“Jewish Soul”, Is it a software thing? Yitro

The idea of the Jews being a “chosen people” (1) can motivate us in worshiping God (2) and service to humanity. I don’t think of it as me being better, or more worthy than virtuous people I know and admire who are not Jewish. However, there is a risk that the idea of being ‘chosen’ - if it is taken to mean that there is an intrinsic difference to the Jewish soul - can make some Jews feel less connected to, or to devalue their non-Jewish neighbours (3).

How we choose to understand ethnic identity can be compared either to computer software - that is installed and added on but not essential, or to hardware, in that we regard it as intrinsic to who we are (4). If it is software, the brotherhood of mankind is more plausible than if it is hardware. Jewish scholarship on this question is mixed and complex.  

Image by Steven Depolo, used under 
Creative Commons Licence 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

On the hardware side of the argument is the idea of a unique Jewish soul (5) which, according to a mystical perspective, is “a part of God” (6). However, this needs to be taken in the context of the belief that God is present in everything in existence. Even rocks, according to the mystics, contain a “divine spark” (7), although these “sparks” are deemed to differ between inanimate objects and different peoples (8). 

We should not overstate the concept of the “Godly soul” because, according to its chief proponent, it is quite marginal to the lived experience of the Jew. The day-to-day life of the Jew is an experience of an “animal soul” rather than a Godly one. It is this animal soul that is the true everyday identity of the Jewish person (9). The Godly soul is something “that has been placed within him” (10) but is not him or her (11). It seems more like an obscure “plug in”, than a core element.

On the other side of the argument stands Maimonides (12). Repeatedly, he emphasises that it is an individual’s knowledge and motivations that are key to one’s spiritual standing. “Every person can be righteous like Moses” (13). “Every single person from all inhabitants of the world whose spirit guides him and whose intellect leads him to understand, to separate himself and to stand before God...to walk straight as God created him...he is sanctified [with the greatest holiness],“Holy of Holies”...” (14). 

A Chasidic master put it: “Holiness is not found in the human being in essence unless he sanctifies himself. According to his preparation for holiness, so it comes upon him from on High. A person does not acquire holiness while inside his mother. He is not holy from the womb, but has to labor from the very day he comes into the air of the world” (15). Indeed, whatever faults one might attribute to a non-Jewish idol worshipper’s soul would also describe our Jewish ancestors when we worshipped idols in Egypt, “with no difference!” (16). Clearly holiness is determined by behaviour.

Regardless of hardware or software, the idea of chosenness is linked to service (17). One form of this service is the role of the Jews in bringing an understanding of monotheism to all humans and uniting them in worship (18). This emphasises the importance of humanity as a whole, and sees the role of the Jewish people to benefit mankind rather than one of self-centeredness. This is because “all humans are cherished by God, and the Righteous of the Nations are precious to God without a doubt” (19). Furthermore Jews are urged to approach this concept with humility (20). 

I will end with a quote from one of the Rabbis, who, despite being aligned with the inherent differences approach, still strongly embraced love of all humanity. He wrote:

“The highest state of love of creatures should be allotted to the love of mankind, and it must extend to all of mankind, despite all variations of religions, opinions, and faiths, and despite all distinctions of race and climate. It is right to get to the bottom of the views of different peoples and groups, to learn, as much as possible, their characters and qualities, in order to know how to base love of humanity on foundations that approach action. 

For only upon a soul rich in love for creatures and love of man can the love of the nation raise itself up in its full nobility and spiritual and natural greatness. The narrowness that causes one to see whatever is outside the border of the special nation, even outside the border of [the people of] Israel, as ugly and defiled, is a terrible darkness that brings general destruction upon all [efforts at] building of spiritual good, for the light of which every refined soul hopes" (21).

 

Perhaps hardware or software does not matter quite as much as it would seem, as long as we can embrace all of humanity. 

 

Notes: 

I acknowledge Rabbi Hanan Balk and his essay referenced in the notes below as the basis of much of what I have written above. 

