Are We Chosen?

Are we Jews the Chosen People? This is something that seems to occupy the thoughts of gentiles more than our own. Whoever wrote the dialogue of Fiddler on the Roof stated best our attitude toward the idea when Tevye says to God, "I know we are supposed to be the Chosen People, but next time maybe you could choose someone else." Chosen is not a gift but an obligation. If we are chosen, what are we chosen for? The simple answer is chosen to bring the idea of monotheism to the world. If that is all there is to it, then we did our job a few thousand years ago. Most of the people in the world today follow one of the monotheistic religions. So why can't the world leave us alone? Why are we still scrutinized like goldfish in a bowl.
Somehow we have been given among us a pool of people who stand out. We have more than our share of scholars, of physicians, of lawyers. We have more than our share of people who stand up for the rights of others.
Israel, the one nation with a Jewish majority, has built itself from a poor country into a financially successful country with a number of first rate universities. Israel  certainly could do better in many of the things it does and many people in its Jewish majority are challenged in how they interact with the Israeli Arabs and the Arabs in the Palestinian territories, as I have repeatedly said in many of my previous blog entries, but what nation is perfect? Certainly hypocritical Europeans who lay blame on Israel are the same Europeans who drove most of us out of Europe. Somehow we Jews are held to a higher standard to which we often do not adhere. If only God or the world could answer Tevye's question and choose someone else.