The concept of a chosen people preferred by God challenges core ideas about fairness, divine love, and human equality. If God loves everyone equally, singling out one specific group for a special covenant or status appears to contradict that fairness. If God is over all of humanity, then how could God pick one people? It seems to imply a capricious deity or one closer to Greek myths. More importantly in our era, the concept generates arrogance, racism, chauvinism, or violence. It implies that one group is inherently better than the rest and often demeans the humanity of the other group. However, the concept of the Jewish People chosen from among all the people is a substantial part of the Bible and Jewish everyday liturgy.
The latest volume to offer a solution to this problem is an excellent new book by Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens, God’s Chosen People: Judaism’s Most Divisive Doctrine (Oxford, 2026). Lebens is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa specializing in early analytic philosophy especially Bertrand Russell, the nature of propositions, the nature of fiction, and writes widely on the analytic philosophy of Judaism. His PhD is from Birkbeck College, University of London, and he completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Notre Dame and at Rutgers University with Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg.
Leben’s method takes as a fundamental given the tenets of Judaism, which, for him, include existence of God, revelation, and Bible interpreted through Rabbinic method. He does not argue for these, rather they are his starting premises. Like many Evangelical analytic theologians, who Lebens studies, the goal is to formulate a position that he can live with, a Judaism with enough analytic philosophy defense to be cogent and defensible.
Lebens stands on the shoulders of several recent works to create his theology of Jewish choseness including the classic Rabbi Prof Michael Wyschogrod, Body of Faith (1983), Rabbi Prof David Novak, The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People (2007), and Prof Yehuda Gelman, God’s Kindness Has Overwhelmed Us: A Contemporary Doctrine of the Jews as the Chosen People (2012). The last one by Gelman used the tools of analytic theology; Lebens acknowledges his debt to this work,
However, Lebens is more Biblically based than Gelman, analyzing five Biblical models of choseness of the Jewish people. You can read about the models in the interview. This is analytic presentation of materials is Leben’s strong suit; his collecting the data from a broad range of materials: Biblical, Talmudic, Medieval Philosophic, Rosenzweig, and Modern Orthodox thinkers. This extensive range is unique to this book compared to his predecessors.
In addition, Lebens emphasizes his belief in a personal God as the Jewish view. He rejects all abstract views of God and all impersonal views. His belief in this is strong enough for him to discount medieval Jewish thought and all Jewish views of an abstract God. Therefore, despite his broad historical reach, mainly of the thinkers he discusses are presented for him to reject them.
Lebens makes good use of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ ideas. And Lebens is part of a growing trend to follow the thought of formerly obscure thinker Rabbi Nathaniel ibn Fayumi who taught that God sends a prophet to every nation. (See my prior posts on the use of Nathanel ibn Fayumi by Rabbi Yaakov Nagen and by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed). Lebens, however, is original in how he presents ibn Fayumi as a continuity of Rabbi Saadiah Gaon.
In the 1948 debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston, on the nature of God and philosophy, Russell argued for modern analytic logic thereby rejecting the medieval classics and Copleston argued for the classic scholastic theism. It was exemplar in showing two methods for reading texts from prior centuries, are they treated as objects for analytic analysis or as traditions received. Lebens is clearly on the side of Russell. I am much less comfortable rejecting Maimonidean positions. And Lebens chapter on Jewish mysticism, was unnecessary in its current form.
Since the book only sporadically dips into the scholarship, it missed a few books that would have help develop his arguments such Chosen and Unchosen: Conceptions of Election in the Pentateuch and Jewish-Christian Interpretation (2009)by Joel N. Lohr. The book directly deals with the Biblical models of choseness and election in both Jewish and Christian thought, and specifically deals with Wyschogrod, Novak, and Jon Levenson.
My bigger issue is how his book relates to actual Jews and Jewish opinions. I tried pushing these issues in several of my questions. In 1983, Prof Arnold Eisen, wrote a book The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology where he states: “A Jewish ethnic identity was illegitimate in democratic America; in clinging to the illusion of chosenness which demanded such an identity, Jews brought their sufferings upon themselves.” Eisen quotes the Conservative Rabbi Milton Steinberg who observed in 1934: “Only a people of acrobats could preserve a semblance of poise on a footing so unstable.” Based on this, does Leben’s book speak to a reader who does not accept his premises?
