The High Holy Day prayer book contains many beautiful prayers that express basic Jewish values. I would like to discuss the prayer Ata Behartanu, which appears in the Amida of every service on the High Holy Days. It contains a concept that has been repeatedly misunderstood throughout the ages.
“You have chosen us among all peoples, loving us, wanting us. You have exalted us among all nations, making us holy through your commandments, drawing us close to Your service, and calling us by Your great and holy name.”
Indeed, this basic Jewish concept of the chosen people is found in many other places in the liturgy. Whoever is given an aliyah to the Torah recites the blessing “…Who has chosen us from among all the peoples,” and in the Shabbat and festival kiddush we say “…For you have chosen us and sanctified us from among all peoples.”
This concept did not originate in the siddur (prayer book). It’s already found in the Torah. Thus, we read, for example, in Exodus 19:5-6: “Now therefore if you… keep my covenant, then you shall be my own treasure from among all peoples… and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
This idea is reiterated in Deuteronomy (7:6): “For you are a holy people unto the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own treasure out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.”
Why the 'Chosen People' concept is attacked by so many non-Jews
Before we continue, let us turn for a moment to the detractors of the chosen people concept.
William Norman Ewer is reputed to have said: “How odd of God to choose the Jews,” and in 1939 Arnold Toynbee attacked this concept at length in his book A Study of History.
Indeed, the chosen people concept was also attacked by many Jews.
In 1911, Yosef Hayim Brenner wrote in his book Mikan Umikan: “With keen and passionate pleasure I would blot out from the prayer book of the Jew of our day ‘ki vanu vaharta,’ ‘You have chosen us,’ in every shape and form.”
In 1945, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan carried out Brenner’s wish. In the Reconstructionist Sabbath Prayer Book, the blessing before the Torah was changed from “who has chosen us” to “who has brought us close to His service.”
On the other hand, there are some Jews today who understand this concept in the opposite direction. They think that because God chose us, we are better than non-Jews and may therefore mistreat them.
I believe that all these groups misunderstood the concept. To understand this concept, we must examine the verb “bahar,” meaning “to choose,” in the Tanach. It normally refers to God choosing a person or place for a specific task.
For example, in Deuteronomy (18:5), the priests are chosen to stand before God and serve him forever. In I Kings 8:16, God says that he chose King David to lead the Jewish people. In that same verse, God says that he chose Jerusalem to build the Temple there. And in Deuteronomy we are repeatedly told that God will choose a place to make His name dwell there.
Thus it is with the chosen people concept.
The four tasks Jews were chosen to carry out
THE JEWISH people were chosen for four specific tasks:
The first task is described in Isaiah 43 (v. 10, 12, 21): “You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen. That you may know and believe me and understand that I am He… The people which I formed for myself, that they might tell of my praise.” In other words, God chose us to teach the world about monotheism.
The second task of the chosen people is to observe the Torah and the mitzvot. As we read in Psalms (105:42-45): “For He remembered His holy word unto Abraham… and He brought forth His people with joy [from Egypt], His chosen ones with singing… that they might keep His statutes and observe his laws.”
The third task is described in Genesis 18:19. God chose Abraham “that he may command his children… to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.” When Jews lead the struggle for social justice, they are fulfilling this task.
The final task is described, once again, in Isaiah (49:3, 6): “And [God] said unto me: You are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified… I have also made you a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”
Thus far we have seen that the Jewish people was chosen for four very specific tasks. Critics might still say that we wrote this in our Bible because we thought we were better than everyone else, while Jewish chauvinists might say that this proves that we are better than everyone else. My answer would be that the Torah itself tells us the opposite.
As we read in Deuteronomy (7:7-8): “It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the Lord set His heart on you and chose you – indeed, you are the smallest of peoples; but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He made to your fathers that the Lord freed you with a mighty hand… from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
Until now, we have described a one-way process. God chose us to fulfill certain tasks, and our role was totally passive. But beginning with the Revelation at Mount Sinai, the Jewish people reciprocated – it chose God’s covenant, and it chose to do the mitzvot.
As we read in Exodus 19:8: “And the people replied together saying: everything which God said – we shall do.” And in Exodus 24:7, “Everything that God said, we shall do and we shall obey.”
This idea was expanded in the famous midrash that describes God as offering the Torah to all the nations of the Earth and each refused because they rejected one specific mitzvah, until God “came to Israel and said: Will you accept the Torah? They said: yes, yes! ‘Everything that God said, we shall do and we shall obey’” (Lamentations Rabbah, parasha 3, ed. Buber, fol. 62a).
That is why Israel Zangwill wrote 100 years ago: “A Chosen People is really a choosing people.” And Leon Roth replied to Ewer’s “how odd of God to choose the Jews” with, “It’s not so odd, the Jews chose God!”
Let us summarize what we have learned:
As we recite Ata Behartanu many times during the High Holy Days, let us remember that we were chosen out of God’s love, not because of our own special characteristics. And we have four tasks: to teach the world that there is one God; to observe His Torah and commandments; to do justice; and to be a light unto the nations.
I hope and pray that we and our leaders will take these tasks to heart in the year ahead.
The writer, a Conservative rabbi, is president emeritus of The Schechter Institutes in Jerusalem, where he serves as a professor of Talmud and Jewish law.