A feeling of superiority? No, of singularity. Why does the city of Hebron hold a special place in the biblical geography? Its name is Kiryat Arba, the city of the four. Four couples have their graves there: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, in other words the fathers and mothers of humanity. God gave the prophets to Israel alone. This was Moses’s wish. He requested it of the Lord. Who granted his wish? Balaam? Balaam, says Rashi, was a visionary, not a prophet. “The Shekhinah depends on the prophets only thanks to Israel.” Why did the angel take a live coal and burn the lips of the great prophet Isaiah? Because he said too many unkind things about his people. • • • Why the choice of Israel? Is it because of the alliance with Abraham and God’s promise to him, to him and his descendants? Is it because of his faithfulness even during his trials? Is it because of the fact that the Lord offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth (including the children of Ishmael and Esau), but they all turned it down, except Israel?