I think it does. It offers for Jews an exemplar example of Evangelical analytic theology based on Biblical truth. The rigor, extensiveness, and overview of many positions make it almost a basic reader on the topic. Most prior analytic works were articles arguing for a single position. Lebens offers range and depth. The book would make an ideal book for an introduction to Jewish thought especially in Modern Orthodox high schools or in gap year program. The book would raise the level of discussion to sophisticated levels. I make this recommendation, with the caveat that the instructor should complement the book by arguing for their own positions including those of Halevi, Maimonides, or Kabbalah, as well as modern thinkers who are not modern Orthodox.
Finally, even though the book is being published by Oxford University Press, an earlier draft is also available on the Virtual Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion as forty-five digestible lectures as Choosing a Theory of Chosenness. I emphasize this because the list price for the new book is $165. The book is worth reading, worth arguing with, and stay tuned for some responses here.
- Why did this topic interest you?
My children had some disturbing experiences in the religious school system in Israel. On numerous occasions, they were witness to hateful and racist statements, not merely from their peers, but even from their teachers. Those experiences cemented my opinion that Jewish supremacism is growing steam in the rank and file of the Religious Zionist community in Israel. My decision to excavate and thoroughly explore the notion of chosenness was my attempt to do the intellectual heavy lifting required to challenge that supremacism, using the sources of the Jewish tradition itself.
2. What are the Biblical models of choseness and why did you pick two as best?
I found there to be five central Biblical models of the election of Israel:
One- The Genesis Model: The main notions within this model are that the choice of Abraham and his progeny was somewhat arbitrary (in that there may have been other individuals, no less qualified than Abraham); the choice of Abraham was intended to bring blessing to all of the families of the world – such that the election is a means to that universalistic end; the chosen are called upon to showcase and embody the political virtues of justice and equity (i.e., tzedek and mishpat); the chosen are to be liminal, and to utilize that liminality as a counter-cultural voice in the conversation of humanity; and they are called upon to struggle with man and with God.
Two- The Marriage Model: This refers to the idea that the chosen were not chosen for any mission in particular. Instead, they were chosen because God had fallen in love with them. The Torah and its laws, on this construal of the relationship, function like a marriage contract.
Three- The Priesthood Model: The guiding slogan of this model is that we are to be a “kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Whatever the Levitical priests are supposed to provide to Israel, the Israelites are called upon to provide for the nations of the world.
Four- The Zechut Avot Model: “Zechut Avot” refers to the merit of the ancestors. On this model, the Jewish people have a special status, not in virtue of their own achievements, but merely in virtue of the merit of their illustrious ancestors.
Five- The Name-bearing Model: On this model, the Jewish people are to be witnesses to the existence of God, and to carry His name, or His reputation, among the peoples of the world.
These models aren’t exhaustive, since they neglect various other metaphors: God is the farmer and Israel is His vineyard; God is the shepherd, and Israel are His sheep; God is the potter, and Israel are His clay; God is the King, and Israel are His subjects; we are the allotment of land that He inherits, and He is our inheritor. But none of these metaphors are developed as extensively as the five models I’ve identified.
I found that Models iv and v are easily subsumed into the other models. For example, you might think that the Marriage Model is true, but that God didn’t fall in love with us so much as with our ancestors. Alternatively, you might think that bearing God’s name in the world is part of the mission of a global priesthood, or part of the mission bestowed upon Abraham. That leaves us with three main models.
In later stages of the book, I argue that the Genesis Model and the Priesthood Model can be combined into one coherent picture.
The Marriage Model can’t be taken too literally, for Biblical reasons, if we’re to reconcile it with other models of the election. Theologically, when taken too literally, the Marriage Model renders God guilty of favoritism and caprice. Accordingly, I would say that the relationship between Israel and God is aptly described as a passionate marriage, but only in some respects. It is the first two models that must take the lead.
- 3.How do you deal with difficult Rabbinic texts on this topic?
Many of the most difficult Rabbinic texts, ones that reputedly dehumanize non-Jews, have been well dealt with already by others. To that end, I lean heavily upon (and embellish) Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz’ masterful early work, What is the Talmud?
But more than that, I discover two potentially surprising data points.
