Are We a People Chosen by God? - Parshat Re'eh 2024

Are we a people chosen by God?

Rabbi Robert Tabak

Parashat Re’eh – Aug 31, 2024,  Minyan Dorshei Derekh

Based on RT’s article for T’ruah’s (M)oral Torah series of commentaries) August 2024   https://truah.org/resources/robert-tabak-reeh-moraltorah_2024_/

Other quotations in part from a Late Spring 2023 symposium on “Confronting Chosenness” in the RRA Connection, newsletter of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and re-posted on Reconstructing Judaism’s Evolve website.  https://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org/symposium-confronting-chosenness/ 

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The Torah portion Re’eh includes a famous and troubling line: “For you are a people consecrated to the Eternal your God; the Eternal your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be a treasured people.” (Deuteronomy 14:2)

What does it mean to be chosen, treasured by God? Is this poetic image, reinforced at so many places in the Torah and the traditional prayer book, meaningful or harmful? Are Jews "better" than other people? How do we reconcile this special relationship — woven deeply into Jewish texts — with other texts, especially the creation story in Genesis where all humanity is created in the image of God, long before there are different peoples and certainly no Israelites?’

Rabbi Toba Spitzer:
“When I was in my late 20s, before I knew much about Reconstructionist Judaism, I had stopped saying most of the first paragraph of the Aleinu. When attending services, I’d chant “Aleinu l’shabe’akh) … leyotzer bereshit,” then shut my mouth, and pick up again on “Va’anakhnu korim.” I knew enough Hebrew to feel profoundly uncomfortable thanking God for not making me like other people. Imagine my delight when, as I was reading about Mordecai Kaplan and Reconstructionism in preparation for my first visit to the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, I discovered that there was a movement that had completely removed the idea of the Jews being a “chosen” people from the liturgy!” , (RRA Connection, Early Spring, 2023).  

Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, delivered forceful critiques of chosenness in the mid-twentieth century. He saw this idea as a historical development, but no longer one that was harmless or served to sustain an oppressed minority. Kaplan stated that belief in being “chosen” leads to claims of Jewish superiority — something untrue and incompatible with a democratic society. He rejected the idea that this idea was necessary for Jewish survival today. “By no kind of dialectics is it possible to remove the odium of comparison from any reinterpretation of an idea which makes invidious distinctions between one people and another.” (The Future of the American Jew, 1948, p. 217. Emphasis in original.)

In the Reconstructionist siddur [prayer book], prayers such as the Friday night kiddush, the blessing before reading the Torah, and the Aleinu prayer are re-worded to drop chosenness. Other prayer books have also made some moves in this direction. The Reform Movement in the United States created a prayer book that includes several alternative readings for Aleinu, as does the Israeli Masorti (Conservative) siddur. The newest Israeli Reform siddur (2021) does not drop the idea of chosenness, but in several places — including the Torah blessings — offers a radical re-working as an alternative: a few letters change to convert the traditional “who has chosen us from all peoples” to “who has chosen us with all peoples.”

Have Reconstructionist alternatives influenced other movements?

A number of Reform and Masorti (Israeli Conservative) siddurim have recently offered alternatives to the first paragraph of the Aleinu[ii], for example — sometimes offering the Reconstructionist-based text as one alternative.[iii] Two Reform siddurim (the British Reform movement Forms of Prayer [2008] and the Israeli Reform Tefilat haAdam [2021]) parallel this Aleinu text with another version including chosenness, though not the traditional wording. The Israeli Masorti (Conservative) siddur includes the traditional Aleinu text as the lead option. The American Conservative movement mentions the Israeli alternative Aleinu text (though not the Reconstructionist version) but does not include it in Hebrew.[iv] The U.S. Reform Mishkan T’filah offers an alternative to the traditional Aleinu.[v] The Reconstructionist Kol Haneshamah (1994) retains the traditional Aleinu text in smaller print below a line, with a disparaging commentary.

