Israel Resists the Lure of the Nations

R. Abba bar Kahana said, It is like a king who took a certain woman to be his wife. He wrote her a very large marriage contract. “So many bridal chambers will I make for you,” he wrote her. “So many jewels will I bestow upon you, so much silver and gold will I give you.” Then he left her for many years while he journeyed to a distant province. All this time her neighbors taunted her. “Has your husband not abandoned you?” they said. “Go! Take another man for yourself.” The woman wept and sighed, but then she would go inside her bridal chamber, read her marriage contract, and console herself. Many days and years later, the king returned. “You amaze me!” he said to her. “How have you been able to wait for me all these years?” She replied, “My Lord, O King! If not for the generous marriage contract you wrote me, my neighbors would indeed have led me astray.”

So the nations of the world vex the children of Israel. “Your God no longer wants you,” they say. “He has abandoned you, and removed His Presence from among you. Come! Join us, and we will appoint you rulers and commanders and generals.” But the children of Israel enter their synagogues and houses of study where they read in the Torah: For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you . . . and I will set my tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you (Leviticus 26:9, 11)—and so they console themselves. And in the future, when the redemption arrives, the Holy One will say to Israel, “My children, you amaze me! How have you waited for me all these years?” They will reply, “Master of the universe! If not for the Torah you gave us, and the verse, For I will have respect unto you and I shall not abhor you, which we read when we entered our synagogues and houses of study, the nations of the world would indeed have led us astray.” This is what is written: If Your law had not been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction (Psalm 119:92). And therefore it says: This I recalled to my mind, therefore I have hope (Lamentations 3:21).