First: with a proper understanding of their etiology and underlying symbolism, the Rabbinic laws known as eiva and darkei shalom – which prohibit actions that would cause animosity between Jews and non-Jews, and mandate various acts of kindness towards non-Jews – are not to be understood as political exigencies, or compromises. On the contrary, they are motivated by central ethical convictions of the Rabbis.
Second: the Rabbis take the most problematic Biblical model of the election – the Marriage Model – and entirely recalibrate it. Instead of portraying Israel as the bride of God Himself, they portray Israel as the bride of God’s daughter – the Torah. God is then recast as our heavenly father-in-law. This means that we only occupy any sort of special status to the extent that we’re living our lives in accordance with the Torah. To the extent that we’re not, the status will be attenuated.
This Rabbinic Model nevertheless has to rub shoulders with other conceptions of the election. And thus, it isn’t fair or possible to flatten the Rabbinic data and to pretend that there was always consensus. On the contrary, my aim is to trace all of the major lines of development and to find, where possible, the best fit between them all; without pretending that all of the sources are in agreement.
4.The liturgy states repeatedly that God chose us- asher bachar banu mi kol Haamim- how do you deal with this?
The fact that we were chosen “from among all of the nations,” doesn’t ipso facto entail that other nations haven’t also been chosen for other purposes. To that end, see Amos 9:7.
The fact that we have been exalted over other “tongues” and above the “uncircumcised” has nothing to do with our ethnicity or race, but with the language that we’ve been co-opted into speaking – i.e., the language of Torah – and her rituals, such as circumcision.
To the extent that we’ve been sanctified as a people, the liturgy tends to insist that it’s only because we have been given the Torah and holds only to the extent that we cleave to that Torah.
There’s no doubt that Jewish supremacists will nevertheless find lots of phrases in the liturgy to cleave to, but I argue that a closer reading of those texts always falls short of endorsing any one particular model of the election. In fact, the relevant liturgical texts tend to manifest a studied neutrality when it comes to the various competing Biblical and Rabbinic models of the election. A proper understanding of the etiology of even the most offensive sounding liturgical formulations inevitably undermines their offensive appearances; or so my study has found.
5. How do you both accept and reject the approach of Maimonides?
I endorse Maimonides’ goal of articulating an entirely non-racial construal of Jewish identity. I also hope to preserve an inspiring detail of his understanding of the Priesthood Model. On his account of that model, it isn’t only the non-Levitical tribes of Israel who are invited to share in the overall mission of the Priesthood to the world; but that:
Each and every person of all the inhabitants of the world whose spirit generously motivates him, and who understands with his wisdom, to separate himself and stand before God to serve Him and minister to Him and to know God, proceeding justly as God made him, removing from his neck the yoke of the many reckonings which people seek, he is sanctified as holy of holies (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shemitta VeYovel, 13:13).
But there are two related respects in which I think we should diverge from the Rambam. The first is that his theology entails that God is not a personal being and that, as such, God can enter into no particular form of relationship with any individual or community.
That theology is alien to the Bible’s presentation of God, and alien to much of the Rabbinic movement’s conception of God, such that Jewish believers in revelation should be very reticent to embrace it. He was operating with an Aristotelian conception of how metaphysical explanation is supposed to work. Once that background has been removed, the argument that pushes Maimonides to his apersonalist theology is no longer compelling at all.
Secondly, and as a consequence of his apersonalist theology, one finds that Maimonides basically rejects the entire notion of chosenness. To the extent that anything remains chosen, on his conception of things, it is the religion of Judaism, but not the Jews. This is a highly revisionary conception of the election.
6.Why do you reject a non-personal or abstract God?
My rejection of the abstract God stuff can be boiled down to this: Given the Biblical and Rabbinic data, and the extent to which a great deal of Judaism is built upon the notion that God is the sort of being with whom a nation can have a covenantal relationship, I think that there’s a burden of proof upon the apersonalists. I accept that if you swallow a wholly Aristotelian conception of how metaphysical explanation is supposed to work, then you end up almost automatically with a very abstract God. But I don’t swallow that metaphysics. In my book, I go through every argument that supposedly entails that God isn’t a person, and I show them to be wanting. This leads me to think that, with no working argument against a personal God, we should lean into the tradition and revelation and accept that God is a person; albeit a perfect person. So, I argue. That part of the book is inspired in part by Rabbi Heschel, and also, in part, by contemporary analytic theology, where it’s increasingly common to think of God as a person.
