A Letter in the Scroll
Understanding Ourjewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest Religion
Chapter One
The Chosen People
One belief, more than any other (to quote a phrase of Isaiah Berlin's) is
responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great
historical ideals. It is the belief that those who do not share my faith - or
my race or my ideology - do not share my humanity. At best they are
second-class citizens. At worst they forfeit the sanctity of life itself. They
are the unsaved, the unbelievers, the infidel, the unredeemed; they stand
outside the circle of salvation. If faith is what makes us human, then those
who do not share my faith are less than fully human. From this equation flowed
the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the jihads, the pogroms, the blood of human
sacrifice through the ages. From it - substituting race for faith - ultimately
came the Holocaust.
One people risked its very existence on the proposition that our common
humanity exists in and through our differences; that the human person itself,
regardless of faith, independent of ra ... read full excerpt from: A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World's Oldest Religion ebook
