Jewish Ideas and Beliefs

And what does chosenness mean anyway?

The requirements and transcendent possibilities of Jewish law are the bases of Jewish distinctness.

According to some interpreters, the Jews chose to be chosen.

Modern thinkers have addressed the free will problem by questioning the authority of science, acknowledging the limits of freedom, and asserting the transcendent importance of choice.

While some modern Jews have rejected the notion of chosenness altogether, others have reinterpreted it as an ethical mission or a national spirit.

According to Reconstructionism's founder, the idea of chosenness divides peoples from each other and should be rejected, not reinterpreted.

In Jewish sources, the ideal Jewish society will be situated in Israel and ushered in by catastrophic events.

Early Zionist thinkers envisioned, in great detail, the perfect human--and Jewish--society.

Four texts dealing with non-traditional forms of insemination may--or may not--serve as meaningful precedents for the contemporary debate.