Chosen People Class 2--assimilation

[Tikvah]

If Hashem promised Avraham that his children will stay Jewish how do we account for families that have assimilated to the point that the children are no longer Jewish. Was Hashem promising about individuals or just Am Yisrael as a whole?

Tikvah

[Judy]

I think that there is a promise that the Jewish People wil never disappear, but sadly, there have been many periods in Jewish history when huge segments of the Jewish people were destroyed, either physically, like during the Crusades, Holocaust, or Destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, or spiritually, like during the Spanish Inquisition or the days of the Emancipation in Germany in the late 1800s.  However, we can take comfort in knowing that even neshamot that seem to be lost find their way back to Judaism, if not in this lifetime, than in a future gilgul.  To illustrate, listen to this amazing story:

I know someone, a South American ger tzeddek, living in Israel.  He and his wife bli ayin hara had many children one after the other. Then, although multiple births did not run in either of their families, and they did not use any madical intervention, they were blessed with twins and then quadruplets (yes, they had seven kids under seven!).  The man went to a mekubal, who told him that he is probably descended from Spanish Marranos who escaped to South America.  The neshomos of many of his ancestors who were lost to Judaism wanted to come back and be born as Jews...hence his blessedly large family!
You never know...