Devarim

Rabbi Shai Held, citing Bible scholar Patrick Miller

Few ideas have traditionally been more central to Jewish theology than the election (or “chosenness”) of the Jewish people, and few ideas have been more controversial. Of the Five Books of Moses, it is Deuteronomy that gives the most sustained attention to what election means—and also, crucially, to what it doesn’t. The surest way to misunderstand biblical theology is to insist upon a stark binary distinction between the particular and the universal. The Torah begins by looking through a wide lens: It deals not with Abraham, but with Adam; not with the Promised Land, but with the whole world. Neither the people of Israel nor the land of Israel is considered primordial, written into the fabric of creation itself. As Genesis progresses, the Torah narrows the scope of its lens, focusing—primarily, but not exclusively—on God’s relationship with one particular
people, but the broader, universal horizon is never effaced or forgotten: God is the God of the whole world and of all humanity. And yet one cannot get around the fact that one of the central claims of the Torah as a whole is that God has fallen in love with, and entered into an eternal covenant with, Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and then Jacob. Biblical theology is thus at once profoundly universalistic and unabashedly particularistic

“The same language [n-t-n] is used for [God’s] consignment of territory to Edom, Moab, and Ammon as is used for [God’s] consignment of land to Israel.” The point of all this, Miller concludes, is to insist that “the Lord of Israel has other stories than simply the one with Israel.”

God’s grant of land is not a gift exclusive to Israel; on the contrary, the text makes clear that “the provision of land is as sure for [Edom, Moab, and Ammon] as for Israel.” Remarkably—though perhaps not surprisingly —“the same book that makes the strongest case for the particular election of Israel… vigorously resists a misreading of that [election].” ... Parashat Devarim works to undermine [a] dangerous misinterpretation of Israel’s covenant with God: “the assumption of exclusive benefits. Others have benefited in the same fashion from [God’s] power and grace. Israel thus hears that its story is not the only one going on.” ... While there are many problematic—and destructive—ways to
understand election, Tanakh works hard to cut the legs out from under them...

So central is election to Tanakh that contemporary Jews who wish to have a theology rooted in scripture have no choice but to reckon with chosenness. To jettison the language of chosenness is, I fear, to jettison Tanakh itself...

In confronting chosenness, Jewish theology faces many questions, none of them easy: In this day and age, do we find it plausible to believe in the kind of God who loves and chooses? Can we talk about covenant without chosenness? Can we affirm election without deluding ourselves into thinking that we have a monopoly on God’s love? Is it enough to affirm election as a subjective, experiential claim, but not as a metaphysical one? One thing is clear: To be an inheritor of the Jewish tradition is to grapple with the powerful, mysterious, enchanting, disturbing idea that we are God’s chosen people.

Questions for Discussion:

Rabbi Held's questions are a good place to start: "In this day and age, do we find it plausible to believe in the kind of God who loves and chooses? Can we talk about covenant without chosenness? Can we affirm election without deluding ourselves into thinking that we have a monopoly on God’s love? Is it enough to affirm election as a subjective, experiential claim, but not as a metaphysical one?"

Or put more simply, how do we interpret the idea of chosenness if we don't believe in a God who would choose one people? Is everyone chosen in different ways? Do we defend the idea of chosenness of the Jewish people? How?