This week’s Torah reading of Naso includes what might be Judaism’s oldest prayer (Numbers 6:22-27): the priestly benediction, which for many Jews is still part of the liturgy, and is also incorporated in the blessing parents give children on the Sabbath eve. Consisting of three simple verses, it is to be delivered by the kohanim—the priestly descendants of Aaron—to the people. Yitz Greenberg explains its significance:

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik calls our attention to [a] unique and special requirement for blessing the people. To be valid—to fulfill the mitzvah—the priests must give the blessing with love. This is stated in the preamble blessing the priests recite before uttering the actual words of the blessing itself: “Blessed are you Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aaron and commanded us to bless His people, Israel, with love.” Soloveitchik points out that there is no other blessing on a commandment that specifies that one must do it with love in order for it to be valid.

To understand this requirement of love, we must analyze again the nature of the blessing and who is giving it. . . . The priests have no independent power of bestowing blessings to serve as a kind of amulet for people. And yet, the sense of direct connection to God—the channels [through which Divine blessing flow to mankind]—are “lost” or obscured by all the sensations and experiences of daily life. . . . Evil, death, and injustice also block the connection. As it were, they dam up the flow of love, and distract individuals from penetrating the surface to meet the divine ground in which everything exists.

It takes a tremendous effort for the priest to overcome the self-centeredness, envy, or begrudging of the other that operates in day-to-day life. But if the effort is made and the love “plugged in” then, a finite, flawed human receptacle can pass on and channel the unlimited love of the Infinite God and the delight which the Lord feels in every display of life’s capacities and human goodness. Thus, the liturgical apparatus strengthens the forces of life and the vitality of life in the world.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.