Realizing one’s purpose

Friday night. The sun had long since set, dark clouds hid the stars, and the wind was howling off the Shouf mountain range in central Lebanon.

I had managed to quietly sing the Kabbalat Shabbat service while en-route to the ambush site, and even pray the evening service while in the staging ground, before giving my men a final inspection, but I had no idea what to do about Kiddush. In such situations we usually ate from our packs, one or two at a time, and we had a system to ensure that we didn’t make much noise, but I had never happened to find myself in this particular situation on a Friday night. I had not thought it through in advance, so I had no wine with which to make Kiddush, and a wave of depression fell over me as I realized how far I was from where I really wished to be on a Friday night. Having come straight from a patrol to lay down this ambush, (intelligence had indicated that terrorists might be coming through this valley on this particular night…) there were no candles lit, no beautiful Shabbat table laden with freshly baked Challot and wine, and certainly, in the cold Lebanon night, no-one was singing Shabbat songs.

My first sergeant, a Yemenite Jew, crawled over to me and I noticed a strange smile on his face; not the normal expression of a soldier lying in the bitter cold in the middle of the night in Lebanon…

“Achi!” ‘My brother’, he whispered,

“Mah kara?” (‘What’s up?’),

“Atah Nir’eh Kol Kach Atzuv, mah zeh tzarich le’hiyot?”

‘You look so down, what’s the matter with you?’

“You know,” he continued, we’re not ready to lay down this ambush; we haven’t finished all the preparations.” (known in the army as “Hachanot”) I was somewhat surprised, thinking I had been pretty thorough, but you learn pretty quickly to listen to your men, especially your first sergeant….

“B’li Kiddush, lo Zazim!, ‘How can we move without making Kiddush?’ he said with a smile. (It had become the custom in the battalion that every Friday night, before we ate, I would make Kiddush for the whole battalion, and all the guys would always kid me about it).

It was only then I noticed he had crawled over with a canteen in his hand and, unscrewing the cap on the canteen, he told me he had no Kiddush cup, but promised me the Kiddush wine this week would be worth it. And together with seven other men in Israeli Army uniform, on a wind-swept hill in the middle of the night in Lebanon, we made Kiddush.

I had never seen him with a Kippah on his head, nor had I ever caught him with a pair of Tefillin on his arm, but at that moment, for me, Moshe Biton was the holiest man in the world.

Kiddush is all about sanctifying the moment. It’s about elevating the mundane to a different place, and about how we can transform the ordinary every day to something incredible; something really special. But it also raises one of the most challenging questions we face as Jews.

The climax, perhaps even the apex, of the Friday night Kiddush has us say:

“Ki Vanu Vacharta Mikol Ha’Amim”

“Because You (Hashem) have chosen us from amongst all the nations.”

We are called the chosen people; indeed we say this every day. Every morning when we wake up, we say the blessing:

“Asher Bachar Banu Mikol Ha’Amim, Ve’natan Lanu Et Torato”

“Hashem has chosen us from amongst all the nations, and given us His Torah…”

What does this mean? Do we think we are better than everyone else? Are we an elitist society? Is this what Judaism is all about?

Given that there are Jews from every racial background on the face of the earth, and that a walk through any street in Israel will see Jews from every nationality in the world speaking the same language, one would be hard-pressed to imagine that this idea is racist. Anyone who wants to be a Jew can join the club. (Though what that entails is far from simple, and involves, at the very least, defining what it means to be a Jew in the first place).

But something doesn’t seem to sit right about the idea that we consider ourselves to be chosen above all the other peoples of the world.

In fact, the sources make very clear that any person who lives an ethical life, regardless of whether or not they are Jewish, has a portion in the world to come (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13).

So what does it mean to be chosen? And what does this chosen-ness have to do with Shabbat?

It would seem, that the ideal place to look, in order to make sense of this idea, would be that point in Jewish history where Hashem actually chose us as his people. And that, according to Jewish tradition, is this week’s portion, Yitro.

3,200 years ago, G-d chose to give us this special book that we call the Torah. Arguably, this is the single most significant experience in Jewish history. It forms the basis for who we are, and all that we have to share with the world. All of which raises a rather interesting question.

