The Eternal Jewish People: Why Israel Survives Against All Odds

Every year on Passover we read a passage in the Haggadah, written by the Sages, that feels strikingly relevant in every generation:

“And it is this that has stood for our ancestors and for us: For not only one enemy has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.”

What exactly is the “this” that stands for us and our ancestors? It refers to God’s promise to Abraham in the Covenant Between the Parts — that God will always save us from the nations that seek to destroy us. 

The very survival of the Jewish people, against all logic, is itself proof — to us and to the world, of God’s love for His people and His miraculous protection.

The Torah’s Promise of Eternity

The Torah promises that the Jewish people are eternal and will never be destroyed: ​“Yet even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them nor will I abhor them to destroy them, to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God” (Vayikra 26:44).

The Jewish nation has endured persecutions, conquests, pogroms, inquisitions, exile to foreign lands, the Holocaust, endless wars, but still, Am Yisrael Chai (the people of Israel live).

Great empires have risen and vanished: the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and more. But the Jewish people — small in number, exiled from their homeland for 2,000 years, scattered across the world, and repeatedly targeted for annihilation, continue to live and endure, against all odds.

By natural probability, such a nation should not have survived. And yet, prophecy continues to be fulfilled. As the Russian author Leo Tolstoy once wrote: “The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”

What Historians and Thinkers Observed

Historians and philosophers across cultures have also been astonished:

• Arnold Toynbee, one of the greatest historians of the 20th century who studied the rise and fall of civilizations, wrote: “The preservation of national identity by a people without political independence, without a common spoken language, dispersed across the globe, and enduring relentless persecution — this is such an irrational phenomenon that every historian stands amazed before it.”

• Prof. George Friedman, a French sociologist and historian, wrote: “The Jewish people have a history unlike any other nation. I once wrote that the Jews are an accident of history — something that does not conform to the accepted rules of history.”

• Mark Twain, the American writer and journalist, reflected: “The Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians rose, filled the world with sound and splendor, and then faded into twilight. The Greeks and Romans followed, made a vast noise, and disappeared. Other nations have sprung up, held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they now sit in the shadows or are gone altogether. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was. He exhibits no decadence, no weakening of his faculties, no dulling of alertness. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

• Nikolai Berdyaev, the Russian philosopher, wrote:
  “According to materialist and positivist criteria, this nation should have disappeared from the earth. Its existence is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon, testifying that the life of this people is governed by a higher decree.”

The Miracle of Jewish Survival

The survival of the Jewish people — despite all logic and probability, is yet another undeniable proof of the supernatural element within the Jewish nation, of God’s reality, and of the divine truth found in the Torah of Israel.