Q&A: Why a Chosen People
Why a Chosen People
Question
Hello Rabbi,
It’s hard for me with the idea that God decided to grant real meaning in life to only 0.001(?) percent of His creations (= the Jewish people). Assuming that non-Jews have consciousness and a psychological makeup no less than that of Jews, and that they suffer life’s pains accordingly, why deny them the right to serve God? The Good desires to do good, right? So why not do good to everyone?
One possible answer would be that Judaism was formed in a period a bit less globalist than today, and the people who conceived it lived with a very tribal outlook.
I assume you’ll answer something in the style of “If I knew Him, I would be Him,” and still I’m curious to know whether this issue ever disturbed your peace of mind.
Shabbat Shalom and thanks in advance,
Roi
Answer
It definitely has disturbed me. First, any non-Jew can convert. The difference between a Jew and a non-Jew is only in the starting conditions (how he was born). Second, there is also a difference between an Israelite and a priest, and I don’t think that especially troubles anyone. In every group of people, and in humanity as a whole, there is a division of roles, and each person fulfills his role and thereby reaches his purpose. The Holy One, blessed be He, had an interest that within humanity there would be one people that keeps the full set of commandments, because that is how the world reaches its purpose. Other nations and other people have other roles (if there is even a national role for each of them at all; that isn’t necessary). Exactly like a priest and an Israelite. The whole world reaches its purpose when every part of it fulfills its own role, just like in an army or a state, where every group and every person has a part in helping the group reach its goals.
Therefore it is not true that non-Jews have no role and that their lives have no meaning. “We are all one living human tapestry” (sorry for the schmaltz. I couldn’t resist)
“And these things are harder for me than flint rock. Is it really so that all the inhabitants of the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting, apart from us, have gone down to the pit and become an object of horror to all flesh?… And what are the nations to do upon whom the light of the Torah never shone at all?… Would the Holy One, blessed be He, heaven forbid, come with grievances against His creatures in order to destroy them and blot out their name, though they committed no violence? Can this be called sound reasoning?”
According to the principles of my religion, I am not permitted to make any effort to convert any person who was not born into the religion of Israel. This spirit of making converts, which some long to impose upon Judaism and to find its source within it, is opposed to it from one extreme to the other. All the rabbis unanimously teach that the written and oral laws, upon which our revealed religion stands, are obligatory only for our own nation. “Moses commanded us the Torah, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.” All the other nations of the world, we believe, were commanded by the word of God to uphold the law of nature and the religion of the fathers. Human beings who conduct their lives according to this religion of nature and reason are called the righteous of the nations of the world, and they have a share in the World to Come.
A revelation that seeks to be the only one that grants a person a share in the World to Come cannot be the true one, because it does not accord with the intention of the Creator, whose mercies are upon all His works.
Moses Mendelssohn