7. How do you solve the issue of chosenness for Yehudah Halevi?
Despite Halevi’s presentation of himself as an opponent to Aristotelian philosophy, he nevertheless contends that God is entirely above description, and so entirely apersonal. The central challenge for a Jewish philosopher who embraces an apersonalist theology is this: how can an apersonal God enter into a personal relationship with a particular people at a particular time?
Maimonides answers this question by denying that God enters into such a relationship. Judaism might be chosen, but not the Jews.
Halevi answers our question by supposing that the Jews are a species set apart from all other human beings; possessed of a special “divine influence.” By making this move, Halevi can say that God didn’t have to make a choice in revealing His Torah to just one people. Instead, there was only one people who were at all qualified to receive it.
This was a massive innovation on the part of Halevi. In fact, Ehud Krinis argues that Halevi’s whole conception of an elevated form of human being was a foreign import gleaned from Shi’ite Islam (Krinis, God’s Chosen People: Judah Halevi’s ‘Kuzari’ and the Shi’i Imam Doctrine). I reject this innovation, not least because I reject the apersonal theology that motivated it.
And yet, despite my rejection of the Rihal’s conception, my reading allows us to defend him against the accusation of out-and-out racism.
Rabbi Dr. David Novak, is his book The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People, contends that Halevi was never motivated by racist animus. As Novak details: Halevi recognizes the existence of righteous gentiles, just as he recognizes the existence of wicked Jews. Accordingly, Halevi doesn’t think that we Jews enjoy a “moral superiority over the rest of humankind.” The capacity for prophecy is the one and only advantage that Halevi thinks to be innately and uniquely possessed by the Jew. Moreover, Halevi seems to think that, in the end of days, all people will become Jewish. Indeed, on Novak’s well-reasoned reading, Halevi even concedes that the child of two converts, despite having no genealogical link by which to inherit the “divine influence,” will inherit it anyway.
To Novak’s defense, I would add just two further points. First: perhaps the central conceit of Halevi’s book was supposed to communicate to us that he still held non-Jews in the highest regard. Second: once we realize that Halevi was forced into his otherwise unsightly position by the shackles of an apersonalist theology, we can better understand the predicament that he was in; even if it isn’t one that we share.
8. How do you deal with the approach of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson?
The Rebbe was heir to the intellectual tradition, within the tapestry of Jewish thought, that seems most wedded to ethnocentrism and supremacism. There are approaches in the Kabbalah according to which non-Jewish souls derive from the dark side of reality – the sitra achra. They are repeatedly described as impure, such that Jews shouldn’t even approach them. This gave rise to a mystical tradition in which Jews and gentiles were said to have different sorts of souls. Indeed, Rabbi Chaim Vital says that Jews have two souls, whereas gentiles only have one. Despite Talmudic assurances to the contrary, these traditions often imply that only the Jews have a share in the world to come. This tradition arguably finds a firm hold in the Tanya, which was the founding text of the Lubavitch movement.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, by contrast, seems to have been animated by a profound concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of non-Jews. Accordingly, when one looks through his writings, one sees various ingenious attempts to utilize the strident monism of the mystical tradition, in an effort to dislodge from that same tradition the appearance of xenophobia.
My hope is that, against the backdrop of my book’s intellectual history, people will be better placed to appreciate what it is that the Rebbe achieved in his conception of the election. His theory manages to combine elements of (1) all of the Biblical models; (2) the incarnational elements of certain Rabbinic models of the election; (3) Maimonidean universalism; (4) the notion that God’s choice of Israel was supra-rational (since God’s choice of Israel, for the Rebbe, remains a mystery); and (5) the Two-Track Model (pioneered by certain German rabbis, according to which Israel and the gentiles are both called upon to serve God, but to do so in different co-equal ways).And yet, despite his best efforts, the resulting view still contains a residue of supremacism. Religious philosophers not so tightly wedded to the Tanya, I argue, will be better served elsewhere.
9. How do you use and then modify Prof Michael Wyschogrod’s thought?
Wyschogrod’s defense of a personalist theology is one of the most stridently formulated in the literature. How dare we be ashamed, he would ask us, to describe God in the terms that God Himself deploys in the Bible? My own personalist theology is in his debt.