On the other hand, Orthodox texts in Israel and the diaspora, including modern editions like the Koren siddur, often include the even more exclusivist, “uncensored” text of Aleinu, with the line שֶׁהֵם מִשְׁתַּחֲוִים לְהֶֽבֶל וָרִיק, וּמִתְפַּלְלִים אֶל אֵל לֹא יוֹשִֽׁיעַ, “They bow down to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god who cannot save” — references that many understand as anti-Christian and anti-Muslim.

Elyse Wechterman: “ When we are asked, or ask ourselves, what makes Reconstructionists unique in the ever-widening and flattening denominations and stripes of Jewishness, it is this: the radical notion that all people and peoples are equally beloved of God and have a role to play in the future redemption of our species and planet.

And this idea of radical egalitarianism is more necessary now than we might have thought. The forces of White Christian Nationalism in the United States and virulent Jewish supremacy in Israel (see Menachem Klein’s essay “Israel’s Rule Over the Palestinians Has Created a New Judaism,” in Haaretz, April 8, 2023) make clear what notions of Divine election portend.”(RRA Connection, Early Spring, 2023).  

This discussion is not only about synagogue texts and prayers. Today, especially in Israel, there is much more frequent assertion of “Jewish superiority.” Professor Menachem Klein says, “…The new Judaism — Israeli Judaism it should be said — identifies sovereignty and the rule wielded in its name, with Jewish supremacy and oppression.” (“Israel’s Rule over the Palestinians Has Created a New Judaism,” Haaretz, 8 April 2023.) Rabbi Sharon Brous says, “As painful as it is, we must affirm that Jewish supremacy poses a real and present danger to the Jewish State and to the Jewish people.” (“Tears of Zion,” Feb. 2023). Events since October 7, 2023 have magnified these tendencies.

Yet other texts provide a different framework. Leviticus 19:1 says “You shall be holy…” not “you are already holy. “ Orthodox iconoclast Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote, “The uniqueness of the people Israel is not a fact; it is a task. The holiness of Israel is not a reality but a role.” (“The Uniqueness of the People Israel”, 1975, in Y. Leibowitz, Emuna, historia, v’erachim 1982, p.117. Ttranslation by R.T.) Like challenges to patriarchy in Judaism, contemporary Jews need to confront the problematic texts in the centuries of biblical, rabbinic, and later works. 

The continuing war in Israel and Gaza, violence against Palestinians by West Bank “religious” Jews, and crises in Israel have accelerated the need for an active role from American Jews who support different views of Judaism.

 Writing before the current war, Rabbi Amy Klein (who lives in the Upper Galilee in Israel and is a leader in protests against policies of the current Israeli government) wrote in 2023 about the aftermath of a pogrom by Jewish settlers against the West Bank Palestinian city of Huwara. “Huwara has legitimized speaking out against racism at demonstrations to save Israel’s democracy,” (RRA Connection, Early Spring, 2023).  

Menachem Klein wrote, “Another possibility, which hasn’t yet been tried, is to find a Jewish theological and historic basis for sharing sovereignty with non-Jews.”  However, Prof. Klein errs in not identifying alternative Jewish visions. Now, in a time of war, need to learn from and add our North American Jewish voices and insights, liberal and traditional, to those Israelis — including those in groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights and Hasmol haemuni [Faithful Left]  — working to strengthen varieties of Judaism based on tzedek (justice), equality, and shalom (peace).   If Jews are to express some sense of being “treasured,” we need new visions of religious perspectives recognizing everyone as created in God’s image.  

Discussion questions:

1. Does the idea of the “chosen people” mean to you?

2. How do we wrestle with parts of Jewish tradition (from the Torah onward) that have values or ideas we disagree with?

3. How do we relate to a Jewish people that includes people –not only a tiny fringe--who assert that Jews are superior to other people and should have more rights than others in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories?