Reader Laura writes:
Hey Dave,I often find myself confused as to why anyone would point their fingers and pin blame on an entire people. It’s like waking up one day and deciding, at random, that anyone who speaks (let’s say, Finnish) is evil and out to ruin our world and therefore must be annialated. It’s so absurd that I can’t even believe these people are serious. It’s amazing to what lengths it seems people will go to to try and find a scapegoat for their own shortcomings.
You are right Laura. It is so hard to fathom. But I think the answer lies beyond people’s need to scapegoat. My own personal view? It is all part of G-d’s plan. Anti-Semitism is a tool used by G-d to actually ensure the survival of the Jewish people!
Think about it. If it wasn’t for anti-Semitism, we would have probably died out due to assimilation. Anti-Semitism has ensured that the Jews have stuck together. It has also ensured that we now have a Jewish homeland.
In fact, it is the very verses that Christians use to support their contention that Jesus died for the sins of humanity that actually speak of Jews as the despised people of the world. I am, of course, referring to Isaiah 53*.
1. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2. And he came up like a sapling before it, and like a root from dry ground, he had neither form nor comeliness; and we saw him that he had no appearance that we should have desired him.
3. Despised and forsaken by men, a man of pains and accustomed to illness: and as one who hides his face from us; despised, and we esteemed him not.
4. Indeed, he bore our illnesses, and our pains – he carried them, yet we accounted him as plagued, smitten by God and oppressed.5. But he was pained from our transgressions, crushed from our iniquities; the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his wound we were healed.
6. We all went astray like sheep, we have turned, each one on his own way, and the Lord accepted his prayers for the iniquity of all of us.
7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he would not open his mouth; like a lamb to the slaughter he would be brought, and like a sheep that is mute before her shearers, and he would not open his mouth.8. From imprisonment and from judgment he is taken, and his generation who shall tell? For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, a plague befell them.
9. And he gave his grave to the wicked, and to the wealthy with his kinds of deaths, because he committed no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10. And the Lord wished to crush him, He made him ill; if his soul makes itself restitution, he shall see seed, he shall prolong his days, and God’s purpose shall prosper in his hand.
11. From the toil of his soul he would see, he would be satisfied; with his knowledge My servant would vindicate the just for many, and their iniquities he would bear.
12. Therefore, I will allot him a portion in public, and with the strong he shall share plunder, because he poured out his soul to death, and with transgressors he was counted; and he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.
So, Laura, I think your confusion is justified. The existence of anti-Semitism does not make sense to the rational human mind. But when you think of it the way I have described, it does make sense.
* For more on why these verses are referring to the Jewish people, and not a single person, you can see this previous post of mine.
