Chosen to Be Hashem’s

When young people weighed a life of Torah against a more lucrative career, Rav Schorr often began with the verse in which Hashem says, “I have separated you from the nations to be Mine.” Rashi comments that if the Jews keep themselves apart, they are Hashem’s, but if they do not see themselves as unique, they will fall prey to Nevuchadnetzar and his kind. Our goal cannot be merely to escape such massacres, he said. It is to fulfill the mission for which we were chosen. The world needs doctors, lawyers, accountants and mechanics, but we were designated to be Hashem’s nation, the nation of Torah, and each yeshiva student must see this as both his privilege and his responsibility.