God's Chosen People

At the heart of the Jewish religion is a doctrine that has proven to be deeply divisive. It claims that the Jewish people have a special relationship with God, that they have been chosen. This teaching has divided Jews and gentiles because it seems to imply a Jewish supremacism. Even within the Jewish world, thinkers have disagreed about its meaning and value. Some Jewish communities have rejected it outright.

In God's Chosen People, Samuel Lebens seeks to demonstrate that the doctrine is essential to Jewish theology via a wide-ranging journey of original biblical literary analysis, exploration of Midrashic metaphors, Jewish intellectual history, and analytical philosophy. He claims that properly understanding it allows us to articulate what the purpose of Judaism is, according to Judaism itself.

What emerges is a vision of Judaism shorn of religious extremism and xenophobia, a religion that doesn't claim to have a monopoly over religious truth or God's affections. Instead, Lebens claims that Judaism is called upon to play a unique role in the history of the world. The doctrine of the election, so understood, has radical implications for Jewish ritual, inter-faith relations, and the future of Zionism.