Posted on 05/17/2011 8:06:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
I assume that the type of person who reads columns such as this one has wondered at one time or another why, for thousands of years, there has been so much attention paid to Jews and why, today, to Israel, the one Jewish state.
But how do most people explain this preoccupation? There is no fully rational explanation for the amount of attention paid to the Jews and the Jewish state. And there is no fully rational explanation for the amount of hatred directed at Jews and the Jewish state.
A lifetime of study of this issue, including writing (with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin) a book on anti-Semitism ("Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism") has convinced me that, along with all the rational explanations, there is one explanation that transcends reason alone.
It is that the Jews are God's chosen people.
Now, believe me, dear reader, I am well aware of the hazards of making such a claim.
It sounds chauvinistic. It sounds racist. And it sounds irrational, if not bizarre.
But it is none of these.
As regards chauvinism, there is not a hint of inherent superiority in the claim of Jewish chosen-ness. In fact, the Jewish Bible, the book that states the Jews are chosen, constantly berates the Jews for their flawed moral behavior. No bible of any other religion is so critical of the religious group affiliated with that bible as the Hebrew Scriptures are of the Jews.
As for racism, Jewish chosen-ness cannot be racist by definition. Here is why: a) The Jews are not a race; there are Jews of every race. And b) any person of any race, ethnicity or nationality can become a member of the Jewish people and thereby be as chosen as Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah or the chief rabbi of Israel.
And with regard to chosen-ness being an irrational or even bizarre claim, it must be so only to atheists. They don't believe in a Chooser, so they cannot believe in a Chosen. But for most believing Jews and Christians (most particularly the Founders who saw America as a Second Israel, a second Chosen People), Jewish Chosen-ness has been a given. And even the atheist must look at the evidence and conclude that the Jews play a role in history that defies reason.
Can reason alone explain how a hodgepodge of ex-slaves was able to change history -- to introduce the moral God-Creator we know as God; to write the world's most influential book, the Bible; to devise ethical monotheism; to be the only civilization to deny the cyclical worldview and give humanity belief in a linear (i.e., purposeful) history; to provide morality-driven prophets and so much more -- without God playing the decisive role in this people's history?
Without the Jews, there would be no Christianity (a fact acknowledged by the great majority of Christians) and no Islam (a fact acknowledged by almost no Muslims). Read Thomas Cahill's "The Gifts of the Jews" or Paul Johnson's "A History of the Jews" to get an idea about how much this people changed history.
What further renders the claim for Jewish chosen-ness worthy of rational consideration is that virtually every other nation has perceived itself as chosen or otherwise divinely special. For example, China means "Middle Kingdom" in Chinese -- meaning that China is at the center of the world; and Japan considers itself the land where the sun originates ("Land of the Rising Sun"). The difference between Jewish chosen-ness and other nations' similar claims is that no one cares about any other group considering itself Chosen, while vast numbers of non-Jews have either believed the Jews' claim or have hated the Jews for it.
Perhaps the greatest evidence for the Jews' chosen-ness has been provided in modern times, during which time evil has consistently targeted the Jews:
-- Nazi Germany was more concerned with exterminating the Jews than with winning World War II.
-- Throughout its 70-year history, the Soviet Union persecuted its Jews and tried to extinguish Judaism. Hatred of Jews was one thing communists and Nazis shared.
-- The United Nations has spent more time discussing and condemning the Jewish state than any other country in the world. Yet, this state is smaller than every Central American country, including El Salvador, Panama and even Belize. Imagine if the amount of attention paid to Israel were paid to Belize -- who would not think there was something extraordinary about that country?
-- Much of the contemporary Muslim world -- and nearly all the Arab world -- is obsessed with annihilating the one Jewish state.
In the words of Catholic scholar Father Edward Flannery, the Jews carry the burden of God in history. Most Jews, being secular, do not believe this. And many Jews dislike talk of chosen-ness because they fear it will increase anti-Semitism; they may be right.
But it doesn't alter the fact that the obsession with one of the smallest countries and smallest peoples on earth, and the unique hatred of the Jews and the Jewish state by the world's most vicious ideologies, can be best explained only in transcendent terms. Namely that God, for whatever reason, chose the Jews.
