Two Witnesses

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More words from Rabbi Yaakov Emden (200 years ago, quoted in Masoret Yisrael edition of Duties of the Heart end of gate 10):

The sign of the truth of these things are from two faithful, visible, witnesses:

One, our situation and survival in this long exile, which the Creator fulfilled His promise: "But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the L-ord their G-d" (Lev. 26:44)...

Two, the matter of our land, because from the day we went out of it, no nation was able to dwell in it, it was like a woman who's husband went on a faraway trip, and she waits for him, and the verse "I will make the Land desolate, so that it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it" (Lev. 26:32), tells us it is guarded for us...all this are clear signs that our hope is not lost and G-d's love has not left us, and on this eternal love is based Shir Hashirim, and just like G-d loves us a strong love, "Torrents of water are not able to extinguish the love" (Songs 8:7), so too it is our duty to show our powerful and complete love, like "As water reflects a face back to a face, so one's heart is reflected back to him by another" Prov. 27:19)

Rabbi Matityahu Solomon, the Mashgiach of the Lakewood Yeshiva in New Jersey also brings down a different version of Rabbi Emden's argument in his commentary to the Duties of the Heart, Gate 2 ch.5:

We do not need to contemplate on the great miracles of the Exodus, in order to examine and demonstrate G-d's goodness and infinite power. For behold, we have a faithful witness which cannot be denied - our survival during this exile among the nations. It is proper to quote the holy words of Rabbi Yaakov Emden (sidur beit kel):
"Who is so blind as to not see the divine providence below, that His eyes are on them always. How could the denier of providence not be ashamed and stand disgraced? He who examines our unique situation and standing in the world. We the exiled nation, a dispersed sheep. After all the troubles and shifts for two thousands years. No nation in the world is as pursued as us. How great have been our troubles! How powerful have been those who lifted their heads against us from our earliest beginnings - to exterminate us, root us out, and eradicate us, due to their intense hatred which stems from jealousy. They have brought on us great sufferings but were never able to triumph over us, to eliminate us and destroy us. All these ancient, powerful nations - have gone by, their strength has withered, their protection has eroded - but we who cling to G-d are all alive today (Deut. 4:4). We have not lost in this long, intense exile even a single letter or vowel of the written Torah. The words of the Sages (oral law) endured. The hand of time did not prevail over us, they were not able to prevail over us. What will the sharp philosopher answer to this? Can the hand of chance do all this? I swear by my soul, for when contemplating these things, they are greater in my eyes than all the great open miracles G-d has performed for our forefathers in Egypt, the Sinai Desert, and in the land of Israel. The longer the exile, the more the miracle is confirmed, and G-d's strength and power becomes apparent. For the prophets already saw the exile's intensity, complaining and moaning on its amazing protracted length before it happened. Behold, none of their words fell to the ground (failed to happen)..." End quote
(Rabbi Solomon continues) As Moshe Rabeinu told us from the outset that such and such as trouble would befall us, and thus it happened. Likewise, for all of our exile - the prophets already predicted what will happen. For all the persecutions and pursuits that befell us, such as the holocaust, it is all spelled out in the verses of the Torah which speak on those times... Can we not see these things with our own eyes?! Behold, only by examining and contemplating is it possible to see them. Without contemplating them, we remain totally blind.

Comment: this amazing phenomena is especially manifest in our times as Rabbi Chaim Jachter (Rabbis.org) wrote in a paper:

Rav Yehuda Amital (Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion) often commented that some future historians will likely cast grave doubts on the authenticity of the story of a downtrodden people, who lost a third of its people within six years, who, three years later, managed to reestablish its homeland by winning a war fought on multiple fronts which at times even was won by throwing seltzer bottles from planes and firing fake cannons..

In particular, Israel's survival in its first two months of existence when it had hardly any air force or armored corps and managed to survive and often emerge victorious through the use of using seltzer bottles as bombs and ineffective cannons which made a very loud noise such as the Davidka, was clearly an act of G-d and eerily reminiscent of Shamgar ben Anat's victory using cattle prods (Joshua 3:31).

A view of the map of the nascent Jewish State in May 1948, reveals the terrible vulnerability of our people and deepens one's appreciation for G-d's hand in our surviving an attack from all sides.

Even mighty nations such as the ancient Assyrians, ancient Greeks and modern day Nazi Germany could not withstand an attack on two fronts. We, on the other hand, managed to survive a war fought on three fronts with hardly any weapons and a rag tag army that had just emerged from the underground on the day Israel declared independence. The only reasonable explanation of Israel's survival is the subtle hand of the one "Who peers behind the latticework".

If you ask, how can you say that billions of gentiles are wrong?
Answer: As Rabbi Daniel Mechanic says in an excellent video, "The Truth of Judaism - Conversations with Hollywood Stars":

It is true that there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who believe in their own religion, and many of them are brilliant and have PHDs in philosophy, and are much smarter than me. But number of believers are irrelevant to authenticating the veracity of a story. And here is the proof: the fact is that there are 1 billion Christians claiming that whoever does not believe that G-D said "Jesus is the greatest prophet of all time" is wrong, while 2 billion Moslems claim that whoever does not believe that G-D said "Mohammed is the greatest prophet of all time" is wrong. Since, the two claims cannot be true simultaneously, I just proved that billions of people can mistakenly believe a story took place, when it did not! So how do you know a story is true? Not by how many people BELIEVE the story took place, but rather how many people WITNESSED the story take place.

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