So Albert Einstein doesn't think we're the Chosen People and belief in G-d is childish...oh well...
A private collector won the bid at Bloomsbury in London yesterday afternoon for a measly $300,000 to purchase the letter alleged to have been written by the (Jewish) father of modern science.
The letter clearly dispels the belief that Einstein harboured more religious feelings.
Or does it?
Well, if "a Jew, is a Jew, is a Jew" then he definitely was endowed with a G-dly soul that would designate him as one of "the chosen" who are all "maaminim b'nei maaminim" - "faithful, the children of faithful."
But if we, as religious people believe in Free Choice, then can't someone choose to be an atheist?
Well, it's not so simple...
Tomorrow morning we'll be reading about the Mitzva of redeeming a fellow Jew who has sold himself as a slave to a gentile.
The reason we can't leave him there (he sold himself!) is because the transaction was never a binding one in the first place;
The Lubavitcher Rebbe examines Rashi's commentary to point out that in fact we're not really a transferable asset because our original creator and redeemer - G-d - never put us up for sale.
He owns us and has no plans of selling out.
So even when we attempt to "sell our selves" to foreign people (or ideas) we're still never released from the loving bond of connection to our first owner and creator.
"If my Theory of Relativity is found correct," Albert Einstein told his audience at the Sorbonne in 1920, "Germany will claim me as a German and the French will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."
But when your theory of G-d and the Chosen People is proven incorrect, the Jewish people will still declare - with you "I am a Jew"...
Shabat Shalom!
Thank you Oshy for the inspiration!