[Avodah] Sand and stars

[hankman]

While I had the Chumash Torah Mai'ira open on my computer, I checked
out something else that bothered me in the past. In the bracha that
AA would have children as the stars in the heavens and the sand on the
shores of the sea. The implication is that the huge numbers of grains of
sand and the numbers of stars should be equivalent. I found this to be
a stretch not likely to be true so I looked for other ways to understand
this bracha.

Here are some of the peshatim he brings:

1) Elsewhere the Torah makes the bracha with stars and again elsewhere
with grains of sand, to strengthen this, here the Torah brings both
nimshalim.

2) They should be as large as stars b'ayechus in that each star is
individually large as an entire world, and be many b'kamus, as the number
of grains of sand,

3) the gedolei hadaas among AA's children will shine brightly like the
stars, while the hamon, ie, the gedolei haruach (the hamon who follow
in your footpath in the sand?) to be moser nefesh al kidush Hashem,

4) If they follow in the derech Hashem the He will place rucho upon
them and they will shine on the land like the stars but if they leave
the derech Hashem then they will be like the sand trodden upon by all
and will spread out to the four corners of the Earth like the sand,

5) While the stars are each a great light on their own but they can not
all be brought together in one place or there would be great destruction
to our world so the must remain widely spaced, therefore after the bracha
to be like the stars, Hashem added the bracha to be like the grains of
sand which by their nature are always in large numbers clumped together
be'achdus,

6) Even should they be trodden upon by the nations like the sand on the
shores, nevertheless they will shine as brightly as the stars,

7) they are compared to the stars that they will be a guiding light to
the proper path to the nations, just as the stars are guides to find the
right path in navigation, and they are compared to the sand that they
will endure the constant trials and tribulations of the nations just as
the sand endures despite the constant battering by the waves of the ocean.

Kol Tuv
Chaim Manaster