1. Exodus 19:5-6, Isaia 41:8-10
2. Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel to Exodus 19:6
3. Ohr Hachayim commentary to Exodus 22:20
4. Murray, D. (2019) The Madness of Crowds, Gender, Race and Identity, Bloomsbury
5. Zohar, Genesis 170, & 171, Kuzari, 1:41-43, in In Balk H., (2013) The Soul of a Jew and the Soul of a Non-Jew, p. 49, 
6. An Inconvenient Truth and the Search for an Alternative in Hakira, vol 13, http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%2016%20Balk.pdf 
7. Eitz  Chayim gate 5:2, Tanya chapter 1 and 2 by R. Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745–1815), and Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim sha’ar 1, ch. 4, by R. Ḥayyim of Volozhin (1749–1821)
8. Tanya, Shaar Hayichud V’Haemuna, chapter 1
9. cited in the discussion between the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Hilel students, cited in Balk, H.,  p.51 
10. With the exception of the extremely rare super saint or tzadik as defined in Tanya chapter 1
11. The text of the morning prayer Elokai Neshama, my God, the soul that you placed within me...
12. Tanya chapter, 29
13. Balk, H., (2013) ibid, see also his strong approach to the interpretation of the coerced divorce
14. Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Laws of Repentance 5:2
15. Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Laws of Sabbatical and Jubilee Years, 13:13
16. R. Simḥa Bunim of Przysukha, Kol Simḥa, Parshat Miketz, p. 47 and Mesharatav Eish Lohet, p. 228, quoted in Noam Siaḥ, p. 263. In Balk, p. 47
17. Ohr Hachayim commentary to Exodus 22:20, נשמות ישראל עצמם היו טבועות בקליפה ואם כן יהיה גר זה כאחד מכם באין הבדל
18. Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel 
19. Seforno on Exodus 19:5-6  
20. Seforno ibid
21. Chatam Sofer on Yitro, p. 38-39
22. Kook (Mussar Avikha (Jerusalem, 1985), p. 58, no. 10; Orot ha-Kodesh (Jerusalem, 1990), vol. 4, p. 405. In Balk p.54

Dis/Connection and Crown Heights Jews and Blacks - Vayechi

I walked toward the forest in St Ives, this past Monday, as I do most mornings, but this time tentatively. Australia is burning! A place that is usually a refuge for me, teeming with bird sounds, animal life and tranquility, now feels ambiguous, even somewhat threatening, possibly on the verge of igniting with deadly fire. Many Australians have lost their lives, many more their homes or farms and we have lost so many animals.

A week earlier, I walked toward another oasis of nature: Prospect Park, at the edge of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where I visited my parents over Chanukah.  It is usually a calming walk and I often like to go when I visit. This time was different. Religious Jews were being attacked on the streets of New York, one had been murdered in a shop in New Jersey and another was stabbed at home in Monsey. I hesitated as I thought: was I safe? Would I be attacked? 

These two causes call me as I write. Living in Australia, I feel empathy with my fellow Australians. Their suffering and terror stirs my heart to compassion and concern. Yet, I am also a Jew from Brooklyn, and my recent visit is pulling my attention to the simmering situation there.

Navigating between our ties to, or disconnections from, various places is explored in my Jewish tradition. Our patriarch Jacob, born in Canaan, is said to have only truly been alive during his last seventeen years, living in exile in Egypt (1) where he finally found happiness (2).  Yet, his new home was not where he wanted to be buried, among the fundamentally different Egyptians (3), instead he insisted that his body must be returned to the Holy Land (4). Even when Jacob was alive, he considered it important that his family remain apart from the Egyptians (5).

This way of being in a place but not of the place (6), reflects my own experience growing up in Brooklyn, which came back to me on my recent visit. While I was there I caught up with a black friend from Sydney, Mohamed. I showed him around Crown Heights, starting with my childhood home. I showed him a large apartment building with black families near our old home, and reflected how, in the twenty years I lived there, I never learned the names of any of my black neighbours. This wasn't unique to me. This kind of disconnect from our non-Jewish neighbours was a common feature of growing up as a Chasidic Jew in Crown Heights. 

