Parshat Emor: Why we are the Chosen People
Chuck Morse
May 21, 2016
The word “emor” means to speak and this is one of the
portions of the Torah by which G-d speaks to the world through Moses. In this Torah
portion God delivers special laws and regulations to the sons of Aaron, the
Kohanim, the priests. These special laws, which constitute an extra layer of
laws, are given by God on top of laws that God
gives to all of the children of Israel and, by extension, to all of mankind.
The special laws for the Kohanim are meant to raise their
level of holiness and purity so as to enable them to serve in the role of a
priestly caste. By this means, the Kohanim, having been given an avenue to
achieve an extra level of holiness and purity, prepare themselves to represent
mankind more directly to God. These special laws allow the Kohanim to serve God
on behalf of all of mankind and to advocate to God on behalf of mankind.
These special laws pertain to that which is permitted as
well as to that which is forbidden in professional personal and sexual
relationships. They pertain to Temple worship and to the humane treatment of
animals. They pertain to the observance of the Holy Days for all of Israel,
particularly Passover and Sukkot, and they include Temple ritual including specifically
the lighting of the Menorah.
Emor concludes with the execution of a man who had
committed blasphemy which establishes laws pertaining to the death penalty. Emor
also concludes with laws that punish those who violate the laws of private
property ownership.
This gets to the question of the Israelites, and their
heirs, the Jewish people, as the Chosen People. Why were
we, the lineal descendants of the children of Israel, therefore chosen by God?
What were we chosen for and what were we chosen to do?
By accepting the extra layer of laws that God conveyed to
our ancestors through Moses, and by accepting a layer on top of that
extra layer for a chosen sect of priests within our ranks, we entered into a
covenant with the Holy One, Blessed be He, to serve him on behalf of all of
mankind. We accepted a special mantle and a special burden, one that would
require a heightened level of holiness, or purity, or spirituality. We thus
were placed in the position of lawyer advocate defending the sins of mankind to
God and offering all of mankind the avenue of redemption and forgiveness
through our example.
Anti-Semites have woven conspiracy theories since the days
of Haman, false and libelous conspiracy theories that claim that the idea of
the chosen people is one that was manufactured by Jews to justify our alleged aspirations
to rule the temporal world. By this means Jews have been blamed for the real conspiracies
of history, conspiracies that did, in fact, seek global conquest either through
the force of arms, trickery, subterfuge or subversion.
This was why Hitler was able to blame the Jews for
Communism, which was a real and identifiable conspiracy to rule the temporal world, while
at the same time attempting to deflect attention from his own conspiracy to
rule the world. This conspiracy theory, that the Jews had designated themselves
as the chosen people in order to rule the world, was the basis by which Karl
Marx called for the disintegration of Judaism as he deflected attention away
from his own conspiratorial agenda to rule the world.
We are chosen by God not to rule over anyone but rather we are chosen to serve God. We serve God by our example, by our acceptance of an extra layer of laws and
by the heightened level of spirituality morality and ethics that emanates from that acceptance. We are thus chosen to be a light unto the
nations.
