response to JB in PGH

Submitted by chana (United States), Mar 14, 2003 at 21:04

JB asks where do Jews fit in, and where does the rise of Christianity and Islam leave us?

Obviously, it leaves us exactly where we have always been since Sinai: as a nation that dwells apart. Jews were never meant to "fit in" - we were meant to be a holy people, a light unto the nations, something different from everyone else. And so it has always been and always will be. The emergence or reemergence of other faiths has no effect on this.

We may have occasional friends and allies along the road, and periods of peaceful coexistence, but ultimately we are a people chosen by God to be set apart from all the rest of humanity for all time.

Mind you, this has nothing necessarily to do with any intrinsic merits of the Jewish people, or pass any judgment on our relative worth as compared to anyone else... it is simply a fact of our existence, accepted by all other nations as we accept it ourselves.

Worrying about "fitting in" is foolish. Worrying about fulfilling whatever task we were meant to acheive is what Jews should be doing.

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