I find it hard to write about my old neighbourhood. It is simple enough to speak about my experience, to acknowledge that I was racist then, and felt fear and loathing of my black neighbours. It is also a matter of historic fact, that in 1991 an Australian Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed by a black man, part of a hateful anti-semitic mob. I will never forget the terror I felt in 1991 when I returned from Australia, to what felt like a war-zone, and came to be known as the “Crown Heights riots”. In 2020, another black man from Crown Heights is in custody for  stabbing a Rabbi in his home, over Chanukah. But there is so much more to this tension, both past and present, that is contested and sensitive.

Ultimately, this blog post is far too brief to fully explore the painful history or current dynamic between Jews and African Americans in Crown Heights. However, I want to at least take an interest here in the efforts to bridge the divide between the two communities (7). It is good to see role models of inter-communal friendship going to schools and engaging children in conversation. However, as someone who has been using this approach - going to schools as  Muslim-Chrisitian-Jewish panels modelling goodwill, for almost two decades, I have learned that this strategy, while valuable in its own right, needs to be part of a multi-faceted approach (8). One important element that research recommends is ensuring that participants in intergroup contact, in cases where there has been tension, are assured that this contact is sanctioned by authority figures on “their side” (9).

One suggestion I offer to my old community is to utilise religious education to guide children how to truly coexist, while also honouring our religious traditions of being separate. This is not at all simple, but it is eminently doable. It could begin with discussion of behaviour, such as the halachic principle of supporting needy and sick non-Jewish people, not only Jews, as part of 'the ways of peace' (10). It should involve exploration of what it means to be truly ethical in our ways of thinking and behaving toward one non-Jewish or black neighbours, to strive to make them so “beautiful” that G-d Himself would be proud of us (11). The children might be invited to ponder how it came to be that so many Egyptians deeply mourned the death of a Jewish man, Jacob (12). Perhaps, as one commentary suggested, throughout the years Jacob lived in Egypt, he spent time sharing his wisdom with wise Egyptians (13), not just hanging out with his Jewish grandchildren.

Eventually this discussion arrives at the question of identity. Who are we as Jews and human beings? G-d created humans with a common ancestor to prevent discord (14) based on beliefs in superiority (15) or ideas of purer lineage (16).

As for me, like people of various faith backgrounds and none, I must turn my attention to the needs and suffering of my fellow Australians at this difficult time. 

 

Notes:

 A big thank you to my learned and skillful editor, my son, Aaron Menachem Mendel Kastel. 

1)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, 81, p. 1724. 

2)     Lekach Tov, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, note: 81, p. 1724. 

3)     Old Tanchuma, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:29, 114, p. 1730, "they are compared to Donkeys and I am compared to a sheep..."  

4)     Genesis 47:29-31.

5)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 46:34, 188, p. 1700. 

6)     See also Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20, pg. 235-242 and especially pg. 241.

7)     https://www.wnyc.org/story/attacks-against-jews-crown-heights-stir-old-fears-and-new-dialogue/

8)     Halse, C (2015), Doing Diversity, report on research project, Deakin University, https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/principals/management/doingdiversity.pdf.

9)     Alport, G. in Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). Talk Does Not Cook Rice: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for social action. Australian Psychologist, 40, 20-30.

10)  Talmud Gittin 61a. See Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' elaboration of this concept in The Home We Build Together, Continuum Books. See also statement in the Talmud Gittin 59b. That all of the laws of the Torah are for the sake of the ways of peace.

11)  Kedushas Levi, end of parsha Vayechi, Sifrei Ohr Hachayim edition, Jerusalem, p. 116.

12)  Genesis 50:3.

13)  Rabbi Moshe David Vali, Ohr Olam, Genesis Vol. 2, Hamesorah edition, p. 464.

14)  Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a.

