The danger of a peoplehood-based faith is self-obsession. There is a tendency, especially among the most fervently traditional Jews, to ignore the rest of humanity and its problems. Partly that’s a consequence of thousands of years of persecution, which have driven many Jews into a kind of protective insularity. Still, the temptation facing Judaism is to forget its universal goal and imagine that God’s overriding concern isn’t humanity but a single people.
