JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

Sunday, Elul 8, 5776. September 11, 2016.

Shalom! World.

The Chosen People, if we're going to come into this world and be the chosen people, then we have to stand up straight and act that way. Otherwise, we generate suspicion. If we walk into the classroom and we're from Heaven, a part of G'd sent into this world to do something for the world, and we sit there and say "Well, i don't know... I have the same questions you have, and I have the same problems you have!" - they're all going to hate us. We are the teachers, so we  have to get out of the classroom. 

And this, in a nutsshell, is anti-Semitism: "Either show me what makes you chosen and what you're sent to do, or get off of my property, you're stealing my land." "That's why when we behave like Jews, when we behave like chosen people, nobody has  any questions. 

Equality doesn't mean that we have to be the same. I've never heard of anybody who hates Einstein for being smart. If somebody's brilliant, a lot smarter than me, then fine, he's smarte, I don't hate him for that because there's no suspicion, I know exactly who he is. He's very smart, so he's the smart guy. And if somebody's Beethoven, I don't hate him for it or complain what gives him the right to have talent. A talent man is a person who uses  his talents - there's no mystery there and no hatred there. What's to complain about?

But when we stand around saying, "I'm not chosen, I don't know," then the world says, "You're not telling the truth. Why? What are you trying to pull? What are you up to? Whay do you insult my intelligence by playing dumb? I've read the Bible, it says you're chosen, so why won't you admit it? 

I know a Baptist Minister who brings his class to Lubavitch House to hear and learn about Judaism. He told me took his class to one of the local Synagogues, a non-Orthodox Synagogue, and they talked about the chosen people, and the Rabbi there explained that he doesn't believe in this idea of chosenness; he rejects the concept as being contrary to egalitarian and democratic principles and therfore the whole thing is irrelevant to him, and the whole business of being chosen is an immoral concept. The Minister said that he talked to the students about it on the way home, and the students said that they didn't believe that Rabbi. In other words, they know that the  Jews are the chosen people, and they didn't believe that the Rabbi was unaware or did not believe that he was chosen. They found it very disturbing and disappinting, and they decided not to go back there.

The world is not only willing to accept that Jews are different, the world wants Jews to be different. The world is not willing to enjoy the talents and uniqueness of the Jewish people, the world needs these talents and this uniqueness, particulary today.

For example, why is Israel always in the news? Why is Israel blamed for the problems in the Middle East? Because they know that Israel can and will be the answer. Nobody else. Syria's not going to be the answer, nor is Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia, or any other country. The world wants leadership and who are they going to look to for moral leadership if not the Jews? They don't want to hear, "Oh, no, we're no different, we're no better." They're not willing to accept that and they don't buy it. It only makes them suspicious that we're up to no good.

When we're asked this question and we have to answer standing on one foot, we have to find the right words with which to convey our message. A Jew is a different kind of creature with a different soul, and our purpose on earth is to elevate the physical condition, thereby making it easier for all people to serve G'd.

That's what we're here for. What makes a Jew a Jew is not the fact that we were chosen at some point in history, but that we were created this way to begin with - a Jew is a piece of G'd sent to earth and in that there is no choice. When it says in the Torah that at Mt. Sinai we became the chosen people, the Torah is referring to that area where a choice would be necessary, in that area where a Jew and a non-Jew are alike, in the human condition which we do share with the non-Jew, which is the body and the physical existence. 

When the Torah was given, the Jew's physical condition, the body of the Jew, was chosen. Although the Jewish body had beeen the same as other people's bodies, it was chosen at Mt. Sinai. From then on, the soul was not going to be stranger in a stranger land, in the body, but the body was going to become Jewish as well.

The Torah gives us instructions on how we are bring a unique Divine soul into action in the physical world. Here you have a Divine soul, it's living on earth, it has a mission, but how is it going to operate - what is it going to do? It doesn't want to eat, it doesn't want money, it doesn't want physical comforts, what does it want to do in this physical world.

The Torah was given to us so that the soul can do physical thigs without compromising its Divinity. When the Torah says eat this way, this is a way that the soul can eat. When the Torah says dress modesty, conduct business honestly, etc., that makes it possible for a Divine soul to engage in these physical activities without doing violence to itself.

So what happened at the giving of the Torah is that our holy souls, which we had all along, which make us Jewish to begin with, gained access to the physical world because the commandments permit the Divine soul to do physical things in a Divine fashion. What that means is that not only is the soul Divine, but now, as a result of the Torah, the body becomes Divine. Our bodies were chosen at the given of the Torah, but as far as our souls are concerned, we were always Jewish, and there was never any choice.

That's why there is no question about being chosen; the question is about what makes us Jewish. Where is the evidence? The class form the Baptist school once asked this question, "How does being the chosen people express itself?

To sum up, in being chosen, we have one pf three options. Either we're going to continue to insist we never heard of it. Or we're going to conntinue to vacillate and not know whether we're coming or going, or what to say.

Or we're going to stand up straight and say, "Yes, we're different, we're special, we're Jewish, we're created from G'd's thought. Yes, we are chosen and we therefore must live up to that title."

Shalom! Aleichem.    

Suporte cultural:  Jacob Jr. B.A.C.E., avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Cz.