Avreimi ztz”l could not have emerged from any other nation. (Perhaps not from any other family, either)
An essential part of every Jew’s self-concept is the Jewish Nation’s chosenness. “Atah bechartanu mikol ha’amim — You chose us from among all the nations” is our constant refrain, and Chazal tell us that the choicest of the
birchas haTorah we say each morning is “asher bachar banu mikol ha’amim v’nasan lanu es Toraso” — that Hashem chose us from among all the nations and gave us His Torah. We dwell upon the fact that we are privileged in having been chosen among all the civilizations that ever inhabited the earth as the sole recipients of Hashem’s infinite wisdom.
But if we are to be fully accurate, it was not Hashem Who chose us; do Chazal not tell us that it was we who chose Him? He first offered the Torah to every other nation, and every one of them found reason to decline, with the exception of Klal Yisrael. Every other civilization had preconditions and first wanted to know what was written inside the Torah. Only Klal Yisrael responded with an unconditional “Naaseh v’nishma.”
Why, then, do we attribute our chosen status to Hashem and not to ourselves?
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