NOTES for Deu 4:5-9

Readers of the Bible often ask: what makes the Jewish people better than others, that God chose them in particular? Meanwhile the Torah gives a clear and unambiguous answer: it is not about the people as such, but about that Torah, those commandments and laws that God gave to this people. In this lies both the strength of God's people and the very meaning of its existence. And in it, in the Torah, lies its superiority over all other peoples. The point here is not that knowledge of the Torah in itself makes a person or an entire people better. The point is to follow these laws and commandments.

Of course, if such following turns into religious formalism, nothing good will come of it. It will simply produce one more more-or-less religious people. With its own religion, which in all likelihood will be interesting only to itself. But if following the Torah, following the laws and commandments given by God, becomes genuine spiritual work, God's people will become the spiritual leaven that leavens all humanity.

After all, the commandments are not simply rules written by God for human beings. Not simply a moral code, even one given from above. The commandments are God's intentions addressed to human beings. Intentions that, if a person wants it, can determine his whole life. They can make a person a vessel of God's breath and an instrument of God's action. And for a people that accepts the commandments as concrete manifestations of God's will, they can make that people God's people in the full sense of the word: a people spiritually gathered around God's presence, in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, in every place that God will choose. A people-community. A completely unique people, unlike any other.

And in this difference, in becoming and being a people-community, lies the strength of the Jewish people. It is what gives them an advantage over any of the peoples who lived before them on the land God gave them. And it is what in due time will make them the beacon that lights the way for other peoples. But not at once. Later, when the Messiah comes and brings the Kingdom to the world. He will have someone to come to. And God's people will have something to live for. For this goal is the most worthy of all.