Is the concept of a 'chosen nation' inherently unfair?

Membership of any kind of elite club or select society is often designed to boost the status and egos of those fortunate enough to possess it - while leaving those excluded peering curiously and sometimes even enviously over their shoulder. When it comes to the elite club established by God, such inbuilt inequality can often prompt pointed and difficult questions:

Why did God desire and establish such a two-tiered system in which the apparently privileged “Chosen Nation” enjoys such a significant hereditary advantage over their unchosen counterparts?

Judaism Reclaimed addresses this question on the basis of Seforno’s commentary to a verse (32:7) in yesterday’s Torah reading – as developed by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Seforno, like other commentators, understands parashat Ha’azinu to represent a poetic progression through human history as seen from God’s perspective.

In Seforno’s telling, God’s initial and ideal plan was for all of humanity to join together as a single society to serve God and implement a thriving moral and spiritual society. As explained by Rav Hirsch, it was only the repeated failures – such as those of the generations of the flood and tower of Babel – which necessitated a recalibration of the divine plan. This was because, while a single cohesive society could, in theory, unite more effectively to further God’s will, at the same time this also created a commensurate potential for evil to be spread quickly across human society.

When God promised, in the aftermath of the flood, that He would never again bring about worldwide destruction, this led to the splintering of human society into different countries, cultures and languages. From this point, evil could be more easily isolated – as seen in the instance of Sodom – but so too would the effective implementation of God’s moral and spiritual teachings be isolated to specific worthy communities.

The opening chapter of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi’s Kuzari develops the idea that, for God’s purpose in creation to be realised, a broadly righteous and morally functioning society needed to be established which could receive God’s teachings and then successfully transmit it throughout the generations – to its own descendants and also, eventually to the entire humanity. The Kuzari relates that, in the 20 generations between Adam and Avraham, there was a steady supply of righteous individuals who taught this new mission with which humanity had been charged. However, these individuals were unable to influence the world around them by spreading this message and building a society based upon its values.

In subsequent chapters, Judaism Reclaimed continues to develop this idea of the nature and role of the Chosen Nation – including a teaching of the Rambam that the spiritual achievements of the Avot led to such a powerful providential overflow that it was even able to guide the fortunes of their descendants. Ultimately, as is also demonstrated, membership of the Chosen Nation is not solely a privilege but, in reality, a double-edged sword. The heightened providential focus which facilitates our ability to carry God’s torch and be a light unto the nations also means that, when we fall short, this attracts more immediate and intense divine correction.

Finally, the more universalist approach of Rav Hirsch, Rambam and the Seforno also informs their interpretations of prophecies which concern the messianic era. Having recognised that the humanity’s ideal is for the entire world to join to serve God, these commentators emphasise the prophecies which see all of humanity unite to serve God.

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The parashah -- from Bilaam's perspective

The chapter of Judaism Reclaimed that relates to parashat Balak examines Bilaam and Balak’s motive to harm the Jewish people in the context of the broader concept of Jewish ancestral merit.

At the start of the parashah we learn that Bilaam wanted to accept Balak’s request that he curse Israel but that God was unwilling for him to do so. Did Bilaam – who is understood to have possessed a profound understand of divine matters – really believe that he could change God's mind and be granted permission to curse His chosen people? Bilaam knew that God had chosen the Jewish people and performed exceptional miracles for their benefit. If, as Bilaam himself stated, he was aware that he “could not override God's will”, even for a “small matter”, how are we to understand Bilaam’s motivation and intentions in embarking upon such a foolish mission?

Let us try to examine the position of the Jewish people at that time from Bilaam's perspective. Having left Egypt and received the Torah, the Jews became bogged down for the best part of 40 years as a result of repeated sinning against God. God had proposed more than once to Moshe that the Jewish people should be abandoned and rebuilt solely through him, and even Moshe's own negative responses to those proposals did not go so far as to suggest that the Jewish people were indeed worthy.

Furthermore, in the book of Devarim we find that Moshe himself clearly tells the people not to imagine that they are worthy to enter the land. They are only entering the land of Israel because of the wickedness of other nations, and in fulfilment of the covenant God made with Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.