15)  Rashi ad loc.

16)  R. Yosef Hayim (1835 – 1909), better known as the Ben Ish Chai, in Ben Yehoyada, ad loc.

A Palestinian In The Synagogue - God Cares About “Goyim”

Last night Munzer Emad, a Palestinian man told his story at a Sydney synagogue. I felt grateful to be present, because I this was the first time I had seen this dialogue in a Synagogue in my community in St Ives. Munzer spoke from the heart, and his Jewish audience engaged with his story, despite the fact that “it was very difficult to listen to”, as more than one audience member reflected.  

Rabbi Gad Krebs, who initiated this encounter for his community, reflected on his own journey that led to last night. Around the year 2000, the Rabbi, then a much younger man, was, by his own admission, very right wing politically. The Rabbi told us that he was greeted by a stranger with a pronounced Arabic accent, in Hebrew, while watching the Olympics on a big outdoor screen in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. The two men engaged in conversation. The Arabic speaking man initially said he was Egyptian, but later told the Rabbi that if he had told him where he was really from that would have been the end of the conversation. He then shared that he was actually a Palestinian from Gaza, and that previously whenever he had disclosed this fact in a conversation with a Jewish person that ended the conversation. Rabbi Krebs did not run away and instead continued the conversation. The two men lost contact, until a recent chance meeting when Rabbi Krebs and Munzer met, and after a while Gad realised that Munzer was the stranger he met in 2002.

Munzer is a softly spoken man. He argued passionately for connections between people. He argued that, although humans were not meant to fly or swim, we have beaten nature to do both of these things. On the other hand, despite being wired for connectedness, we override our nature in order to be fragmented. He reflected on the way that groups in conflict dismiss each others experiences and deal with the other as an enemy. He shared a surprising anecdote about the time he was around ten years old and Israeli soldiers marched through the street where he was playing; he felt confused and angered by their forceful presence. He threw a soccer ball at an Israeli soldier. The soldier smiled shyly and threw the ball back. A glimpse of the soldiers humanity that did not fit the narrative of this young boy. But a little connection happened anyway.

As a teenager, Munzer was mistaken for one of his brothers who was very active in throwing stones, so Munzer was taken into custody. When Munzer was interrogated, he was blindfolded. He asked his interrogator to remove the blindfold and make eye contact. On Sunday night he got much more than that, his generous spirit was mirrored back to him by his receptive audience.

I don’t think religious texts are key to war or peace, there are other significant drivers that I think are more central, but they are not irrelevant either. The day before Munzer’s talk, I was confronted with a text that seemed to suggest that God does not care about non-Jewish people. Thankfully, there is usually more than one way to read a Torah text.

Moses told the Israelites that “when you look up to the sky, and behold the sun and the moon and the stars ...you must not be lured into ...serving them. These the LORD your God has set aside for all [the other?] nations everywhere under heaven” , but as for you [the Israelites], the LORD took and brought you out of Egypt... to be His very own people (1).

This has been taken to mean that God has set the nations up to worship the stars, and it is only the Jews whose worship is important to God (2). This seems wrong, surely God would not lead people astray (3). As an Assyrian Bishop told me the other night, in his church they don’t pray that God should not lead them into temptation, because surely God would not do that. Instead they pray not to be tested by “trials”.

A story about this text is an early example of the influences of interfaith contact on interpretations of text. A group of Jewish sages were tasked by King Ptolemy to translate the Torah. When they got to this verse they modified the translation to say that God set aside the sun, the moon and the stars to provide light to the nations (4).

Further commentary suggests that the planets are so valuable for all the nations, that they can never be destroyed, and this presents the risk of them being worshipped (5).  Alternatively, the nations of the world might believe in a fragmented concept of the universe, so they see the sun and moon as being more important than earth. However, the Jewish people are invited to think of earth as central, as it is the place where humans worship God (6) and make ethical decisions. Such decisions include to deeply honor and cherish all human beings regardless of ethnic or religious identity. This was the invitation Munzer extended to his audience. It was glorious being part of a room that transcended the divide between the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, and filled with such warmth and goodwill.

