What does it mean that Israel is the "Chosen People"? "Chosen" for what? This question has been a source of puzzlement and controversy from time immemorial. Even the Jewish People themselves, for the most part, don't fully comprehend the meaning of this, and wrongly interpret it in either pride or indignation at the idea of superiority. When asked what it means, different ones give different answers.

The Torah is essence of G-d's will on the earth, His incredible supernal light clothed in the garment of words to enable its descent from Heaven into the physical world. Israel was the nation created to receive the Torah, a gift of Heaven for all mankind. This is inseparable from the very identity of the Nation itself. If Israel was not special before this, being chosen to be the nation entrusted with the Torah made it special among nations, elevating it to the level of a holy nation of priests (Exodus 19:6).

G-d chose the People of Israel to be a vessel, or conduit, of His light for the world. When the People of Israel received the Torah at Sinai, they were a perfect vessel for the light of G-d in its fullness. If this perfected state had continued, the Redemption would have come on the earth at that moment. However, Israel fell through the sin of the golden calf. This sin permanently marred the collective soul of Israel, and the Nation has suffered for this ever since. This experience was a replay of the Fall of Man. Sinai was the perfection of the Garden of Eden and the closeness to G-d. Moses (Adam) was away when the People (Eve) listened to the mixed multitude (the Serpent) and partook of the golden calf (the forbidden fruit). Sinai was a second chance, but as with the first experience, G-d did not leave them and the world without hope. The rabbis say that the Torah Moses brought down the first time was Torah in its fullness--the front side. The Torah Moses brought down the second time, the one we have today, is the back side, a fragment of the full Torah. The People of Israel are a light even now, as has been the case throughout history, in that they bring Torah to the world. However, this is only a small fragment--a spark--of the whole.

In choosing Israel, G-d made them into a vessel, or conduit, of His light for the world. This light has NOT yet come into the world in its fullness. The world could not stand this, nor could the vessel of the chosen Nation contain it at this point, for the vessel is marred at this time with a "blindness" spoken of by Isaiah.

One day the People of Israel will be healed of the blindness that came as a result of the sin of the golden calf. At that time, when the vessel is ready to see the Torah in its fullness and repent wholeheartedly, not only will the Redemption come onto the earth, but also the Judgement of the Nations. In other words, the days of the Gentiles will be over. G-d, in His mercy, has held this back. The Jewish People has suffered tremendously because of this, but it was necessary, in spite of the cost to His beloved Chosen. We know this period of "grace" is coming to a close because of the ingathering of the Jewish People back to the Land. The Temple will be rebuilt. The blindness will be lifted. The People will return and be healed, as Isaiah foretold. The vessel of Israel will be perfected to contain the light it was created to contain--Malchut Shamayim (the Kingdom of Heaven), the fullness of Torah in the physical realm. This will usher in the Great Day of the L-rd spoken of in Malachi:

The light of G-d will come onto the earth in its fullness, bringing with it the Judgement. It will be a time of great joy, but also great sorrow. Everyone will have his chance to choose to make himself right. Everything has a season, a perfect time planned by the Creator. Were this all to occur too early, the vessel might shatter, the earth might not survive, the peoples of the Nations might be destroyed. In the meantime, the vessel has been further marred from the years of the diaspora's horrors--marred so much so that "his visage was unlike that of a man" (Isaiah 52:14)--waiting for the Nations to prepare themselves.

The Redemption from Egypt was a prototype of the ultimate Redemption. G-d had told Avraham that his children would go into slavery "until the iniquity of the Amorites is full." The timing of the exile in Egypt coincided with the "grace" period for the Amorites to repent. When the Israelites came out of Egypt the Amorites' time was finished; when the Israelites crossed the Jordan the execution of G-d's Judgement was upon them. Now, as then, G-d's timing is linked on earth to Israel. The final exile, of the last two thousand years, has ended, in accordance with G-d's promise to re-gather the Nation of Israel to the Land of Israel. "Hear the word of the L-rd, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say: 'He that scattered Israel doth gather him and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock.'"--Jeremiah 31:10. Just as the final exile was the longest and most extensive (over the face of the earth), the Judgement of G-d that its end heralds will be on the greatest scale of all--the Judgement of Mankind.