Vaera 5761
Jan 21 - 27, 2001-by Reb Yosef

God's Special Unique Relationship With Us

Torah Insights for the Younger Tzadikim  

Although most of this Parashah talks about how Moshe (Moses) tells Paro (Pharaoh) to let the Jewish people leave Mitzrayim (Egypt) and how God curses Mitzrayim, there is a part that talks about our relationship with God and His relationship with us.  In this Parashah, it says (Sh'mot, Perek Vav, pasuk zayin - Exodus 6:7): 

7. and I will take you to Me for a people, I will be to you a God, and you will get to know that I am Hashem your God, Who bringeth you out from under the burdens of Egypt, 

We are taught that we should each take a teacher to help us learn Torah.  In Pirke Avot (The Ethics of Our Fathers), this is explained as taking actual people to be our teachers or that we can choose to study from a great rabbi of the past.  For the most part, this is the choice I have made.  I learn from the writings of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch who was a great rabbi in 1800's. 

Rav Hirsch says that when God said "I will take you to Me for a people," He was not thinking in terms of a religion but a relationship and that this relationship is with all the Jewish people.  The next part says, "I will be to you a God," meaning that we also have the same relationship with Hashem.  He took us to be His people and we took Him to be our God.  This goes beyond any religion.  Even when we did not have the State of Israel, as we do today, we were still God's "am," His Nation, His People. 

Perhaps, most important, is that God dictated to us what would be involved in how we worship Him and keep His Laws.  In other words, God invented Judaism and no one else.  And guess what?  God only did that with the Jewish people.