1)    Deuteronomy 4:19.

2)    Talmud, Avoda Zara 55a.

3)    See Torah Temima to Deuteronomy 4:19, notes 41 and 42.

4)    Talmud 9b.  

5)    Chasam Sofer on Vaetchanan.

6)    ibid.

Did not make me a goy?! Sacred text, prejudice and Interpretation (Bahalotecha)

“Bless you God for not making me a goy" (the word "goy" is often translated as a non-Jew 1, but it's meaning is highly contested). These words confronted me in a series of prayers that I have recited every morning since I was five. One morning I was in a meditative mode, fully present and intentional with every word I was saying. I paused. The most obvious inference in this prayer is that I am grateful for not being made an impliedly inferior type of person. But this makes no sense to me. There are many people I know personally who are not Jewish and whom I deeply respect and admire.  If I skipped the prayer, it would mean rejecting the theological/legal system that forms the basis of my Orthodox spiritual life.  So I reinterpret the prayer to mean that despite my acknowledgement of the various paths to personal and spiritual greatness of the Muslims, Christians, Hindus, atheists/agnostics, traditionally spiritual Aboriginals and others whom I so admire, I still thank God for giving me my own cherished Jewish heritage and identity rather than any of those other profoundly beautiful other ways of being.  Afterwards I thought, whom am I kidding? Don’t words have a fixed meaning beyond their creative reinterpretations? Perhaps they do, but that is how I chose to deal with it. 

 

The blessing about not being a non-Jewish person  is followed by an expression of gratitude for not being a slave. I thought that the two prayers could be interpreted in similar ways. To be a "slave" has a certain appeal. As the CEO of a not for profit charity I carry the responsibility for a mission and a few persons’ livelihoods. It's often stressful. Like the Israelites in the desert, I'm tempted by the freedom from responsibility that comes with being an employee or, in the case of the Israelites, the lack of accountability to God they had as slaves of the Pharaohs. 2  Yet despite the attraction of "slavery" I choose to be grateful for the freedom to pursue my vision according to my own conscience and I am happy to pay the price.

The price of leadership can be high. In our Torah reading this week this theme can lead us back to the theme of prejudice. The Israelites in the desert complained and thereby challenged Moses and God. Moses was so frustrated that he would rather have died 3  than continue with his impossible mission of leadership unless God helped him. One group of people are highlighted as being at fault; these were “the multitude among them [who] began to have strong cravings.” 4  The multitude was “not of them 5” (the Jewish nation), but joined the Israelites during the exodus from Egypt and in this case the ethnic Jews are said to have followed the lead of the multitude and also rebelled.

But there is an opportunity for a strong anti-prejudice lesson in our Torah reading too. We read that Moses was married to a black woman, in fact as black as a raven 6 and that Moses’ siblings were rebuked for wrongly criticizing Moses on account of his black wife. I would assume that if his wife was black so was his non-ethnically Jewish, Midyanite father-in-law, Jethro. Shortly before Moses descended into despair he begged his father-in-law to stay in the desert. “Please don’t abandon us…you have been like eyes for us 7” Moses pleaded.  Moses cherished his father-in-law’s advice. A few verses later we are told that Jethro did in fact leave Moses without his support, and that Moses cried out bitterly about the burdens of leadership.   As our sages taught us, there is wisdom among the nations.8  One of our greatest scholars would rise in honour of the accumulated life wisdom of elderly people who were not Jewish 9, while Maimonides happily incorporated ethical teachings from non-Jewish philosophers in his writing. 10

Yet, these highly plausible interpretations in the previous paragraph are far from unanimous. The words “Kushite”/black that describe Moses’ wife are taken to mean that she was not black but undeniably beautiful 11 just as a black person is clearly black. Another commentary argues that in fact Moses didn’t really need his father-in-law’s advice at all and just pretended he needed it out of humility 12.  I suggest that when it comes to religion, especially mine, interpretation is almost everything. So thank you God for making me Jewish even thought I could have been gloriously wonderful in a somewhat different way, being someone else.