But his conception of the election, though it may have been motivated by a desire to protect the spirit of Biblical theology, and to combine that spirit with a rejection of supremacism, remains deeply unattractive to me because Wyschogrod ultimately insists and defends the claim that we are, without being inherently better than others, literally God’s favorites.
His defense of God’s special love for the Jews is built upon the notion that any father, if sufficiently honest, will admit that he has a favorite child. Doubtless, Wyschogrod would accuse me of dishonesty, but – as the father of three children – I insist that I don’t have favorites. On the contrary, the three loves that I bear to them are entirely incommensurate.
In order that humankind should be able to understand God’s love for us all, God chose to love us in a distinctively human way; and – according to Wyschogrod – human love always has favorites. The non-favorite nations, like any non-favorite child, should at least take solace from the fact that God’s love for each of us is real. How do we know that it’s real? Because, like human love, it has favorites. If it didn’t, he claims, it would be more like the “love” of a faceless bureaucracy. If we want something more discerning, passionate, and personal then we’ll have to accept that it will have favorites.
Because I disagree with its central premise – that fatherly love always has favorites – I find myself entirely rejecting Wyschogrod’s conception of the election. If anything, I would argue that he’s taking the Bible’s Marriage Metaphor too literally. His God seems capricious.
10. How do you use and then modify Prof. Yehuda Gelman?
Yehuda Gellman’s work on the election is excellent. I would be proud if my work could be seen as an attempt to enfold his own conception of the election into something broader; on the basis of a more extensive survey of the relevant source material, from the Bible until today.
My own conception of the election is a version of what I call the Two-Track Model. It’s a model that I find articulated first by Rabbi Yisrael Lipschutz (the Tiferet Yisrael) and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch; later to be developed further by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. On the Two-Track Model, and for reasons I develop in the book, God calls upon humanity to serve Him in two complementary and co-equal ways: the Jews on a Jewish track, and Gentiles on a gentile track.
Gellman adds to this that the love that God explicitly showers upon the Jews, in His acts of revelation and providence, is a figuration for the love that God actually has, equally, for all people. Were God to reveal this love in equal measure to all people, they would be rendered paralyzed by it. Accordingly, in His relationship with Israel, God allows the people of the world to see, just a sample, of the saving grace and love that He has in store for all human beings in the eschaton. This view is entirely consistent with the theory I develop.
11. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan famously wrote that modern Jews cannot accept the concept of the chosen people anymore. How would you respond?
Mordechai Kaplan is absolutely right to worry that, any attempt to cast ourselves as a light unto other nations, “smacks of arrogance.” Indeed, that worry accompanies me throughout the book as I look to articulate a version of the doctrine – deeply rooted in the relevant source material – but immune from the accusation of arrogance or cultural imperialism.
On the other hand, Kaplan’s efforts to purge the Jewish faith of this doctrine were doomed to fail. That’s because the Jewish faith walks a delicate line between, on the one hand, the belief that we have something sufficiently valuable to add to the world that it would be a shame if we were to assimilate and disappear; and, on the other hand, the belief that we have no obligation to convince gentiles to become Jewish. In other words, we neither want to assimilate nor to proselytize; and it’s hard to hold onto both of those positions unless we believe that we have been called upon (either by fate, or destiny, or God) to play a role that does not need to be played by others. That’s the job of the doctrine of the election.
12. This may be all well and good for analytic theology, but most see in real life an ethnocentric, tribal form of chosenness writing off anyone not Jewish. On the street, I would not get anything like your theology. Now what?
A Jewish theology is not automatically invalidated by the fact that it isn’t embodied in the faith of a particular Jewish community. Indeed, it might be the job of a Jewish theologian to criticize communities and to argue that, given their own theological axioms, their current form of life stands to be corrected.
To address this issue, I adopt a radical argument of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch. On his view, the mechanisms of cultural transmission and providence can be trusted to pass down an accurate presentation of what God demands from us, in each generation, formally or externally – literally, in terms of how we should behave, in order to discharge legal obligations – but they cannot be equally well trusted to make us understand how to perform those laws with the right spirit. The logic and textual basis for such a position needn’t detain us here, but it does allow me to maintain that many of the models of piety that can be found among truly sincere communities of God-fearers, might – despite their many virtues – stand in need of correction.
