A wicked person, explains Rashi, is someone who imagines that they are special, that the rules don’t apply to them.

Economists talk about the tragedy of the commons. Imagine a public good, a resource which benefits everyone but which no one feels individually responsible for. Each person believes that she can chip away at it without actually damaging it noticeably.

Let’s imagine a botanical garden full of gorgeous plants. If one visitor snips off a bloom, nothing much happens. Now imagine if every visitor does this. Pretty soon there are no flowers left. The garden is ruined — a loss for the entire community.

It is interesting to consider this idea of personal exceptionalism alongside the idea of Jewish chosenness, expressed many times in Deuteronomy. We are told for instance, “For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples on earth the Lord, your God chose you to be His treasured people” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Apparently we are not to indulge the inner voice which says “you [singular] are special”, whereas we can and should pay attention to the same idea when it is expressed as part of our collective mission “you [plural] are special.” Is this not strange?

Well, no. Chosenness sounds like exceptionalism — we are special so the rules don’t apply. However, Jewish thinkers understand chosenness as relating less to additional rights and more to additional responsibilities. To quote Rabbi Harold Kushner, we Jews are a “pilot project” into what humanity can be when we live up to the highest ethical standards.

Maimonides famously proposes in his Laws on Repentance that at Rosh Hashanah we imagine complete ethical equipoise in the universe — globally, nationally, for our community and family, and for ourselves as individuals.

Whatever we do next will tip the scales towards either hope or doom — not just for us, but for everyone else too. Now we are inspired to choose well, not just for ourselves as individuals, but also for the greater good.

This is how chosenness can be toxic for the individual, but a galvanising force for good when applied collectively.