Parashat Lech Lecha (Gen. 12:1-17:27) for Nov. 12, 2005
It is not so much that Jews are the Chosen people, but that we are the Choosing people.
Study with Baruch Sienna
This year's cycle of weekly Parasha study explores what connections and insight we can find by examining the Torah portion together with the Haftarah.
Ten generations after Noah, Abram (his name is changed later in the Parasha to Abraham) hears a call from God: Lech Lecha - Go Forth. Abram together with his wife Sarai, are to leave their "home and native land" and go on a physical and spiritual journey. God makes a covenant with Abraham and blesses him. Abraham will become the father of a great nation (with descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky) and the land of Israel will be given to his offspring. In return, Abraham is to follow God's ways (the details are not specified). Our highlighted verse refers to Israel as 'seed of Abraham.' Like Abraham was brought from the 'ends of the earth,' Israel in exile should not fear but have trust that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, would redeem them. By reminding them of God's promise to Abraham, Isaiah is reassuring the Israelites that there is hope.
This is the third (and for a while at least, the last) Haftarah taken from the book of Isaiah. There are a total of 14 Haftarot (13 in the Sephardic rite) taken from Isaiah, more than any other book from the Prophets. Scholars identify this 'deutero-Isaiah' (from chapters 40 on) as a different author from the Isaiah ben Amotz identified in Isaiah 1:1. The 'Second Isaiah' preached in Babylonia in the sixth century BCE and brought a message of consolation to Israelites who had been captured and exiled.
The verse in the Haftarah makes God's election of Israel explicit: "You are my servant, I chose you, I have not rejected you" (Isaiah 41:9b). The Jewish people, descendants of Abraham, are described as 'chosen,' just like Abraham is called by God. Why did God choose Abraham? A well known midrash comes to answer that question and describes the world's first 'iconoclast' (literally: a breaker or destoyer of images), smashing the idols in his father's idol shop. (Contrary to popular belief, this story is not in the Torah!) The verse before our highlighted text above, however, alludes to the makers of idols, who busy themselves with their crafts, oblivious to the fact that the whole earth trembles before God:"The woodworker encourages the smith; He who flattens with the hammer [encourages] him who pounds the anvil. He says of the riveting, 'It is good!' and he fixes it with nails that it may not topple" (Isa. 41:7). Perhaps this portion was chosen because of its allusion to idol makers.
The rabbinic imagination (Genesis Rabbah 38:18) portrays Abraham as the world's first monotheist to discover God. Upon closer examination, this doesn't seem to be entirely true. After all, we see Adam talking to God, Cain and Abel making sacrifices to God, and after the birth of Adam's (lesser known) third son, Seth, the Torah tells us, "... It was then that people began to invoke Adonai by name" (Gen. 4:26). God chooses Noah, too, and even makes a covenant through him with all humanity.
What made Abraham special? Did God choose him, or was it Abraham who (first) chose God? Did Abraham have some intrinsic spiritual quality? The biblical scholar Speiser has proposed that Abraham was a religious 'genius' just like the scientific genius of a Galileo, or a Newton or a literary genius like Shakespeare. Others suggest that true monotheism didn't emerge until Moses (or even the later prophets). But it was not only Abraham who was chosen. Biblical and rabbinic texts make it clear that the Jewish people were also chosen by God.
The Torah describes the Jewish people's relationship with God:
"Now, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, then you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Ex. 19:5-6)
Note that being God's treasured possession is conditional: "If we obey God... then we shall be God's treasured people." Why did God choose the Jews? God only knows. Some rabbinic texts suggest that the Israelites were not even that willing to be God's chosen people. The midrash (Mechilta Yitro 5) describes God going to other nations with the Torah, and after being rejected, holding Mt. Sinai over the Israelites' heads, saying, "Will you accept My Torah? (If not, I drop the mountain.)" Only then, with the proverbial 'gun (well in this case- mountain) to their heads' did the Israelites all of a sudden think it was a good idea to accept the Torah saying 'Na'aseh v'nishma- we will do and we will understand.'
This midrash makes it clear that was God doing the choosing. The Siddur, (Jewish prayerbook) includes several passages such as the traditional blessing before the Torah that still retains this language: asher bakhar banu, "who has chosen us from among all peoples." The Reconstructionist movement following Mordecai Kaplan, rejects this language, and substitutes: "who has brought us near to Your service."
It is understandable that in today's egalitarian and democratic society, the concept of chosenness is problematic. The Italian humanist commentator Sforno seems to share our modern discomfort, commenting on the Exodus verse above:
Although the entire human race is more precious to Me than all other existing creatures, for humanity alone among them represents My intention, as our Sages say, "Precious is humanity who was created in the [divine] image (Pirkei Avot 3:14), still you shall be to Me a treasure beyond all of them.
The Bible certainly supports Sforno's thesis that God cares about all humanity. (God even calls Egypt "My people," and Assyria "My inheritance" Isa. 19:25-26). Some Jews are embarrassed with this delineation of 'us' and 'them,' of Jew and gentile. It is hard to speak of 'chosenness' and avoid chauvinism or feelings of superiority. (I recoil from the view held by a small minority of Jewish thinkers that Jews are somehow spiritually, genetically or culturally superior.) Historically, in times of persecution, it is understandable that these verses may have been a source of hope and reassurance. However, they may have also been the foundation for religious conceit and false superiority (and subsequent hatred and persecution of Jews- creating a vicious circle). No wonder they are today viewed with suspicion. In an age of tolerance and equality there seems little room for this doctrine.
Chosen doesn't mean 'superior' and Jews are not like the 'teacher's pet' who get preferential treatment-- quite the contrary. Because God is just, the prophet Amos warns, "Only You have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for your sins" (3:2). Jews are obligated to a life of unique responsibility to God. We are to be a 'light to the nations.' The Jewish people are called a Kingdom of Priests because they introduced the world to our concept of God. As Israel Zangwill was the first to phrase it, maybe it is not so much that Jews are the Chosen people, but that we are the Choosing people. Rabbi Meir Simcha Kagan of Dvinsk teaches that Israel is called God's first born. Every child is treasured by a parent, just as every child is unique. However, it is only the first born who defines the adults as parents for the first time. God loves the Jews and all humanity, just as a parent loves [all] their children.
Further, today we recognize that underneath the different customs and languages and religions, most people generally want the same things. On one level, all humanity is one, yet we also recognize the uniqueness of every individual and the distinctiveness of every group. It is like comparing animals. Some can swim, some can fly, some even have sonar. Is it chauvinistic to say that bats and dolphins are unique to use echolocation? No animal is 'better' than another. Similarly, every people has made a unique contribution to society, and the Jews no less so. Each group has their own culture and should rejoice in their people's accomplishment. Jews should therefore be proud of the Jewish people's contribution: to remind the world that there is one God, and that we should do good.
Shabbat Shalom,
BDS