This is one demonstration of creative interpretation of a religious text that at first glance seems to say one thing but can actually mean something else.   

Notes

1. I object to words like “goy” or non-Jew as a noun. I think that a person should be defined by what they are and how they define themselves rather than how they are not like me. The literal meaning of the word "goy" is nation and can have a neutral meaning referring to a person from a nation other than the Jewish nation. The blessing traditionally is understood to reflect additional commandments that Jews are obligated in according to Judaism. 

2.  This comment is based on commentary to Numbers 11:5 when the Jews talked about free fish they age in Egypt, which is interpreted by Sifre, cited in Rashi, as being free from Mitzvot

3.  Numbers 11:10-15

4.  Numbers 11:4

5.  Ibn Ezra on 11:4

6.  Numbers 12:1-9 according to Ibn Ezra and Abarbanel

7.  Numbers 10:31

8.  Midrash Eicha Rabba 2:13 מדרש איכה רבה פרשה ב סימן יג

9.  Talmud 33:1

10.  Maimonides,

הרמב"ם בתחילת הקדמתו למסכת אבות ("שמונה פרקים") כותב: "ודע, כי הדברים אשר אומר אותם באלו הפרקים... הם עניינים מלוקטים מדברי החכמים (חכמי ישראל)... ומדברי הפילוסופים גם כן ומחיבורי הרבה בני אדם. ושמע האמת ממי שאמרה". על הפילוסוף היווני אריסטו כותב הרמב"ם: "הוא אשר לימד לבני אדם את דרכי ההוכחה וחוקיה ותנאיה" ("מורה הנבוכים" חלק ב פרק טו(.
cited in http://www.kipa.co.il/ask/show/86913

11.  Sifre, Unkelous, Rashi, and Ralbag, see Ibn Kaspi’s (cited in Nechama Lebovitz) withering critique of these teachings that essentially take the verses to mean the opposite of what the plain text appears to be saying

12.  Ralbag

Interaction between “the Certain”, the “Chosen” and the Text Ki Tavo

Photo copyright by Damien Begovic, Dialogue at the
Together for Humanity stall at the Multicultural Eid Festival
18 August 2013, Fairfield, Sydney Australia

Yesterday I was surrounded by a civil, well intentioned, confident group of bearded young Muslim males of Arabic and other backgrounds. I was in my element, I had been warmly welcomed by the organizer of this outreach event, I was offered dates and Arabic coffee, I had lovely conversations with several Muslims that I knew previously and we were talking religion. While on one level I enjoyed the next discussion, there was something a bit challenging with the rather robust dialogue I got into with this group, I felt like I was being targeted for conversion. When I reflected on it and my own reactions to this experience as well as other heart-warming experiences this week, it got me thinking about what works in interfaith interaction and on one of the topics we discussed, the notion of the Jews being God’s chosen people.

Ahmad  asked me about a verse in the Torah that he thinks predicted the rising of another prophet like Moses. The text states “I will set up a prophet for them from among their brothers like you, and I will put My words into his mouth ”. I had never thought of it as relating to a specific prophet and explained to him that the Torah has at least 70 different explanations. That was not good enough for him, there had to be one right answer, otherwise “there will be confusion”. So I explained that the verse refers not to one specific prophet, but to the concept of prophecy which applied to many men and women. I got the text on my smart phone and showed the context of the verse. It follows a warning not to seek superficial certainties through sorcery, but instead to seek guidance from God’s messengers. This made little impression on Ahmad and his friends, who continued to insist that I was wrong because the singular form of the word “prophet” proved that it was talking about one person.

