18 - Jews Alongside Non-Jews

Summary

The question of the relationship of Jews to gentiles has always been central to Jewish thinking and specifically to the school of thought that we call “Jewish philosophy.” The reason for this is not, as one might suppose, solely sociological, even though the question of the relationship to the other imposed itself on this tiny minority scattered among much bigger social groups. After all, the relationship of Jews to others and of others to Jews in such a situation was a matter of life and death. There is, however, another reason for the centrality of this issue, which is to be sought in the very coherence of the doctrine of Judaism.

The idea of chosenness that underpins Jewish identity implies, and even invents, the idea of humanity. To put it otherwise, the very existence of a Jewish people, conceived as having been singled out (chosen) from the totality of peoples, suggests a conception of humankind as a whole. This idea is borne out in the book of Genesis, which traces the human species back to a single primal couple, and it was amply developed thereafter in Talmudic literature. “The dust of the first man was gathered from all parts of the earth,” said the Talmudic sage Rabbi Meir, and thus no origin could claim to be the single source of human beings. According to another Talmudic conception, the number of nations in the world corresponds to the number of members of Jacob's family who went down to Egypt.