A look at the traditional Jewish prayer book highlights the importance of the notion that God chose Israel “from among all the nations.” The concept of chosenness comes up at critical liturgical moments: just before the daily morning recitation of the Sh’ma, among Judaism’s most sacred prayers; before reading the Torah; when sanctifying the Sabbath and festivals; when marking the end of the Sabbath; and in a special addition to the Eighteen Benedictions (a central prayer, recited thrice daily) for festivals.

The vicissitudes of Jewish history have likely contributed to endowing chosenness with such importance. In the face of suffering and Christianity’s claim to be the new Israel, emphasis on chosenness provided a measure of consolation: the Jewish people’s special relationship with God endured, which meant that redemption could not be far off.* Thus, the rabbinic period, which inspired so much of the liturgy stressing chosenness, unfolded in the shadow of the Temple’s destruction with all but a handful of Jews living in exile. Nonetheless, even the Sages occasionally adopted a more universalistic tone. One ancient midrash asserts that “God’s love for Israel was similarly directed toward the gentile nations.”* Another proclaims, “I call on heaven and earth to witness that whether it be a gentile or a Jew, a man or a woman, a manservant or a maidservant, the Holy Spirit will suffuse each of them in keeping with the deeds he or she performs.”*

In and of itself, the meaning of chosenness is ambiguous. What does it mean if a teacher chooses one student from among all others? There’s a big difference between being chosen to star in a play and being chosen to clean desktops. The danger arises when we equate chosenness with superiority, a position that many Jewish thinkers held in the Middle Ages, but which now is generally rejected. Instead, the emphasis falls on the idea that the Jewish people were chosen to receive the laws of Torah. And even here the story is not so simple because according to a common midrashic tradition, God first offered the Torah to other peoples who for various reasons rejected it. As one midrash explains, God chose Israel because Israel chose God and the Torah.*

What are the implications of election in this context? A contemporary scholar asserts that because chosenness is about accepting “duties, to fulfill a mission rather than to take on entitlements and privileges. . . . Within such a framework . . . it would be a perversion of the idea of election if it were turned into an argument in support of unequal treatment for the non-elect.”* In fact, an ancient prophetic tradition holds God’s election explains the Jewish people’s suffering. “You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I will call you to account for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Many likewise stress that rather than superiority, chosenness signifies the Jewish people’s special responsibility to be an ethical “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6).

Still, to assign one nation the task of providing ethical illumination to others only begs the question. Why choose us? To claim chosenness by God all too easily breeds arrogance and resentment. For these and other reasons, Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983), the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, our youngest and smallest denomination, completely rejected the concept of the chosen people. Kaplan’s 1941 Passover Haggadah, his first liturgical publication, omitted all references to it. Subsequent Reconstructionist liturgy has replaced references to chosenness with an expression of gratitude for having been being “brought near to God’s service.”* The phrase almost identical to one that appears in the standard Haggadah.