Shavuot starts on May 21. The holiday marks the Israelites receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, as told in the book of Exodus. Tradition says it was the moment Jews became a chosen “holy nation,” not just by ancestry, belief or geography, but by covenant.
Many faiths, including Christians, Muslims and Hindus, claim a sacred or chosen role. Even modern nations speak of a unique destiny or greatness, like American exceptionalism. From Harry Potter to Frodo Baggins, to Black Panther, even mythical heroes are often “chosen” for a mission greater than themselves. There’s a universal longing to be part of a larger story.
But when it comes to the Jewish people, that same claim of chosenness at Sinai has been uniquely weaponized, fueling resentment and antisemitism for millennia. Today, on the far left, it’s framed as Israeli ethnic supremacy; on the far right, it feeds globalist conspiracies about Jewish influence and control.
As a child, I cringed at my father’s favorite Chassidic melody, Ata bechartanu mikol ha’amim—“You have chosen us from among all the nations”—a line from the holiday prayers echoing that ancient covenant. He sang it with deep emotion, as if it were sacred.
My father died before I could ask why he loved a song that sounded so supremacist. Granted, the lyrics weren’t all elitist-sounding, and also mention how God “loved us” and took “pleasure in us,” reading more like a love poem. But the overall message appears to clash with the values he lived and taught me: democracy, equality and the belief that all people are equally sacred. That contradiction haunted me until I began to understand that being chosen doesn’t mean superiority or a license to dehumanize others.
Anyone can become Jewish through conversion, but Judaism teaches that righteous non-Jews are part of the Divine plan and merit the afterlife. All people are created in the image of God. That makes it more inclusive than religions that require conversion for salvation.
Yet the idea of a unique relationship with God still sparks resentment.
The Talmud warned that giving the Torah at Mount Sinai would provoke hatred. Sinai shares a root with sin’ah, “hatred” or “enmity” in Hebrew. Why would a message of ethics and law provoke hostility?
The Ten Commandments include universal values like don’t murder, don’t steal, honor your parents. It helped forge societies that care for the orphan and the stranger. It includes the foundation that shaped Western religions. But they weren’t delivered universally. They were given to one people. It starts with, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” Not humanity, but you, the Israelite.
The message wasn’t just that God exists or that ethics matter. It was that God chose a specific people and gave them a mission: “To be a light to the nations,” as the prophet Isaiah declared.
That claim to moral responsibility has long made Jews a target. In antiquity, Greek and Roman writers mocked Jews as misanthropes for refusing Gentile customs. Later, Christian theologians rebranded chosenness as rejection, casting Jews as spiritually obsolete. By modern times—from czarist Russia to Nazi Germany—chosenness became shorthand for arrogance, tribalism and disloyalty.
These accusations fueled vicious antisemitism. But Jewish texts do speak of the Jewish soul having a unique Divine root. Kabbalistic sources describe levels of soul and distinctions between Israel and the nations. Isn’t that spiritual hierarchy? Isn’t that the kind of thinking that divides people? Is that supremacy?
Only if misunderstood. Kabbalah doesn’t teach that the Jewish soul is “better.” It is more obligated. It’s not about power, but purpose.
That purpose carries weight. It isn’t just a privilege. It’s also a burden. It means being held to a high standard. As Tevye laments in “Fiddler on the Roof,” “I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?” That line carries the exhaustion and irony of a people who have borne centuries of persecution not in spite of their moral calling, but because of it.
The tension is as old as Sinai itself, when the Israelites built a golden calf to replace God just 40 days after getting the commandments. Thousands died because of it. Yet the relationship endured. It was about accountability, not perfection.
In fact, tradition says the Israelites were chosen because they accepted the laws before understanding, a mission they chose, not just inherited. That mission has helped Jews survive and thrive across millennia. Psychologist Ara Norenzayan and anthropologist Scott Atran have shown that belief in a Divine mission strengthens group identity and long-term resilience. That’s the paradox: Chosenness made Jews a target but also helped them endure.
And it’s not just a Jewish idea. It is a model of preserving one’s identity, which anyone can embrace. Mount Sinai’s elevation occurred in the open wilderness, perhaps to show that Divine purpose is open to all who seek it. In fact, commentators explain that Sinai was the smallest of the mountains to teach humility.
I came to understand that balance from my father. Before marrying my mother, he unexpectedly reconnected with his Judaism through his humanitarian work on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
There, he distributed food and clothing and volunteered in alcohol recovery programs. He embraced the Oglala Lakota Nation rituals like the sweat lodge, admiring their connection to the land and reverence for ancestors.
He was given the name “Crystal Thunder”: “Crystal” for his piercing blue eyes, and “Thunder” for being a marksman in the military. He was eventually invited to join the tribe.
The elder asked him what he observed. My father replied, “I see two kinds of Indians. One with short hair, head down, drunk and ashamed of who he is. And one with long hair, head up, sober and proud of his people.”
The elder nodded and then asked about his background. “I’m Jewish,” he said. The elder paused, squinted in thought and stated, “There are two kinds of Jews. One with his head down, ashamed of who he is. And one with his head up, proud of who he is. Be that Jew who is proud.”
That moment transformed my father. He began his journey back to Judaism, realizing that identity isn’t about arrogance. It’s about dignity. It’s about carrying who you are without apology.
In a world that pressures us to conform and hide who we are, we need more people willing to stand tall—rooted in their own heritage and committed to their own traditions, with humble responsibility and not arrogance.
Maybe that’s what my father felt when he sang Ata bechartanu—“You have chosen us.”
This Shavuot, I’ll sing that song with humble pride in memory of my father. And with my head held high—not above others, but rooted in who I am.