Perhaps Bilaam is therefore working on a reasonable assumption. He is essentially relying on the proposition that the Jews bear no special qualities in their own right; they are simply hanging on to the meritorious coat-tails of the Avot.

Throughout the parashah we see symbolic allusions between Bilaam and the Avot. To start with, Balak tells Bilaam "Whoever you bless will be blessed, whoever you curse will be cursed", which is exactly what God tells Avraham. Other echoes from the book of Bereishit are Bilaam's saddling his donkey, three appearances of an angel (which Rashi sees as an allusion to the Avot themselves), and most importantly the korbanot through which Bilaam seeks to exceed the Zechut Avot (the benefits to which the Jewish people are entitled by virtue of the meritorious conduct of their forefathers). The Midrash makes this last point crystal clear: Bilaam offered more korbanot than the Avot, the message to God being: "I can offer more korbanot than the Jewish people, and the 70 nations combined can offer more than a single nation".

Bilaam is said to be the representative prophet of the 70 non-Israelite nations. We may view him as being their ambassador, representing their interests here by saying that the 70 nations are no less worthy of His favour than is Israel.

Bilaam is not the only prophet in Tanach who is prepared to initiate a course of action that is not ordered by God. We also see Yonah go beyond the bounds of acceptability, disobeying God out of concern that the contrition of the non-Jews of Nineveh would reflect badly on the unrepentant Jews. Could the conduct of Bilaam and God’s response be seen as some kind of parallel by going too far in order to represent the interests of the 70 nations? In both cases God's primary response is to guide and educate the errant prophet, rather than to punish.

God’s emphatic response to Bilaam’s claims is contained in his subsequent prophecies. The Jews still “dwell apart” and are not “reckoned among the nations” on account of their continuing patriarchal merit. Presumably this means that the Jews are not to be compared with other nations, even when they sin. God is thus telling Bilaam that, despite the Jewish people’s poor recent track record, they are still His chosen people and will remain so. He is also rebutting a claim which would be revisited throughout history – that the Jews had lost their status as chosen nation as a result of sin.

The chapter proceeds with an assessment of the nature and theological legitimacy of national ancestral merit determining the fortunes of later generations.

First posted to Facebook 24 June 2021, here.

Holy nation and biblical interpretation

The episode of Korach’s insurrection against Moshe and his authority provides a platform for Rabbi S. R. Hirsch to analyse the concept of the Israelites as a “holy nation” – a point emphasised by Korach:

"the entire congregation are all holy and have God in their midst, and why have you elevated yourself over the community of God?"

Rav Hirsch suggests that it was an unwillingness to submit to the authority of Moshe and his hierarchical structure that lay at the heart of Korach’s rebellion. Korach’s error was to confuse destiny with reality. The Jewish people had certainly been spoken of as “anshei kodesh” – a holy nation, but this meant only that they had been set aside for a holy purpose, to aspire and raise themselves towards holiness by dedicating themselves to God and His Torah. In this light it is important that the Torah writes “anshei kodesh tiheyun li” and kedoshim tiheyu – you shall be holy rather than are (kedoshim atem). Judaism represents a mission and instruction to use the tools which we have been granted to become holy rather than being a statement of fact that we are automatically and inherently superior.

As well as the implications of this teaching for the question of how the Torah views the differential between Jews and non-Jews (a topic I plan to return to next week), the claim that the entire nation is equally qualified as holy represented a serious threat. Midrashim hint to this by depicting Korach as challenging Moshe on details of commandments such as tsitsit and mezuzah:

Korach sprang forth and said to Moshe: ‘if a garment is entirely colored with sky-blue tekhelet dye, is it or is it not exempt from the obligation of tzitzit?’ Said Moshe: ‘it is nevertheless obligated in tzitzit!’ Korach then retorted: ‘if a garment that is colored entirely with sky-blue tekhelet dye cannot exempt itself, shall four small threads then exempt it?!’

