Let My People Know

"We are the witnesses"

 

Why should we continue? 

I may give certain reasons, and other people may give many other ones. 

But one of those reasons is written in the Book of Isaiah, and in the midrash that follows. 

The verse states: "You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God" (43:12). 

And the midrash there makes an awesome statement: "So long as you are there as my witnesses, I am the Lord; if you are no longer there as my witnesses, I am no longer the Lord" (Sifri Deuteronomy 346). 

This is why we must persist, and this is our position as long as we are here: 

We are still the witnesses. 

We not only maintain our own existence, but we also keep God in the world. 

And this is something worth doing.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "The State of the Nation," an essay by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz