From the Orthodox Union.
The Jewish people are no strangers to uncertainty. Avraham Avinu looked out to the dark desert sky wondering how G-d could possibly fulfill His promise to provide Avraham with progeny and a nation, but G-d pleaded with Avraham to stop looking around at the darkness and hopelessness he felt encompassed by and instead raise his eyes to the stars. Rav Shimon Schwab suggests that in directing Avraham’s attention to the stars above, which began shining ages past, and still glow, G-d was conveying to Avraham that the arc of Jewish history is long, but it bends towards salvation.
Rav Moshe Shapiro highlights the impossibility of calculating the stars, “can they be counted?” Our legacy is one of doing the impossible, of rebuilding after destruction, of defying all the odds, and of stubbornly aiming for our goals, as distant as they may seem, because ultimately, they will be attained.
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Genesis 15:5
“And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.”
Genesis 22:17-18
“That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”