e 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 markedly deteriorated.