Note that the promises to Ismael and Isaac were different:
The promises regarding Ishmael were that “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.” {Genesis 16:12} and that God would “make a great nation of him.” {Genesis 21:18} He did both of those through what would be come the Arabs.
The promise to Isaac was that God would “perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham your father.” {Genesis 26:3} God’s promises to Abraham continued through Isaac.
Paul teaches that it is Christians who inherit the Abrahamic promise.
"The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say 'and to seeds,' meaning many people, but 'and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ." (Galatians 3:16)
"If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:29)
Consider
‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ Shlomo Sand and Yael Lotan
Not an easy read but informative and well researched.
Shlomo Sand studied history at the University of Tel Aviv and at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, in Paris. He currently teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv
The comments associated with this scholarly work are fascinating. He hasn’t been killed yet.
Yes, but that particular promise was passed down in the inheritance to Joseph... and from there to Ephraim and Manasseh. It is not for the sons of Ishmael.
Rabah was also from the tribe of Ephriam as was Joshua...
Don't include the Apostles in that mess...
The original Reformers were still Catholic...They brought some of the errors of your religion along with them...
God made several promises to Abraham, starting in Genesis 12, and sealed those promises with a one-sided covenant in Genesis 15 (normally, a covenent was two-sided - I'll do this for you and you'll do that for me, sealed by both parties performing a ceremony - but Abraham didn't have to do anything). In fact, God did the covenent ceremony twice (a smoking furnace and a burning lamp) to emphasize it.
Yes, we serve an awesome God.
You are saying the Apostles believed that Jews who did not follow Jesus remained the Chosen People? Please cite.
Amen! And Sherman, it matters not what this or that group says or believes. It's His Word that is to be believed.
I choose God over man every single time.
Or you can get raw with these strings. Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.
Do it!
If not the Protestant Reformers, then who would you say was the first wise man to lead Christians out of the dark and into the light, after so man centuries, on the issue of choseness?
The lineage of Christ’s family and His Apostles and the retention of the Old Testament are bonds in the special relationship.
I love Vivaldi and Bach.shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiachBut sometimes a good fiddle
touches the soul. Kadosh L'Cha
Are Jews a race or ethnicity? Is a Chinese Jew just as Jewish as an Ethiopian Jew?
Is Judaism a religion? Is an atheistic Jew just as Jewish as a rabbi?
Is a heretical Jew that maliciously breaks the Ten Commandments just as Chosen as the most pious Jew?
“was like “Dude! American military technology is better!!!””
Depends what you are selling.
(I was a pilot for a long time and turned salesman/tester for an Israeli defense firm.)
I have sold a lot of targeting equipment to the USA.
Marines love me because I have shown up with goodie bags for them to beta test. I got tracked down at a wedding for an emergency sale by a General I won’t name. Personally delivered it to Afganistan.
“Over millennia, everyone tries to kill us. We are still here.”
And then we eat.
They did a study and pretty much all Jewish people are related to the 3rd or 4th cousin level, regardless of Sephardi, Ashkenazi, or Mizarahim, if that is what you mean.
Our closest non-Jewish genetic relatives are the Samaritans (who never left), followed by the arabs who live in Judea/Samaria (also known as “palestinians”).
“Are Jews a race or ethnicity?”
Yes, as to ethnicity. No, as to race.
“Is a Chinese Jew just as Jewish as an Ethiopian Jew?
Yes.
“Is Judaism a religion?”
Yes.
“Is an atheistic Jew just as Jewish as a rabbi?”
Yes.
“Is a heretical Jew that maliciously breaks the Ten Commandments just as Chosen as the most pious Jew?”
Yes.
Friends of the IDF casino night to raise funds to help IDF guys and gals
Few like or love the Bible’s commentaries on many morals ,values, cultural, pre-destined views and historical judgments from a real Higher Power: the Creator-Savior-King of the Universe. But, as kids would say, or was it the mom in Babe,’that’s just the way things are.’ Christians are just grafted in and am I glad that we are. In the ME today, I support Israel and do not support the rest of the Islamofascist thugs. Yep, another biased belief and that’s just the way things are.
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