“The Lord will disperse you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations where the Lord will lead you” (Deuteronomy 4:27). “When you are in distress, and all these matters befall you in the end of days, you will return to the Lord your God, and you will heed His voice” (Deuteronomy 4:30). The Rabbis said: May the name of the Holy One blessed be He be blessed, as He knows what was and what is destined to be, as it is written: “Telling the outcome from the outset…” (Isaiah 46:10).
How so? In this portion, Moses showed Israel how they are destined to be exiled if they sin, and how they repent, and how they are redeemed. How are they destined to [be exiled if they] sin? As it is written: “You will perform evil in the eyes of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 4:25), and then: “The Lord will disperse you among the peoples.”
And then, “when you are in distress, [and all these matters] befall you…[you will return to the Lord your God]. What is, “when you are in distress”? Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of Rabbi Akiva: Any distress that is experienced by an individual is distress, and any distress that is not experienced by an individual is not distress.45If the entire public is in distress, God will not allow the distress to continue for too long.
This is based on the fact that the verse states “when you [lekha] are in distress” with the singular term lekha rather than the plural lakhem. Another matter: “When you are in distress” – Rabbi Yoḥanan himself said: Any distress in which Israel and the idolaters are partners is distress, and any distress that is of Israel themselves is not distress. Rabbi Yoḥanan expounded: Like their distress in Shushan the citadel, which was confined to Israel, as it is stated: “Great mourning for the Jews” (Esther 4:3).
The Holy One blessed be He immediately caused their salvation to develop. From where is this derived? “For the Jews there was light and joy” (Esther 8:16).