Why were the Jewish people scattered among the nations?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that the Jewish exile is a mission, not a failure. “Exile is not where a nation is sent after it fails. It's where a nation is sent because it cannot fail.”
He grounds it in the words of the Navi: “I called you in righteousness and made you a covenant for the people, a light for the nations.” In his words, “we were not scattered to survive the world.” The Jewish people were sent, not with armies but with presence, to carry holiness into broken economies, corrupted courts and godless streets.
That changes how the history is read. “That's not a tragedy,” he says, “that's an assignment.”
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau notes that the verse says “I have given you,” not “I sent you away.” He brings the Sages' teaching that Hashem sent the Jewish people into exile among the nations so that converts would join them, and explains that the scattering is about sorting out the good in every corner of the world and lifting it up.
Related concepts: A mission with your name on it · Giving up is not peace
In A Soul at Peace: Seeking Hashem From Right Where You Are
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Exile is where a nation is sent because it cannot fail.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the place that looks like distance is the very place the people were sent to, as a light for the nations.
Deepest human truth
The scattering is not a tragedy but an assignment: to bring holiness into every place.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Faith, Providence, and the Jewish Destiny · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz