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In the next text we can see, perhaps, a continuation – an engaging – of this question. As is so vigorously characteristic of the Rabbinic project we encounter here a debate, a sharp difference in viewpoint. The first would seem to say what we suggested just now in relation to 'our' first text. Namely, that Israel is indeed special – has a critically decisive, repercussive role to play; but that this must be understood as a potential. When Israel lives out its life in a certain way then it is truly Israel and thus is children of God. In the text immediately below, we see Rabbi Yehudah saying the when Israel lives out its life in a certain way then it is truly Israel and thus its members are indeed children of God. But we also see that when Israel (when seen in its best light) is not living out its life as the Torah then its members are not children of God; they are not really Israel – what Israel is supposed to strive to be. 

But then we see Rabbi Meir disagreeing! No, he says. Even then, too, they are Israel – they are God's children. Now, again, there is not one way to understand what Rabbi Meir has in mind here. One possibility is that there is a kind of love that is unconditional. Yes, when not living up to the demands of the Torah – can anyone fully live up to those demands(?!); but when Israel falls far too short of the ideal it is called to strive toward, then, for sure, they must confront that violation, that missing of the mark. The Divine will judge accordingly, calling the people to engage that missing. But still the people should not think that God has abandoned them and thus that there is no hope for them. No, the love is still there. They are still His children. – And yet another possible reading of Rabbi Meir's argument indeed hears in it, again (as in 'our' first text regarding which is more important really – the Torah or Israel) some kind of chauvinistic view that ultimately, that relatively speaking, Israel cannot descend to a truly meritless state; its character, its spirit is inherently too lofty for such an eventuality. Here is the text:

All of this brings to mind Professor Yeshaiyahu (Isaiah) Leibowitz's insistence – against the widespread perspective among so many, if not most, religious Jews – who embrace some form of traditionalism – regarding the holiness of the people Israel, the Land of Israel, the place where the Temple stood, etc. Here, in this passage from one of his essays, he especially draws upon the teachings of Rabbi Meir Simcha Cohen (1842-1926), rabbi of Dwinsk (Dinabourg in Latvia) from 1886 to his death. Meshekh Chochmah is a book of homiletical & halakhic comments on the Pentateuch. The statements cited by Professor Leibowitz occur at various points in this work. Most of them are to be found in the glosses on Exodus 19 and 32. As for the controversial colorful, rich prophetic-like life and character of Professor Leibowitz himself see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshayahu_Leibowitz


The following passage is from the end of his essay on 'The Reading of the Shema' – in his collection of essays published by Harvard University Press in 1992, called Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State.

Try considering this next rabbinic text in reference to the question, to the distinction we raised – in our discussion of the first of The Twelve Points of Berlin – under our heading The choice between superiority versus uniqueness. There we discussed how a civilization can view itself as superior to other traditions or instead as wonderfully distinctive that celebrates one’s own tradition without denigrating, superseding, or even dehumanizing ‘the other’.   With this distinction in mind,  how do you read the following rabbinic? Do any or all of its five sections argue, necessarily, for Israel's superiority among religious traditions – or can they be understood as arguing rather for its unique role and contribution to the human orchestra of religious experiences and missions? Can other religious civilizations have their own – equally valuable  (again in their best manifestations!),  though each involving some different,  unique,– ways of engaging of a part of the spiritual-ethical possibility for humankind? How do you understand your own tradition in regard to these two approaches? 

Here's the passage:

These texts we've been engaging involve Israel's self-understanding and by implication Israel’s understanding of 'the other' – the non-Jew. But, of course, there are numerous references in the rabbinic sources to the other nations directly, to the other religious traditions of the human family. And, of course – especially because of the Jewish people's history of themselves being vilified and persecuted by many Islamic regimes and especially by Christian Europe – many of these Jewish sources are dismissive and even harshly condemnatory of these, after all, all too frequent and often persistent not merely neighbors – but enemies. And yet for all that the historical context of these derisive attitudes makes them understandable, they exact serious harm to the spiritual-ethical character that all religious traditions at their best strive to develop. And the persistence of such attitudes once generated become dangerous obstacles when these same competing civilizations – when many of their leaders and adherents – enter into serious confrontation with their history of vilifying those fellow humans who belong to different civilizations, to different traditions of the religious life. This indeed becomes a tragic problem of delegitimation and hatred of the other too long and too well pursued; as the classic novel about South Africa – Cry the Beloved Country – has one of its characters reflect – that by the time the whites will have, eventually, turned to loving, the blacks will have turned to hating.

One of these rabbinic sources represents God as first making the rounds of all the other nations – offering the Torah to them. But each and every nation asks what, for instance, is written in this Torah and each finds that there is a commandment, a demand that contradicts an essential element in their character. So, for example, the Ishmaelite – the Arab – people say – No stealing, no assaulting?! Oh, but that's something vital to our way of life! And there is a biblical verse to call upon in support of each of these stereotypical character defects of each of the nations! For example, regarding the Arab peoples it is Genesis 16:12  that predicts Ishmael and his descendants will be 'a wild man; his hand against every person'. (See pages 78-79 in Bialik & Ravnitzky's The Book of Legends – Sefer ha-Aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash.)

Yet, on the other hand, there are numerous passages in the same rabbinic sources – often on the same page alongside degrading attitudes toward the non-Jew – numerous passages of tolerance and even affirming embrace. Perhaps the most stunning is the teaching in regard to a non-Jew who achieves high levels of spiritual and ethical development. Such a person can be described metaphorically and even literally as  tantamount to one who studies and practices the Torah. They are thus like the Kohen Gadol – the High Priest – the highest spiritual-ethical office when the Temple(s) stood in Jerusalem! (One of the sources of this teaching is in the Talmud, Avodah Zara 3b. An elaborated version that is especially striking appears in the Talmud volume Baba Kama 38a, as well as in the midrashic collection Exodus Rabbah – the 4th passage in the 19th section, as well as in the midrashic collection known as the Sifra – on Leviticus – on page 86b of that collection. In Bialik & Ravnitzky's The Book of Legends, it can be found on page 354, passage 151. Stunning is the repeated expression in this text that in several biblical contexts – in reference to someone who engages Torah or good deeds – Scripture does not say 'a kohen (of the priestly class), a Levite, or a (common, regular) Israelite,' but rather says 'a person'; thus, the non-Jew is included!

It is from such sources – and from the general principle in Judaism that does not see the non-Jew as having to join the Jewish people, or adopt Judaism, in order to achieve the highest levels of spiritual-ethical attainment – that Emmanuel Levinas develops his view of Judaism's particularist-universalist dialectic:

But as we have seen this is not always so in all of Judaism's sources; there are contrary attitudes to be found 'as well'(!?). In medieval Jewish philosophic sources, for instance, we encounter Yehudah HaLevi's racist view, in his work The Kuzari – that only Israelites, only Jews, have the potential for prophecy – the reception or grasping of Divine truths – as much as human beings can attain to the Absolute. Indeed, the Rihal, as he is known by abbreviation, argues that the non-Jew's soul or character is as different from the Jew's as are the categories of animals, vegetables and minerals! So this is part of Judaism! Yet opposing this view – also in Judaism – is Maimonides' teaching in his work The Mishneh Torah – in his Laws/Ways of the Foundational Principles of the Torah – where he in fact legislates that "It is one of the principles of universal theology that the Divine causes – potentially, if people develop their potential – causes all the Children of Adam – all humankind – to prophecy' (i.e., to have the potential capability to attain an understanding of the truths governing all phenomena of the Divinity's Creation – what Aristotle categorized as either 'physics' or 'metaphysics.')