13 What happened to all your discussions of excreta and dreams from prior works? This work seems so much straighter.
I am a product of my upbringing in the analytical tradition of philosophy. I think it’s fair to say that – especially among the more metaphysically inclined of the analytical philosophers – our tradition is one that celebrates weird and wacky ideas. David Lewis, for example, was legendary for using his belief in an infinite number of entirely real and concrete universes to solve all sorts of philosophical quandaries. The only objection that he knew he couldn’t defuse was the so-called “incredulous stare” that his work inspired.
So too, when it comes to the metaphysics of religion, I’ve been happy to explore and to occupy the most peculiar sounding terrain, from my discussion of omnipresence, and whether it problematically locates God within so-called filthy places, to my discussion of the nature of creation, that places all things – including you and me – within the mind, or even the dream, of God.
That wacky streak isn’t entirely missing from this book – but it’s only wheeled out when absolutely necessary.
This book was written to address a particular moment in Jewish history, in the hope that it might move hearts and minds towards a more open and even pluralistic form of Judaism. To that end, I try, whenever possible, to base my arguments only upon assumptions that I think will be widely shared by the audience I would most like to move. Consequently, I keep the wackiness to a minimum.
14. How do you rely on Nathaniel ibn Fayumi? How and why do we give him such deference?
I suppose one could lean upon the fact that the Rambam lauded him so effusively in his Epistle to Yemen. That constitutes quite an approbation! But, notwithstanding the Rambam’s praise, the fact that his work made so little impact upon subsequent thinkers, such that his ideas were never assimilated into the warp and woof of Jewish thought, suggests that he isn’t owed particular intellectual deference, unless and to the extent that his arguments stand on their own two feet.
However, I give him a degree of attention in my book for two reasons. First, he stands as an interesting example of a medieval sage embracing a far-reaching and seemingly quite extreme form of pluralism. That, to my estimation, makes his work noteworthy. Moreover, his thought can help us to extend Saadya Gaon’s theory of the election to its logical extreme. And Saadya Gaon’s position as a fountainhead of Jewish thought, I think, is in no doubt.
Saadya Gaon embraces a radically reductive account of our chosenness. He seems to think that God gave a true religion to multiple nations – each one with their own public and miraculous Sinai-like event. All that renders the Jewish people special – in Saadya’s eyes – is that we have better retained our God-given religion than any of those other nations, who have largely been lost to history. Rabbi Netanel, who seems to have been a great admirer of Saadya Gaon, can be seen as extending the radical seed of Saadya’s picture to argue that God hasn’t stopped sending prophets to other nations. Moses remains our guide, but – as far as Rabbi Netanel was concerned – Mohammed may have been sent by God to guide the Gentiles of the Arabian Peninsula.
15. How do you rely on the thought of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks?
Rabbi Sacks developed a communitarian theology that, in turn, gave rise to an interesting and often misunderstood form of religious pluralism. Rooted against the background of those views, Rabbi Sacks developed an account of our chosenness.
I argue that, in light of the Biblical and Rabbinic data, and in light of the weight of the Jewish tradition, as it has unfolded from the days of Saadya Gaon until today, Rabbi Sacks’ theory of chosenness – suitably unpacked and embellished – stands out as the most robustly supported, and philosophically attractive articulation of the doctrine to date.
Rabbi Sacks grapples with the internal conflict that Judaism hosts between the universalism of its monotheism, with its creed that all human beings were created in the image of God, and the particularism of its mission for the Jews. What emerges is a complex view that can’t give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to the question, as to whether the Jews are somehow special. The reason that it can’t be answered simply is that, according to Rabbi Sacks, we were chosen precisely so as to be the ambassadors of this notion called the dignity of difference. In his words:
God, the creator of humanity, having made a covenant with all humanity [in the covenant with Noah], then turns to one people and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference. (53)
We are chosen to be different, so to speak, in order to showcase to the world that God values cultural and even religious diversity.
Notice how this gels with Yehuda Gellman’s view, since something about our election helps to illustrate how God values every culture, so long as that culture continues to respect the moral code of the Noahide covenant. And thus, as long as polytheism, atheism, or unjust forms of monotheism exist, on the one hand, and as long as totalizing cultures continue to exist that would seek to bulldoze over cultural diversity, and refuse to recognize the varied and authentic relationships that multiple peoples can have with one God, on the other hand, the election of the Jews will still have a distinctive role to play. That is the Jonathan Sacks heart of this book.
The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: 