Segulah, the biblical word at the heart of Jewish understandings of chosenness, is difficult to translate. Based on a study of cognate terms in other ancient Semitic languages, as well as biblical usage (see Exodus 19:5, Malachi 3:17, Psalm 135:4, 1 Chronicles 29:3 and Ecclesiastes 2:8), it is possible to understand the term to mean “property” or “treasure”.
The word appears three times in the Book of Deuteronomy (in our portion in 14:2, as well as 7:6 and 26:18), and it means something like “treasured people”. The implication is that Israel is God’s cherished and valuable possession.
In some texts of the Ancient Near East the word is employed in a political context, expressing the vassal status of one king to a more powerful one. When God describes Israel as segulah, there are dimensions of possession and dominance as well as affection and devotion.
One possible reading of the word segulah links it to a later Hebrew word, histaglut, which means “adaptation”. The am segulah, or a treasured nation, is a people that adapts to changing realities. For some contemporary Jews (including me), the idea that the concept of segulah is interpreted to mean that some intrinsic quality adheres to every Jew and puts them in a category to which no non-Jew can aspire is impossible to maintain.
While versions of this belief were held by many over many centuries, they call now for adaptation. This is particularly true when the Jewish people have sovereignty and military might. The notion of specialness should never be allowed to decline into chauvinism or worse.
Luckily, am segulah, the people of adaptation, have long shown a capacity to offer a variety of readings of the concept of chosenness. Judah Halevi and Maimonides, two giants of medieval thought, understood the notion in sharply different ways.
Ninety years ago, the great Jewish thinker Martin Buber wrote that “Israel is only chosen when it is not certain that it is chosen”. The verse in its entirety from this week’s portion seems to contradict this notion: “For you are a people consecrated to the Eternal your God: the Eternal your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be God’s treasured people.”
Surely, one might argue, here is a clear theological assertion: take it or leave it. If we look, however, at how Jews have read and interpreted the verse, and so much else over 3,000 years, we might change the ultimatum: take it, leave it, or adapt it.
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