His Treasured People

Dear Rabbi,

Let's get right to the point. The Third Aliyah is what got me immediately. It states the following:

 "And the Lord has selected you this day to be his treasured people, as He spoke to you, and so that you shall observe all His commandments, and to make you supreme, above all the nations that He made, [so that you will have] praise, a [distinguished] name and glory; and so that you will be a holy people to the Lord, your G-d, as He spoke." 

 There are the Fifth and Sixth Aliyahs that deal with blessings and curses but I submit that the Third Aliyah wraps them both into one.  Allegedly we are the "chosen people" the ones that are "supreme above all the nations" because we are a holy people to the Lord. 

 There can be no greater blessing than to be the supreme, holy chosen people of the Lord, but hasn't this caused us most of our troubles throughout the ages. Be it jealousy, envy, the need to prove the text wrong or a combination of all of the above, all other religions have "chosen" to give Jews grief whenever possible and more to the point would like us to be completely destroyed if possible. 

 Most of the other religions stem from Judaism and at first try to convert us to joint their belief and when we don't we are deemed a pariah and must be eliminated. Not choosing to highlight Catholics, but as recently as this past week, the archives of the Vatican have been opened to reveal the archives of Pope Pius XII and his thoughts on Jews. He has been labeled "Hitler's Pope" and from what has already been unearthed, it is not something his followers can deny. He did nothing to try and help Italian Jews from German concentration camps and death, and apparently encouraged the baptism of Jewish children from France and other countries who were separated from their relatives. 

 You could also equate our "supreme" designation to what is going on in the United States today. Donald Trump rose to power on the heals of the "common people" that thought that they have been mocked and overlooked by the "elite". Whether any of that is true is irrelevant. It is what is perceived that seems to drive people whether there is any validity to their thoughts. 

Shalom,

Mordecai

Dear Mordecai,

You raise challenging issues. Often what I do in situations like this is turn to the Hebrew to see if something can be salvaged so that we’re not relying completely upon the English translation, which sometimes takes liberties with the Hebrew. In this case, I believe the English gets the Hebrew right.

 The center of your question is about G-d. Didn’t G-d build into the Torah itself an idea – chosenness – that provokes the hatred of others. That is not to say that they are right in being provoked, but human nature being what it is, how could G-d expect “the nations” to response otherwise.

 History bears out the truth that the Jewish people are G-d’s treasured people. By now, given all we have survived, we should be able to affirm that – and frankly – others should be able to affirm that too. We are above other nations in the sense that, due to our code of holiness, we have the opportunity to partake of G-d’s essence, which is holiness. While holiness is not available to the same extent to other nations, it is available to individuals. The key for the non-Jew is to not see his salvation in his nation. Rather, his salvation comes through his own efforts to be righteous – hence the term righteous gentile.

 Remember that one of the two major components of antisemitism is mockery. As you put the matter so well: “all other religions have ‘chosen’ to give the Jews grief.” The persecution is both the means of mockery and its end.

 Do you think that we are a chosen people or has the grief the nations have heaped upon us for this title G-d bestowed upon us convinced you otherwise?

Shalom

Rabbi 

Dear Rabbi,

I could go on for a long while on the subject, but we are definitely the "chosen people". History bears that out. The better question is what have we been "chosen" for? A "holy people", a "supreme people" or one that has become the easy scapegoat for other nation's problems. It is true that we have out survived most of the other nations that inhabited and even ruled the World at one time or the other, but it has been at a "supreme" price. We are not a people that is "so numerous as the stars in the heaven" as predicted, and we have the bloody scars of history to prove it. Maybe we have not lived up to G-d's vision of what we are supposed to amount to, but his "guidance" into what he wants is not that clear.  The Holocaust is but the latest example but you can go to the beginning and ask what did Moses have to do to be allowed into the Holy Land?

Shalom,

Mordecai

Dear Mordecai,

We have been chosen to create humanity. In us is instantiated the vision of human beings as created in the image of G-d. The attacks on us are attacks on G-d Himself. Since He is inaccessible to human assaults, we as His people are assaulted. The Holocaust clearly is always at the surface of your consciousness as it is in mine. The Holocaust is the defining event in human history. There are really two important events: 1) The revelation at Sinai and 2) the Holocaust. Every moral claim that is made in our society at some level derives from the example of the Holocaust. Was this too high a price? I cannot speak on behalf of the six million murdered. If you consider our people in the light of millennia, we have been as "numerous as the stars."