How Were “The Chosen” Chosen?

Abstract

How exactly did the Jewish people received their Torah, which so dramatically marked them off from all other peoples then and now? Did they make a conscious decision to accept the holy book from God’s hands; did they do so out of their free will? Or were they selected for this honor (and burden); was this an offer they could not refuse? The two sources quoted above present diametrically opposed interpretations of this seminal event. The biblical account conveys the enthusiasm with which the Children of Israel embraced God’s word and thus became the Chosen People. Jewish commentaries emphasize the immensity of this decision, taken at the foot of Mount Sinai. It was, they say, something the Jews alone undertook, of all the nations that might have, demonstrating the special qualities that uniquely qualified them for God’s service. The talmudic source, however, tells us that the choice was imposed from above, that the Jews had no alternative but to accept the sacred word—upon pain of death. While the first interpretation emphasizes the Jewish people’s avid hunger for the divine connection, the second focuses on the heavy yoke that being Chosen laid upon them.