If this experience, which is clearly the central piece of this week’s portion, is so significant, why is the portion named after Yitro, who is described in the opening remarks of the portion to be a “Kohen Midyan,” a Priest of Midyan?

Why isn’t the portion named after Moshe, who received the Torah to begin with? (In fact, there is no portion anywhere in the Torah named after Moshe.)

When considering the idea of chosen-ness there are two critical questions:

Firstly, did G-d choose us, or did we choose G-d? And secondly, what exactly are we chosen for?

In point of fact, before G-d chose us, we chose G-d. Abraham, alone in a world of pagan idolatry and immorality, was the first to consider the possibility that G-d wasn’t a part of the world; the world was a part of G-d. Historians are generally intrigued, and have no explanation for how one people came to the idea that G-d is an unseen, all-giving, loving entity, that is the source and the totality of all reality. Especially given that this was a complete departure from everything anyone had ever considered to this point.

You see, just because I am chosen does not mean that anyone else is not chosen. In fact, we are all, every one of us, chosen, in some special way.

Hashem created each and every one of us. And just as all individuals were created by

G-d, so were all the nations of the world. And to the best of my knowledge, you will not find, in any Jewish source, that just because I am chosen, that someone else isn’t, or that the fact that I am chosen implies that I am somehow better than anybody else.

In fact, one of the most challenging aspects of parenting is to be able to show your children that each one of them is chosen, and special, while showing them that none of them is more special…

And maybe this is what this strange story of Yitro is doing here. Before we begin our very special chosen relationship with Hashem, remember, that just because the Torah is truth, does not mean that truth is not to be found anywhere else.

To be chosen is a gift; the gift that Hashem gives me. Some of us are chosen to be musical, some artistic, some to be methodical, and some brilliant. My challenge as an individual is to decide how I think Hashem chose me. What is my gift? What do I really have to give the world? And of course, a gift is meaningful when I can give it purpose. To be chosen also means I have a purpose. And if I take the gifts Hashem has given me (which is how G-d chooses me) and transform them into a gift I give back to the world (how I choose G-d), then I am no longer a created object, I am a partner in creation.

And if this is true for individuals, it is equally true for us as nations of the world. We are all given our special gifts, and each of us, Buddhists and Muslims, Catholics and Jews, French and English; have to figure out as a people, how we are chosen (what special gifts we have been given) and what we are chosen for.

What are we, as a people, chosen for? What, indeed, is our mission? It is interesting that Judaism has been caught between the extremes of religious fanaticism on the one hand, and secular humanism on the other. The religious fanatic believes, essentially, that G-d supersedes man, and that human beings are insignificant before G-d, therefore, in the name of G-d, there is no limit to what we can do to man. As long as G-d lives, it does not matter if man dies.

The secular humanist, on the other hand, believes that G-d is dead. And if we are not created in the image of G-d, then we are in the end, created in the image of matter. And if we are matter, and random, then how long does it take before a man can become a bar of soap, or a lampshade?

Judaism offers the world the idea that man cannot be insignificant before G-d, because man comes from G-d, and is even an extension of G-d. Ultimately, Judaism suggests that the first place to look for G-d is in the person sitting next to me. Only when I realize that every person is created in the image of G-d, and that every human being is chosen, in his or her own special way, am I ready to realize that we each, all of us, have a purpose.

This is why chosen-ness is such a central part of Shabbat; because on Shabbat I take the time in my week to consider what all the running around is all about. Shabbat is the island in time that allows me to consider who I really am, and why I am really here. It is also the reason Shabbat is so connected to the idea of Jewish community, because together, our challenge is to re-discover what we as a people are doing here, and how we can use the special gifts we are given, to make the world a better place.

Three thousand years ago Yitro, a Midianite Priest, taught us that truth is truth, and that we all have our gifts, which allowed us to begin the journey of discovery to what our one-ness is all about.

Maybe if we all, as Jews, learn to respect the one-ness and chosen-ness of others, we will be ready to appreciate the one-ness and chosen-ness we already have.