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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: michael97123 who wrote (220325)2/23/2007 7:52:30 AM
From: Noel de Leon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
No, "chosenness" comes from the bible.

"According to the Hebrew Bible, Israel's character as the chosen people is conditioned by obedience to God's commandments. "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine: and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5, 6). "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your ancestors." (Deuteronomy 7:7, 8).

The obligation imposed upon the Israelites is emphasized by the prophet Amos (Book of Amos 3:2): "You only have I singled out of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities." This idea is also expressed in Deuteronomy 14:2: "You are a holy people unto the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.""

Chosenness as superiority
A mystical version of this idea exists in parts of the Zohar, one of the primary works of Kabbalah, esoteric Jewish mysticism. The Zohar comments on the Biblical verse which states "Let the waters teem with swarms of creatures that have a living soul" as follows: "The verse 'creatures that have a living soul,' pertains to the Jews, for they are the sons of God, and from God come their holy souls....And the souls of the other nations, from where do they come? Rabbi Elazar says that they have souls from the impure left side, and therefore they are all impure, defiling anyone who comes near them." (Zohar commentary on Genesis)

The Raya Mehemna, a somewhat later work printed with the Zohar, has a similar view. One section states: "Israel merited that God called them 'men,' as it is written 'But you My flock, the flock of My pasture, you are men,' 'If any man of you brings an offering.' Why are they called 'men'? For it is written 'And you who cling to the Lord your God'. This means you and not the other nations, and because of this 'you are men', you are called men..." (Raya Mehemna, commentary on Torah portion Yitro, page 86a)

This view was accepted by the founder of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in his Tanya. A section in this book holds that non-Jewish souls come from unclean kelipot (left-over shells of the universe's creation), while Jewish souls are of a higher character. (Tanya, Likkutay Amarim I, 5-11 and 6a). Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (his successor in modern times) stated his views on the difference between Jews and Gentiles as thus: "We do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather we have a case of...a totally different species. The body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world. The difference of the inner quality [of the body] is so great that the bodies would be considered as completely different species. This is the reason why the Talmud states that there is an halachic difference in attitude about the bodies of non-Jews [as opposed to the bodies of Jews]: 'their bodies are in vain.' An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three kelipot, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness" (Shahak, I., and Mezvinsky, N. 1999. Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. London: Pluto Press.)

Such views have been explicitly rejected by all Reform and Conservative Jews, and are only a small minority view within Modern Orthodox Judaism. Communal Jewish organizations such as the B'nai Brith, American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League reject discrimination against Gentiles as well as against Jews.

The Encyclopedia Judaica provides a secular, historical explanation of this belief, stating that "It would seem that the more extreme, and exclusive, interpretations of the doctrine of election, among Jewish thinkers, were partly the result of reaction to oppression by the non-Jewish world. The more the Jew was forced to close in on himself, to withdraw into the imposed confines of the ghetto, the more he tended to emphasize Israel's difference from the cruel gentile without. Only thus did his suffering become intelligible and bearable. This type of interpretation reaches its height in the Kabbalistic idea that while the souls of Israel stem ultimately from God, the souls of the gentiles are merely of base material (kelippot, "shells"). When the Jew was eventually allowed to find his place in a gentile world, the less exclusivist aspect of the doctrine reasserted itself."

During the imprisonment of Rabbi Shneur Zalman by the czarist authorities, he was questioned regarding this point, among other topics. Although he freely responded to all other questions, he refused to respond to this allegation - smiling enigmatically as his only response. It is clear, however, that Rabbi Shneur Zalman did not intend to advocate discrimination against Gentiles, as he codified in his Shulchan Aruch HaRav. Rabbi Shneur Zalman and his successors were recognized by the czars for their extreme devotion to the nation; Rabbi Menachem Mendel often received Gentiles and urged respect and honor be accorded them.

en.wikipedia.org



To: michael97123 who wrote (220325)2/23/2007 12:16:52 PM
From: cnyndwllr  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
Michael, it's indisputable that Jews, throughout history, have excelled far beyond what you'd expect from their small percentage of the world's population. What it is about being Jewish that has created so many amazing scientists, artists, authors and generally outstanding minds?

There's the "chosen people" rationale which, I suppose, imputes God's genetic blessing on Jewish people. But the old Testament was written by Jews so you'd expect something in there about being the chosen people and, besides, who can prove or disprove such things?

There are some analytical explanations that make sense.

Maybe it's their culture. The Jewish culture has historically placed a tremendously high value on intellectual achievement and many Jewish children were, and are, raised to question, analyze and debate esoteric issues. If you visited a Jewish home anywhere in the world you'd probably find much less television viewing or "playing" than the average and you'd probably see more children engaged in study, discussions and lessons with their parents. With so much emphasis on learning and being learned, the "rock star" emulated by some Jewish children might be a a person with a head full of ideas and knowledge.

But it may have its roots in Darwinism too. After the exodus of the Jews into Europe many Jews were brutally persecuted by Europeans and their lives were hard. Assuming that those with the best judgement or those valued most by their communities had a better chance of surviving to bear children, maybe the gene pool got a boost.

And then there's the effect of the arranged marriage aspect of the Jewish lineage. In a culture that valued achievement and being learned so highly, and in a culture where marriages were arranged, you can find a significant number of Jewish family histories where the children of Rabbis, physicians, lawyers, and other successful Jews were married almost exclusively to the children of similar families for many generations. I'm sure they weren't consciously attempting to breed a super race of Jews but when the best "catches" were often considered those with the highest ability to think, you'd expect to see, over many generations, some remarkable people popping up.

I watched a public television special on the German Jews a few years back. They focused on a Jewish town that was wiped out except for a handful of survivors and I couldn't help thinking that among the millions of Jews who perished there might well have been some amazing children with unique talents.

The Jews have given us much to admire and appreciate but I'm disgusted with the actions of the Israelis over the last half decade. Their policy of targeting entire populations to achieve their political and security goals has been immoral and counter productive. The fact that the Bush Administration followed the same path in Iraq after having seen first hand what happened in Israel, and with the same results, makes us even more foolish.

It seems that when a population gets scared stupid it doesn't matter if they're Jews, Christians or Muslims.

Too bad for all of us. Ed