Shalom, this video is about the concept of choosing this in Judaism. When all denominations go to the torah for aliyah except for Reconstructionists, the blessing is, blessed though the word of God ashir baharbanu mikova mimu chooses from among the nations. Reconstructionists find the accounts of pre problematic and so they change the blessing instead of ashir baharbanu which chooses among the nation, they say ashir karafnu aflotato, the Jewish close to your worship. But let me explain the concept, it is not a concept of superior or inner wall and when a Jew who feels that way is misunderstanding the idea. The torah says that we are a mamofat kohanim, the nation of priests, am sugala, a treasured nation, a guai kadosh, guai simply means a nation, and kadosh is set apart or holy.
Isaiah, the prophet in the bible says we are the or-growim or light of the nations. Judaism is the one religion that says you do not want have to be Jewish, everybody else is you have to be Jewish, that the pope just said if you are not a catholic, you do not get salvation and the providence are upset about that. We just went to the bahai temple and the bahai believe that they are the highest of all religions, there are price and denominations to the belief, if you are not born again, you do not get salvation. Jewish alone say you do not have to be Jewish but if you are a Jewish, that is good, anybody can be Jewish. So what is the concept of choosing this, what we are choosing for? We have extra commandments; the rest of the world according to Judaism has seven commandments to observe the seven most of the sons of Noah, Jewish have another 606 and hundreds of those today do not apply because the holy temple has been destroyed in Jerusalem 2000 years ago which involved many of the commandments and somewhere only for people who live in Israel but there is still many extra commandments and God has a particular test for us to see what kind of people would be by observing these commandments, it is a holy covenantal relationship, that is what it is.
Second of all, we were the first major religious group of Monotheists and the basic thing that we have to witness is the God as one, and spread that idea along with the other ideas of the bible to the world. There is a wonderful book out called the gift of the Jewish which shows of how many of the basic ideas of western civilization, the most fundamental ones come from Judaism, the idea of one god, the Sabbath, messiah, love thy neighbor as thyself, do not murder.
All of those basic rules that are fundamental to our society are Jewish, so choosing this is not a concept of superiority. The other thing to think about is that when you study cultures, every cultures thinks they are chosen in some way, they are special and that maybe crucial to self esteem, it is no different than probably in any other group. So anyone who priors to present the concept of choosing this is something other than the idea that we have this special relationship with God and other people can too and this is open to everybody, it is not that choose or better on anybody else.
In fact, one of the famous lines from the popular culture is the feeder on the roof which are highly recommend people see if they have not seen it to understand the transition to modern Jewish history where Tibia, the main character as I wish God would have chosen someone else because we paid a very heavy price for this special relationship and these extra commandments. A little bit of introduction to the concept of choosing this.
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