magazine: "The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away. The Greek and Roman followed, made a vast noise and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up, and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all... All things are mortal, but the Jew.”

In His Torah, G-d promises that we will be eternal. However, He seemed to make this promise impossible for Himself to keep. The Japanese have been here for over 2,600 years. What was their model for success? Firstly, there are over 125 million of them. Do we have the same strength in numbers? Absolutely not. We have around 15 million – less than 0.2% of the world’s population –the Torah says we will be few in number. Maybe Japan’s longevity comes from being situated in the middle of nowhere. The Mongols tried twice to invade in 1274 and 1281. Both times they were stopped by typhoons. So G-d places our homeland in the middle of… everywhere – Israel is the meeting point of three continents and has four countries along its borders, all of whom want to wipe us off the face of the planet.

G-d predicts that we will be exiled, dispersed, and always hated. I recently heard a recording from a bar in Arizona, where those present were singing Ali-G’s hit single “Throw the Jew Down the Well” with such gusto. I know that I would hate it if they sung: “Throw the midget down the well” – at 5’3” I’m not sure how I would get out. They would never sing about any other race or religion. But it is fine to sing about the Jew.

And by some miracle we survive. Nevertheless, we would expect this surviving Jew to be lying on the floor, bleeding from every orifice, waiting to be kicked in the head again… yet the Jews are a Light Among the Nations. Not just with over a quarter of the Nobel Prizes, incredible inventions, and academic achievements, but also because of the unified and absolute system of morality they bring to the world, authored by none other than the One above.

And all of this was promised and predestined, together with the guarantee of our eternality. As Twain concluded: “What is the secret of his immortality?"

Looking back at our history, one may feel down – no other nation has endured what we have. It was at this time of year during the 11th and 12th centuries that Europe lost between 30 to 50% of its Jewish community at the hands of the crusader mobs. We feel victimised as Jews. We feel lonely.

So on Shavuot night after the meal, we open up that letter from our loving Father in heaven and we relive the connection created over 3,000 years ago. When we study the Torah and inculcate its values into our own lives, we connect with an Eternal Being, becoming eternal ourselves, regardless of what we have challenging our survival. It is then that we are enveloped with that closeness and warmth, and the loneliness leaves. Forever.