The Infinite Value of a Jew: Why Every Soul and Every Moment Matters to God

The Kli Yakar writes: “Every Jew is watched over with Divine providence… and even a single one of them is considered as an entire nation.” (Numbers 1:1)

Rabbi Tauber expands on this idea, teaching that the entire purpose of creation can be fulfilled through even one Jew. God created the world in order to bestow goodness upon His creatures, and this goal can be realized through a single individual. The most essential point for us is to recognize that we are extremely precious to God.

A person must engrave this in his heart: I, with all my failures in both spirituality and material life, am still as valuable and significant in God’s eyes as an entire world. (Of course, this does not remove our responsibility to work on ourselves, but it is moving to know that God’s love for us is not conditional.) Every single moment of my life is so precious that, for its sake, God is willing to sustain the whole world. This is what we declare each morning in the blessings of Birkot HaShachar: “You preserve it within me.” God Himself guards my soul within my body, which is proof that I am immensely important to Him!

God Delights in Every Jew

Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin writes: “Just as a person must believe in God, so afterward he must believe in himself. Meaning, he must believe that God has a relationship with him, and that he is not some meaningless existence that appears one night and is gone the next. Rather, he must believe that his soul comes from the Source of Life, blessed be His Name, and that God delights and takes pleasure in him…” (Tzidkat HaTzadik 154).

We must recognize our worth! Each of us has a soul from the Source of Life — God Himself, and He delights in us. When we grasp the importance of every Jew, we also begin to appreciate how valuable each moment of a Jew’s life truly is.

The Value of a Single Moment

It is not only that God needs every Jew; He also treasures every single moment of every Jew’s life, each carrying a purpose beyond our comprehension.

Shortening someone’s life, even by one minute, is considered murder. Even in the case of a comatose patient, if one shortens his life by removing medical support and hastening death even by a minute, it is regarded as destroying a soul. One extra moment of life is infinitely precious to God, because in that moment the person still has what to accomplish in this world. Conversely, sustaining that life even for a moment, is considered as if one sustained an entire world.

Pikuach Nefesh Overrides Everything

The laws of pikuach nefesh (saving a life) also illustrate how precious every moment is. The Chofetz Chaim (in his commentary to Orach Chaim 329) explains from Jewish law that even if there is doubt whether a child is Jewish, if he needs medical care on Shabbat, one must violate Shabbat to save him. At that moment, even the greatest Torah scholars are obligated to leave their Torah, their prayers, and their holy Shabbat tables, roll up their sleeves, and rush to save that child.

The life of a Jew — even a doubtful Jew, is of such infinite value before God, even if that person “does nothing”, the world itself is worth sacrificing for him. We are far too small to fathom the sanctity of a Jewish life!

So great is this sanctity that the most central mitzvot are suspended for it. The Torah says: “But you shall keep My Sabbaths… for I, the Lord, sanctify you” (Exodus 31:13). The Chatam Sofer explains: building the Tabernacle is suspended for Shabbat, and Shabbat is suspended for saving a life — to show that a Jewish soul is more precious than the Temple itself. How great is God's love for His people!

A Moment of Life Holds Eternity

Rabbi Tauber illustrates this with the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya, who committed nearly every sin imaginable, yet in a single moment of true repentance corrected an entire lifetime.

How did he merit to “acquire his world in one hour”? When he heard that his sins were so severe that perhaps his repentance would not be accepted, it shook him to his core. In that moment, he realized that if he was lost, then it meant God was losing an entire world. He grasped how deeply it would “matter” to God, who had waited so long for him to return. That realization ignited in him an overwhelming love for God, greater than concern for his own fate. He cried and wept until his soul departed.

This was teshuvah me’ahavah — repentance from love, about which the Talmudic Sages said that one’s deliberate sins become transformed into merits. In a single moment, he brought back to life every “dead” moment of his past, turning them into eternal life.

To understand this, imagine a wanted criminal whose mother has been weeping endlessly because she cannot see him. When the son hears of her grief, his natural love for her overwhelms him. He says: “I cannot cause my mother such pain. I will go see her no matter the cost — even if it means being caught.” He willingly walks into the trap, just to relieve her sorrow.

That was the repentance of Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya. In one instant of pure love and return, he gave meaning to an entire lifetime of sins.