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14 The Sparks of Chosenness o MUCH has been written about the doctrine of the chosen people-mostly to defend the rabbis from the charge of teaching the superiority of the Jews-that I believe a fresh approach will give us greater insight into the concept and its modernization. I shall therefore devote this chapter to discussing its effect on Jewish life and reserve my theoretical analysis of the concept for the next chapter. Rabbinic Judaism anticipated that the knowledge of being part of God's chosen people ideally would shape Jewish lives in six ways, which, for analytic purposes, I shall categorize as intra- and extracommunal. Intracommunally, chosenness first founds Jewish existence on the consciousness that the one God of the universe gave the Torah to the Jews alone. Therefore, and second, a Jew should do mitzvot as an individual and as part of the Jewish people's corporate service of God. Third, living this way makes Jewish life holy, distinguished from profane existence, and suffused with a sense of contact with God. Fourth, because of this alliance with God, Jews know that their people will survive every historical vicissitude and one day be vindicated when God fully redeems them and all humankind because of them. The two extracommunal consequences of this belief can be termed separation and service. The Torah's laws aim, among other purposes, to isolate the Jewish people from other groups so that this folk can endure and carry out its special obligations to Godi as an instrument of redemption, Jewish separateness therefore acquires sacred status. It also has an unfortunate side-effect. All eccentric peoples suffer for their oddity, but something about distance for the sake of what is ultimate seems to intensify the hatred directed at the Jews. Ourhistory having often been bitter, the classic Jewish view of the relationship of chosenness to suffering demands clarification. God's election does not mandate or require Jewish pain, though that has often been its consequence. Bluntly put: crucifixion is not a Jewish model for serving God. The Torah commands Jews to avoid suffering by all reasonable means. However, should suffering come, the rabbis direct us to see if we can accept it as only another situation in which we acknowledge God as sovereign. We do what we can to 195 14 The Sparks of Chosenness o MUCH has been written about the doctrine of the chosen people-mostly to defend the rabbis from the charge of teaching the superiority of the Jews-that I believe a fresh approach will give us greater insight into the concept and its modernization. I shall therefore devote this chapter to discussing its effect on Jewish life and reserve my theoretical analysis of the concept for the next chapter. Rabbinic Judaism anticipated that the knowledge of being part of God's chosen people ideally would shape Jewish lives in six ways, which, for analytic purposes, I shall categorize as intra- and extracommunal. Intracommunally, chosenness first founds Jewish existence on the consciousness that the one God of the universe gave the Torah to the Jews alone. Therefore, and second, a Jew should do mitzvot as an individual and as part of the Jewish people's corporate service of God. Third, living this way makes Jewish life holy, distinguished from profane existence, and suffused with a sense of contact with God. Fourth, because of this alliance with God, Jews know that their people will survive every historical vicissitude and one day be vindicated when God fully redeems them and all humankind because of them. The two extracommunal consequences of this belief can be termed separation and service. The Torah's laws aim, among other purposes, to isolate the Jewish people from other groups so that this folk can endure and carry out its special obligations to Godi as an instrument of redemption, Jewish separateness therefore acquires sacred status. It also has an unfortunate side-effect. All eccentric peoples suffer for their oddity, but something about distance for the sake of what is ultimate seems to intensify the hatred directed at the Jews. Ourhistory having often been bitter, the classic Jewish view of the relationship of chosenness to suffering demands clarification. God's election does not mandate or require Jewish pain, though that has often been its consequence. Bluntly put: crucifixion is not a Jewish model for serving God. The Torah commands Jews to avoid suffering by all reasonable means. However, should suffering come, the rabbis direct us to see if we can...

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