Ahmad then posed a much more powerful challenge relating to the relationship between God and the Jews vs. God’s relationship to all people. Did I believe in a tribal God of Israel or a Universal God of all people and things? What did I think about the chosen people? These questions could have led to a thoughtful exchange that would have helped all of us gain greater understanding of each other’s’ faiths.  Unfortunately at this stage, my headspace was anything but thoughtful. Instead I was part of a game I never agreed to play, that of seeking to convince each other about truths. The absurdity of it, was that here I was being challenged about the meaning of my own sacred text by people who had limited knowledge of it and could not read it in its original language. This is always a bad move. We are on much safer ground when we speak about our own text and show openness to those who follow a text to tell us what it means to them.

In a more curious dialogue, I would have compared Jewish and Islamic texts relating to the way that Moses introduces God to Pharaoh (Firaon in Arabic). In the Torah, Moses states: "So said the Lord God of Israel, 'Send out My people’’ " and he also refers to the “God of the Hebrews ”. In the Quran we a significant difference in the way Moses (or Musa) refers to God. He states: “Oh Pharaoh! Lo! I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds…I come to you with a clear proof from your Lord. So let the children of Israel go with me ”.  The Islamic text presents a universal God of the “worlds” who is even the Lord of Pharaoh himself.  Putting this in context, God is introduced as the creator of the universe, who is terribly concerned about injustice in the pagan society of Sodom.  I would argue that Jews clearly see God as universal rather than what I regard as the ridiculous notion of an exclusive Jewish God.  The idea of a God of Israel is more about the dedication of Israel to the one God than it is about ownership in the way that people talk of the sports team they are fans of as being “their team”.

The question of the Chosen people is often taken to mean that Jews have a sense of superiority. It is hard to argue with that interpretation when we consider the text in the reading Ki Tavo. “the Lord has selected you this day to be His treasured people, as He spoke to you, and so that you shall observe all His commandments, and to make you supreme (higher), above all the nations that He made… ”. I do not take this as a license to chauvinism or arrogance. I would broadly agree with the Muslim woman I enjoyed a most respectful conversation with at our Together For Humanity stall we had on Sunday at the Multicultural Eid festival. She understood choseness as reflecting the fact that the Jews had chosen to worship and believe in God. One commentator understands the key word האמירך (He-Eemircha) which some translate as chosen, to mean that He caused you to say and be willing to be a people for (eg. committed to) God because he did so many miracles (for the Jews) . The context clearly shows that the people were chosen to obey commandments.

Another commentator sees a strong universatlist agenda in all this. The purpose of the Jews special status is not for their benefit but for God to achieve through them what he wanted to achieve with the human species. The elevation is for the purpose of understanding and teaching monotheism .  I prefer these explanations to the one that suggest that even if another nation (Umma in Hebrew) will come and will do good, and will try to attach to the Divine presence they will not be able to acheve the level of Israel  . Not all interpretation is convenient, and I need to present a balanced view.

The discussion with Ahmad and friends continued to confront me. I explained that in Judaism there is no need for others to convert as long as they obey 7 key principals (laws for all children of Noah), one of which is establishment of law and justice which I interpret as including participation in the democratic process. I got an argument against democracy in favour of theocracy.

After this exchange, I talked to three other Muslim men one of whom was concerned about how I might have felt after the unofficial debate/conversion effort. Another walked me to my car and engaged me in a real open minded and open hearted conversation reflecting genuine curiosity and true gentleness of spirit. In my short conversation with him I learned some interesting similarities between Islam and Judaism as we understand Satan/Shaytan as an agent of God whose role is to tempt us. I put the more challenging (but not “bad” experience in context of all these much more pleasant conversations this week and indeed even at the same generally enjoyable event.  This little confrontation pales into significance when I compare it with the highlight of my week when Jewish students from the Emanuel School recited the blessing after meals among mostly Arabic Muslim students at Punchbowl Boys High School, followed by a dozen Muslim students doing the afternoon prayer in unison. Both groups of teenagers silently showed the greatest respect for each other, followed by genuinely curious questions, seeking understanding.

Certainties and claims to Choseness present challenges as well as opportunities for learning about each other and how to get along.