Moses then tells them what this means: “You may say to yourselves, ‘These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?’ But do not be afraid of them. Remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:17-18).
Israel would be the smallest of the nations for a reason that goes to the very heart of its existence as a nation. They will show the world that a people does not have to be large in order to be great. It does not have to be numerous to defeat its enemies. Israel’s unique history will show that, in the words of the prophet Zechariah (4:6), “ ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
In itself, Israel would be witness to something greater than itself. As former Marxist philosopher Nicolay Berdyayev put it:
I remember how the materialist interpretation of history, when I attempted in my youth to verify it by applying it to the destinies of peoples, broke down in the case of the Jews, where destiny seemed absolutely inexplicable from the materialistic standpoint … Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the processes of adaptation expounded by the materialistic interpretation of history. The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history: all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny.
Moses’s statement has immense implications for Jewish identity. As I’ve spoken about extensively in the past, Jews have had an influence out of all proportion to their numbers because we are all called on to be leaders, to take responsibility, to contribute, to make a difference to the lives of others, to bring the Divine presence into the world. Precisely because we are small, we are each summoned to greatness.
S. Y. Agnon, the great Hebrew writer, composed a prayer to accompany the Mourner’s Kaddish. He noted that the Children of Israel have always been few in number compared to other nations. He then said that when a king rules over a large population, he does not notice when one dies, for there are others to take his or her place. “But our King, the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He … chose us, and not because we are a large nation, for we are one of the smallest of nations. We are few, and owing to the love with which He loves us, each one of us, is for Him, an entire legion. He does not have many replacements for us. If one of us is missing, Heaven forbid, then the King’s forces are diminished, with the consequence that His kingdom is weakened, as it were. One of His legions is gone and His greatness is lessened. For this reason it is our custom to recite the Kaddish when a Jew dies.”
Gandhi said: “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.” That must be our faith as Jews. We may be the fewest of all peoples but when we heed God’s call, we have the ability, proven many times in our past, to mend and transform the world.