As I point out in Judaism Reclaimed, the sort of details chosen by the Midrash are those which do not appear in the simple peshat reading of the passage. Moshe has already been promised at Sinai that “they will believe you forever” so it is unlikely that Korach is challenging the authenticity of the basic laws taught by Moshe.

Rather they belong to the second, interpretative layer based on logic of the interpreter and hermeneutic tools. The sort of details that, as Rambam teaches in his introduction to the Mishneh, were delegated to the sages of each generation to legislate through the Sanhedrin. What Korach is challenging according to this approach is the fundamental question of authority over the oral tradition and legal interpretation of the Torah – a claim which was repeated in different form by the Sadducees centuries later. Asked what would become of the Torah if the Sanhedrin and its sages are destroyed, the Sadducee responds: “‘it is rolled up and lying in the corner: whoever wishes to study. Let him go and study!’” [Kiddushin 66a]

What the author of the midrash may be conveying is that, if Korach were to have his way and the entire congregation viewed as equally holy, this would mean that they are all uniformly entitled to interpret the written Torah to produce laws as they see fit. In this view, Korach’s assertions drew an emphatic response from God: a miraculous phenomenon to demonstrate unambiguously that his claims were unfounded and that, in the words of Moshe “the one chosen by God - "he is the holy one".

First posted on Facebook 26 June 2022, here.

Chosen models and model societies

The notion of chosenness – that God selected one preferred nation from the entire humanity – is a central theme that runs through the Torah. Taking a step back this is not a simple concept to understand: why would God have sought only one nation to be the bearers of His word?

Judaism Reclaimed tackles this topic in several of its chapters, starting with parashat Noach. The sin of Adam and Eve, understood in various ways by the classic commentators, impacted humanity and its ability to perceive and relate to God. Midrashim indicate that the role of the Torah was to guide mankind back to its previously idyllic state in the Garden of Eden. This, however, would be no quick fix.

In order for humanity to succeed in this new stage, it needed to form and maintain a viable society which could allow it to receive and transmit these laws and teachings which God wished to reveal. The formation of such a community, which could become loyal to God, is of particular importance in the approach to religion taken in the Kuzari and Rabbi S. R. Hirsch; both emphasise the vital importance of collectively experienced revelation in the process of establishing a reliable tradition of knowledge of God.

Parashat Noach proceeds to record the initial failed efforts to accommodate this new mission, first in Noach’s generation and then many centuries later at the Tower of Babel, failures which would lead to a further restructuring of the divine plan for humanity. Noach lived in the tenth generation after the Creation, halfway between Adam and Eve, who had squandered the opportunities initially afforded by their privileged status, and Avraham who sought and rediscovered God.

In the first chapter of the Kuzari, R’ Yehudah Halevi relates that, in the 20 generations between Adam and Avraham, there was a steady supply of righteous individuals who taught this new mission with which humanity had been charged. However, these individuals were unable to influence the world around them by spreading this message and building a society based upon its values.

Rav Hirsch understands parashat Noach to be describing the first attempts of mankind to develop a universal cohesive community which could potentially have fulfilled this function of collectively receiving and reliably transmitting God’s word. Noach's generation failed as a society because of the selfishness of individuals. A midrashdescribes how people deviously stole amounts that were so trivially small that they would be beneath the lower limit for invoking the jurisdiction of the courts. This is the kind of underhanded greed that erodes societal cohesion, nullifying the benefits conferred by the community.

The attempt of the generation of the Tower of Babel to build a community, by contrast, suffered from the opposite problem, placing an over-emphasis on the interests of the community at the expense of the individual. Another midrash depicts vividly how this apparently unified and caring society was more concerned with the loss of building materials than by the death of any of its individual members. Rav Hirsch derives from a close reading of the Torah’s text the notion that the Tower of Babel was intended as a monument to the absolute importance of the community. But this was a community which crushed rather than enhanced the potential of its individuals in a manner which may remind the modern reader of the 20th century societies that sought to enforce the collective principles of Communism.

These failures to construct a society which could advance humanity's mission resulted, writes Rav Hirsch, in the fragmentation of the world's population into a multiplicity of nations, each with its own language and culture.

