The belief that God chose Israel from among all peoples was a cornerstone of Jewish identity for more than two millennia. When a Jewish person is called up to recite the blessings during the reading of the Torah, it is a re-enactment of the primary mythic moment of Jewish identity.[1] According to the book of Exodus (24:7), the Israelites stand at the foot of Mount Sinai, receive the Torah via Moses and assent unconditionally to follow the divine commandments: “We will act according to Your will unconditionally, even before we understand the content of Your commandments.” Thus, Jews have traditionally recited the blessing, “Blessed is the One Who has chosen us from among all peoples and given the Torah to us.” In this recitation, the worshipper is reaffirming the covenant.
It is thus unsurprising that when the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, began to advocate a renunciation of Chosenness in the 1920s, there was much resistance to such a departure from traditional belief. The chapter on “Election” in The Future of the American Jew, published in 1948, reflects decades of his teaching. The publication of the 1945 Sabbath Prayer Book by the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation changed the words of that blessing, as well as other liturgical references to Divine election of Israel. Kaplan had already been condemned when he first publicly renounced Chosenness in The New Haggadah in 1941.[2] But the 1945 prayer book provoked vociferous condemnation by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, which placed the book and Kaplan in herem in a public ceremony of excommunication. The faculty of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America censured Kaplan, who was a professor there.
The Reconstructionist attitude toward traditional Jewish practice and belief is that we retain our inherited customs as much as possible — for example, celebrating Passover as a festival of freedom by applying the traditional narrative of liberation from Egyptian slavery to contemporary issues of liberation. “Tradition has a vote, but not a veto[3] is a pithy saying that is often employed. But when we determine that a traditional practice is unethical — e.g., the exclusion of women or the limitation of marriage to straight couples — we correct and adapt. Thus the name of our approach and our movement: we reconstruct. Chosenness falls into this latter category.
Theological Grounds
Reconstructionists have continued to reject Chosenness, preeminently on ethical grounds. But to understand the ethical objections, it is important to note theological and sociological considerations that shaped Kaplan’s ethical concerns and that still resonate today.
Both in the Torah and in rabbinic teaching, God literally revealed the Torah to Moses and the Israelites and formed a covenant (brit) with them, in which they agreed to follow the Torah. The Jewish people was chosen to receive and follow the commandments not because of our inherent virtue or merit. Our merit was earned by our faithful adherence to the covenant through halakhic observance. According to this belief, it was the Torah — God’s word — that was superior to the religions of other peoples. We were to achieve merit by following the Torah.[4]
Most Jews in the modern era no longer believe that God’s promise to Abraham actually happened or that the words of the Torah were literally spoken by God so that the commandments are binding. Given that fact, the belief in Chosenness becomes nonsensical. You can’t be God’s Chosen if God does not choose.
As Jews, we strive to make Jewish civilization better. Similarly, we believe that others should do the same in their cultural and religious contexts. … All peoples are called to Divine service and their commitment to joining hands with others in the sacred work of repairing this broken world.
Until the modern era, Jews lived among Christians and Muslims, both of whom claimed to be the successors of Judaism as the Elect of God. In this context of competing claims, Jews joined the argument, internally and externally, to hold onto Judaism’s exclusive claim, denigrating these successor religions as imperfect imitations. Multiple claims of Chosenness lead to competition, conflict and rancor. Thus, the centrality of the Jewish belief in Chosenness was elevated and reinforced.
While there remain many Jews, Christians and Muslims today (as well as people with secular and political ideologies) who continue to believe in their own superiority, we believe that holding onto the claim when we do not worship a God who intervenes in human history in ways described in the biblical narrative is not the way to promote more intensive Jewish living. From a contemporary perspective, this belief is more likely to appear racist or supremacist, and even promote chauvinism and racism.
Sociological Grounds
If so, then the belief that Jews are the Chosen People is reduced to a claim that Jewish people are superior to non-Jewish people. Not because we follow the Divine commandments, but almost genetically. This has led to countless claims of Jewish supremacy that have subsequently been debunked: Jews are more intelligent, more diligent, more gentle, more ethical, less violent, less prone to alcoholism or adultery, and so on. The pre-modern claims of Jewish virtue were always understood as following from Jews’ observance of the commandments, not because we were innately better.
Ethical Grounds
And so, holding on to the Chosen People belief without a belief in Divine revelation is inevitably racist. Reconstructionists understand Judaism as a religious civilization that has evolved as it has adapted to ever-changing circumstances and cultural conditions. Not everything in Torah and Jewish law is ethical by contemporary standards. The roles assigned to women in the second or 12th centuries, for example, reflected the conditions and mores of the time. They were not necessarily unethical by those standards, but they are today, in this post-industrial age, according to the values we hold now.
Similarly, attitudes toward non-Jews during centuries when Jews were subjugated, oppressed and attacked were understandably angry and hostile. When we were confined to Jewish quarters and ghettos, our interactions with non-Jews skewed our attitudes. When we live in diverse, pluralistic democracies, let alone in situations in which we have power over non-Jews, it is unethical to persist in those beliefs or to act upon them.
Rather, we believe that all civilizations are a reflection of their members’ ideals, and that it is the responsibility of the members of each civilization to implement changes in belief and practice to continue to support an evolution that moves them to ever more ethical and more spiritually exalted practices. As Jews, we strive to make Jewish civilization better. Similarly, we believe that others should do the same in their cultural and religious contexts.
