 to Me from the ground." (3) The Gemara says that not only Abel's blood was crying out - so too were all his potential descendants who would now never attain life. Kain did not just murder one man, he destroyed millions of lives through his single heinous act. Rav Schwab cites the recent tragic example of this concept in the Holocaust. He says that the Nazis did not kill six million people, rather they murdered untold millions in the form of their descendants who will never live.
So too, the tragedy of the death of the Jews in Egypt was to be its long-term effect - only a small number may have died then, but over the generations, millions were lost. Rav Schwab's explanation provides a whole new perspective to this death of the Jews in Egypt. We know that the reason they died is because they were not on the level to leave Egypt and become part of God's nation that would receive the Torah. Rav Schwab argues that these people must have been completely evil people to have to meet such an end. Based on the fact that they were relatively small in number and were so evil, it seems surprising that the Midrash gives so much emphasis to the long-term consequence of their death. We see from here that the loss of any Jew is cause for unlimited pain, no matter what his beliefs and lifestyle. In addition, there is also the strong possibility that righteous people would descend from them.
The Torah tells us that Moses demonstrated his awareness of this concept; when he saw an Egyptian striking a Jew, the verse says that, "he looked this way and that way but saw no man." (4) Rashi explains that Moses looked into the future to see if any convert would descend from this Egyptian. Moses knew that killing him would have long-term consequences and acted accordingly.
More recently, Rav Shlomo Heimann recognized this to a very high degree; he gave a Torah lecture to dozens of students which was characterized by his energetic style. One day there was heavy snow and only four students attended the lecture, yet Rav Heimann gave the lecture with the same energy as always. His students asked him why he was putting so much effort into teaching such a small number of people. He answered that he was not merely teaching four students, rather all their future descendants and students.
If the rabbis see such a tragedy in the deaths of a few evil people how must we feel when we look at the situation of the Jewish people today? We live in a world where there are very few people who purposely turn their back on Torah or who devote their lives to destroying Torah values. There are millions of Jews who, through no fault of their own, were brought up with no knowledge of Torah and very little sense of the importance of being Jewish. Every day, dozens of Jews intermarry, and their Jewish descendants are lost forever.(5) We are guaranteed that Messiah will come regardless of our spiritual level, therefore the reason that we should reach out to non-religious Jews is not to prevent the destruction of the Jewish nation - there is no fear of that happening. But we want to give every Jew and his potential descendants the chance to remain part of that nation so that they too can be present at the redemption.
May we all be merit to recognize the true value of every Jew and his potential offspring.
1. Beshalach, 13:18.
2. Me'eyn beis hashoeva, Beshalach, 13:18.
3. Bereishis, 4:10.
4. Shemos, 2:11.
5. We all have a vague, intellectual awareness that things are not as they should be but how bad is it? The intermarriage rate in USA in 1950 was 6%, by 1990 it was 52% and rising. 2 million Jews of Jewish origin do not identify themselves as Jews. 2 million self-identified Jews have no Jewish connection whatsoever. For every wedding between two Jews, two intermarriages take place. 625,000 US Jews are now practicing other religions. 11% of US Jews go to shul#. Every day dozens of intermarriages take place which means that in the time it took you to read this, some Jews were lost forever. (it should be noted that since these statistics were taken, the situation has further mark