In an ideal world, mankind would have served God collectively as a single unified society. After the failure of the generation of the flood, however, and God’s assurance that mankind would never again face annihilation, the world's population had to be dispersed and then kept apart, thereby removing its potential to deserve a second collective fate. God therefore fortified his promise to Noach by introducing a significant change of nature, as the world splintered into distinct countries, climates and continents. As R’ Hirsch eloquently put it:

“Never again does God want to destroy mankind. Rather, He wants to educate humanity through its experiences, to self-knowledge and knowledge of God. Nevermore will mankind as a whole be allowed to sink to the ultimate depths of degradation reached by the generation that had perished. Therefore, mankind must be dispersed, lest the human species, gradually spreading over the earth, constitute but one single family, in which corruption festering at one end would quickly infect the whole… In order for this educational plan to be possible, the earth emerged from its devastation in a different form, diversified in climate and soil, intersected by a web of seas and rivers, mountains and deserts.”

This disintegration of the previously united world community was completed by the split of languages and cultures following the failure at the Tower of Babel. Following this geophysical and cultural realignment, fulfilment of man’s mission would now necessarily be reassigned to one specific group, and the Avot succeeded in forging the only nation that was both sufficiently interested and suited to this task.

The dispersion of human civilisation across a wide range of places and cultures may have prevented a repeat of the flood’s devastation, but it also correspondingly lowered mankind’s potential for perfection. Rambam describes in numerous places how peace and justice are prerequisites if people are to be able to focus on developing their character and intellect to achieve the restoration of Gan Eden’s ‘ultimate perfection’. The natural consequence of this fragmentation, however, was to create rivalry and warfare, which would inevitably disrupt the efforts of any single society to fulfil mankind’s mission.

First posted to Facebook 23 October 2022, here.

Israel alone and isolated -- unique and blessed

The front cover image of the latest edition of The Economist accurately reflects the reality for Israel in the world at this time. The United Nations, whose organisations and employees have been complicit in Jew hatred and genocide, argue only over which words to use to condemn the Jewish state and its attempts to make its borders safe for its traumatized citizens.

It is vital that we remember at these difficult times that standing alone should not be seen as a threat to Jews. It is something that we have come to expect –even as a point of pride prophetically predicted by our great biblical adversary Bilaam (and echoed later by Haman):

“it is a nation that will dwell alone, and will not be reckoned among the nations.” [Bemidbar 23:9]

Israel is seen as separate and apart whether in exile among the nations or dwelling in its homeland. Amos Oz famously commented that:

“When my father was a young man in Vilna, every wall in Europe said, "Jews go home to Palestine." Fifty years later, when he went back to Europe on a visit, the walls all screamed, "Jews get out of Palestine.”

A resounding message which emerges from the tense discussion between Mordechai and Esther at the darkest moments of the Purim story is that God has a covenant with us – revach vehatzalah (divine salvation) will always arise from somewhere. We may not know where or how it will be achieved but we have relied upon God’s promise for thousands of years. Our strength has not come from being popular or great in number:

“Not because you are more numerous than any people did God delight in you and choose you, for you are the least of all the peoples. But because of God’s love for you…” [Devarim 7:7]

This is the message we must recall as we seek to secure our borders after the brutal unprovoked attacks of October 7. As we are lectured by human rights luminaries such as Russia, China and the Arab world – Nations United in their horror of seeing Jews defend themselves as the West did during the Second World War against Nazi Germany. The ideology of Amalek – those who delight in targeting and brutalizing the weak and innocent – must be utterly destroyed from our borders. If we must stand alone in the moral clarity of defeating evil then so be it. Lo Tishkach.

It is poignant when reading in the Megillah of past efforts to destroy the Jewish people to bear in mind the words of Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to America, last week:

“When I was Israel's Ambassador to Washington, I must have met more than 160 other Ambassadors. I never met the Ambassador of Babylon, never met the Ambassador of Imperial Rome and I didn't meet the Ambassador of the 1,000-Year Reich. But there is an Ambassador of Israel. We will survive this enemy.”

First posted to Facebook 24 March 2024, here.