We pursue Jewish lives because we find communities of mutual support that help us to sanctify our lives. … We find in Jewish learning and community the values and resources that equip and inspire us to work for justice and peace for all people.
In the current world, we can and should take pride in the ways that Jewish belief and practice guide us to ethical living and spiritual meaning. It is our responsibility, however, to reconstruct values and practices that run counter to those objectives. We believe that claiming exclusive Divine revelation is counterproductive in many ways: It causes us to disrespect the traditions of non-Jews and to close ourselves off from learning from them; it leads to the devaluing of non-Jewish lives and welfare relative to our concern for Jews; it blocks us from reflecting on the aspects of the Jewish heritage that require reconstruction, since we assume that ours is best and divinely sanctioned; it provides us with a rationale for a parochialism that privileges insular Jewish community above contact with people and contexts that can broaden our perspectives. Most importantly, it conflicts with Kaplan’s and our commitment to the values of pluralistic democracy.
When Jews recite the blessing over the Torah scroll and give thanks “for bringing us close to the service of God” rather than “for choosing us from among all peoples,” which is what the editors of the 1945 Reconstructionist prayerbook proposed, they are doing more than making a theological statement. They are affirming, at this re-enactment of covenantal commitment, their belief that all peoples are called to Divine service and their commitment to joining hands with others in the sacred work of repairing this broken world.
The Urgency of the Present Moment
The contemporary resurgence of White Supremacy as a potent factor in Western culture is of great concern. It often has at its core what is called the “Great Replacement Theory,” which regards emerging power of People of Color as threatening the long-held power and privileges of white people. It blames this emergence on a conspiracy generated by Jews.[5] Jews are seen as responsible for advocating for equality and diversity, and for defending the rights of non-white immigrants.
Jews of European origin have, since the middle of the 20th century, been able in the United States to claim the privileges of white people. They are not, however, immune from being scapegoated by antisemites who do not consider Jews to be truly white. In any case, European Jews, as well as the 15% to 20% of the Jewish community who are People of Color, are acutely vulnerable to the machinations of closeted and overt white supremacists.
It can be tempting to attempt to ally with right-wing people in power in the hope that we will be spared from attacks on non-whites. Insofar as the Great Replacement Theory, on which current right-wing ideology rests, explicitly scapegoats Jews as the ultimate threat to white supremacy, it is a futile hope. Successive revelations of antisemitic slurs on the right should not surprise us. Thus, relinquishing the claim that Jews are the Chosen People and that Judaism is superior, especially at pivotal ritual moments, is what we believe and what is urgently required at this moment. This both mandates and is consistent with the conclusion that we must advocate vigorously for a diverse, pluralistic culture.
We have witnessed what happens when power is achieved by those who believe messianically that Jews are the Chosen, that Jewish lives are more valuable than non-Jewish lives.
The situation in Israel is parallel. We have witnessed what happens when power is achieved by those who believe messianically that Jews are the Chosen, that Jewish lives are more valuable than non-Jewish lives and that Jews have license to wage God’s wars in order to further the work of redemption. The Messianists are running over the rights and safety of others. If the State of Israel is to remain viable, then it will have to recognize the equal rights of the 20% of Israelis who are not Jewish, as well as the sovereign rights of the 5.5 million non-Jewish residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Most Israeli Jews do not believe that God literally chose Israel from among all the peoples or that God literally granted the land of Israel to Jews in perpetuity. Given the governmental and military authority of Jews in Israel, reinforcing these beliefs is especially problematic.
Why Then Be Jewish?
If Judaism is not objectively superior, why should anyone continue to identify and to participate in the life of the Jewish community? This is a common challenge raised when people are asked to consider setting aside the idea of Jews as the Chosen People.
The Reconstructionist response is simple and clear: We are the inheritors of Jewish civilization and members of the Jewish people. We pursue Jewish lives because we find communities of mutual support that help us to sanctify our lives. Through communal worship, celebration and shared grief, we rise above the mundane and imbue our daily lives with purpose, with ways to support others and be supported by them, with a sense of the ineffable mystery of reality, with compassion and openness, with the courage to be vulnerable, with the sense that we are not alone. And for so many of us, we find in Jewish learning and community the values and resources that equip and inspire us to work for justice and peace for all people. Judaism is the language that we use to align our lives with Divine ends.
All of this works without a claim that our beliefs, values and customs are better than those of non-Jews. Rather, we delight in discovering the ethical, spiritual and political gems in other traditions. We do not need to rely on claims of Divine election or moral superiority. Our goal is to live the best Jewish lives of which we are capable
[1] See Robin Goldberg, “Seeing and Seeing Through: An Approach to Myth, Metaphor and Meaning,” The Reconstructionist 50/7 (June 1985), pp. 8-14, 20.
[2] See Mel Scult, Communings of the Spirit (Wayne State University Press), volume 2, pp. 326ff.
[3] See Mordecai M. Kaplan, Not So Random Thoughts, p. 263.
[4] The traditional belief includes zekhut avot, that is, that the Israelites received the Torah at Sinai because they descended from ancestors who were righteous and meritorious. But the biblical narrative in the books of Exodus and Numbers is clear that the rebellious generation at Sinai were anything but worthy.
[5] See Eric Ward, “Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism,” The Public Eye, Summer 2017. Also see https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory-a-scholar-of-race-relations-explains-224835
