וּמִ֤י כְעַמְּךָ֙ כְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל גּ֥וֹי אֶחָ֖ד בָּאָ֑רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הָלְכֽוּ־אֱ֠לֹהִים לִפְדּֽוֹת־ל֨וֹ לְעָ֜ם וְלָשׂ֧וּם ל֣וֹ שֵׁ֗ם וְלַעֲשׂ֨וֹת לָכֶ֜ם הַגְּדוּלָּ֤ה וְנֹֽרָאוֹת֙ לְאַרְצֶ֔ךָ מִפְּנֵ֣י עַמְּךָ֗ אֲשֶׁ֨ר פָּדִ֤יתָ לְּךָ֙ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם גּוֹיִ֖ם וֵאלֹהָֽיו׃
E chi è come il tuo popolo, come Israele, una nazione unica sulla terra, che Dio andò a redimere come popolo per sé, e per farsi un nome, e per compiere a vostro favore grandi cose e prodigi tremendi per la tua terra, scacciando dinanzi al tuo popolo, che ti sei redento dall'Egitto, le nazioni e i loro dèi?
Derashot HaRan
We are herein apprised of three homilies delivered by R. Elazar b. Azaryah. The first is that cited above. The second: "He expounded further (Deuteronomy 26:17): 'You have exalted the L-rd today' and (Ibid 18): 'And the L-rd has exalted you today' — the Holy One Blessed be He said to Israel: "You made Me a distinct entity in this world. Therefore, I will make you, too, a distinct entity in this world. You made me a distinct entity in this world, as it is written (Ibid 6:1): "Hear, O Israel, the L-rd our G-d, the L-rd is One." I, too, will make you a distinct entity in this world, as it is written (I Chronicles 17:21): "And who is as Your people, Israel, a single nation on the earth."'" Now there is cause for wonder in "You made Me a distinct entity in this world"; for "Hear, O Israel" is not a declamation of Israel in praise of the Blessed One, but a mitzvah commanded to us by the Blessed One to believe in His oneness. And if our subscribing to this principle renders Him a distinct entity, then it would have to be maintained that our subscribing to "I am the L-rd your G-d," the mitzvah to believe in His existence, renders Him yet another entity — so that if we continued in this manner we would find Him to constitute several entities!
Kol Dodi Dofek
Judaism has always believed, as we said at the outset, that man has it within his power to take fate into his own hands and shape it into the destiny of a free life, a life full of meaning and saturated with the joy of living, turning isolation into aloneness and disparagement into significance. For this reason Judaism places so great an emphasis on the principle of free will. [And] for this reason [Judaism] so appreciates the human intellect, which has it within its power to free man from his enslavement to nature and allow him to rule over his environment and its blind circumstances and subjugate it to his will. The Community of Israel is obligated to use this free will in all facets of life, and especially for the good of the State of Israel. If secular Zionism, in the end, comes to understand that the establishment of the State of Israel has not weakened the paradoxical fate of Jewish aloneness, but, on the contrary, that the incomprehensible state of, “I shall take you unto Me as a people” (Exodus 6:7) has become even more pronounced in the international arena, it must ask itself the age-old question: “What is your occupation; from where do you derive . . . and from what people do you come?”(Jonah 1:8).The question is asked in any event; if not by the Jew, then by the gentile. We must answer with pride that, “We fear the Lord, the God of the heavens” (Jonah 1:9). Our historic obligation today is to raise ourselves from a people to a holy nation, from the Covenant of Egypt to the Covenant of Sinai; from a compelled existence to an original way of life, permeated with morality and religious principles, that transcends history. We must go from being an Encampment to being a Nation. The task of religious Zionism is to fuse the two covenants, the Covenant of Egypt and the Covenant of Sinai; the covenants of fate and destiny, of isolation and loneliness. This task entails self-perfection by suffering; the out-pouring of lovingkindness brought about by combining all the elements of the nation and uniting them in one community, “A nation unique in the land”(II Samuel 7:23),and the readiness to pray for one’s friend and to feel his joy and his grief. The goal of this self-repair is the purposeful consecration of self and ascent to the “Mountain of God” (Psalms 15:1).One great goal unites us all. A single exalted vision captures our hearts. One Torah (Written and Oral) directs us all to a unified end — the fulfillment of the vision of aloneness and the vision of the sanctity of an Encampment/People that ascends to the level of a Community/Nation and ties its lot to the destiny that was proclaimed to the world in the words of our ancient father Abraham: “And I and the lad shall go unto that place and shall worship God and return to you” (Genesis 22:5).