Forget the impossible and reach for the stars
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are on safari in Africa. One night, Holmes wakes Watson. “Watson,” he says, “look up. What do you see?”
“I see a beautiful, starry night,” Watson replies.
“And what do you see, Holmes?”
Holmes sighs. “Watson, I see that someone has stolen our tent!”
In this week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, Abraham is deeply troubled. He and his wife, Sarah, have no child, and the future he had hoped for seems impossible. This is how G-d responds to Abraham’s concerns:
“And He took him [Abraham] outside and said, ‘Please look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Genesis 15:5).
The midrash looks past the simple meaning of G-d taking Abraham outside to see the stars. Of course, Abraham had to leave his tent to see the night sky. But the midrash hears something deeper: G-d took Abraham outside his ordinary expectations, beyond the limits that nature and circumstance had imposed.
In effect, G-d was telling Abraham, “You see only what seems possible from where you are standing. By nature, you and Sarah may be old and infertile, but I will lift you above your natural limitations, and you will father a great nation.”
• • •
My late father traced his lineage to the great Chassidic master Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Ger, the Chidushei HaRim, who drew a further lesson from the promise “So shall your descendants be.” Just as Abraham was raised above what seemed to be his natural destiny, so too would his descendants, the Jewish people, repeatedly find themselves lifted past the limits of nature and the finite.
The Jewish story has always demanded that we look beyond the immediate facts. We are a small people. We have known exile and upheaval. Again and again, the sensible prediction was that we would disappear. And yet here we are—still living Jewish lives, learning Torah, building families, creating communities and finding new ways to bring Jewish life to the next generation.
There is a story about a great tidal wave set to submerge the entire world in 30 days. The Catholics gather in Rome to confess their sins. The Protestants convene to consider how they might repent before meeting their Maker. And the Jews assemble at the Western Wall, where their leaders proclaim: “Jews, we have 30 days to learn how to live underwater!”
Of course, it’s a joke, but Jewish resilience is no joke. We don’t give up, even when the odds look impossible. Jewish hope does not pretend that danger is unreal. Abraham knew his circumstances. He knew the years had passed and that his wife was barren. Faith did not ask him to ignore reality. It invited him to look beyond reality’s apparent final word.
The birth of Isaac was a miracle: a child born to parents who had given up hope of having one. The Torah contrasts Isaac’s story with Ishmael’s. Ishmael was born to Abraham and Hagar quite naturally; Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah when the promise seemed beyond reach. The contrast reminds us that Jewish life is extraordinary—and that sometimes, what looks impossible becomes the beginning of a new chapter.
• • •
The same spirit runs through Jewish history. The rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland, following the devastation of the Holocaust, is one of the most remarkable chapters of modern times. A land once described as desolate has been renewed through courage, hard work, creativity and faith. Israel’s story is not free of danger or difficulty, but its very existence, and the determination of its people to build and protect it, speak to a power of renewal that defies the natural order.
David Ben-Gurion is often credited with saying, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” We continue to defy logic, flourishing despite existential threats from our neighbors and from enemies far beyond our borders.
The most recent miracle was, of course, flydubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which landed safely last month after a pilot attacked his co-pilot in the cockpit and the plane plunged thousands of feet before passengers and crew regained control.
And the stars in Abraham’s sky teach us something personal, too. G-d does not merely tell Abraham that his descendants will be numerous; He asks him to look up. The stars are a call to wonder—and to imagine a future larger than his fear.
We know the stars are beyond counting, but ask your child or grandchild to look up and count them, and they will start: “One, two, three…” As a people, we may not be able to count the stars either, but we still try. That is the Jewish instinct: to reach toward what is greater than ourselves — not because success is guaranteed, but because we know that when it comes to Jewish survival, nothing is impossible.
• • •
Each of us may face moments when the numbers don’t work, when logic says, “Don’t try,” and when our circumstances seem to define our destiny. Genesis reminds us that we need not accept those limitations as the whole story.
We can look up. We can take the next step. We can bring light, courage and hope even into situations that seem hopeless.
We are a people born of that promise made beneath the stars. May we have the faith to see beyond the tent, and the courage to keep going when the odds seem daunting.
We are founded on the miraculous, and each of us has been endowed by G-d with the capacity for the infinite.
Let’s never be deterred by the math, the logic or the laws of nature. Let’s keep going for broke. Let’s keep reaching for the stars. And, please G-d, like Abraham, we will.
Rabbi Yossy Goldman is Life Rabbi Emeritus of the Sydenham Shul in Johannesburg, president of the South African Rabbinical Association.
