God had a need for a 'chosen people'

I want to share what for me is a new perspective on being a Jew and one of the "chosen people." We Jews are uncomfortable that our "chosenness" reflects some supposed "superiority," but this morning's reading, together with a long-term interest in religion and God, gave me a new understanding of who I am as a Jew and, more importantly, who God is.

The new foundation for my self-understanding rests on the biblical assertion that it was God who chose the Jews. God took the initiative. Why the Jews were chosen is necessarily speculative. Indeed, Moses acknowledges that the distinction of the Israelites lies not in who they were before Sinai and the giving of the covenant, but only after it. He asks, "Is it not in Thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and Thy people, from all other people that are upon the Earth?" (Ex. 33:16)

Why the Jews were chosen is one thing; more importantly, why was any people chosen? For me the answer is to be found in God's need for us. God needed a people to carry out his plan for how we were to live. He couldn't do it alone. Neither, in my view, omnipotent nor omniscient, he was dependent on us to bring his vision of "the good life" to fruition. An omnipotent God would have needed no assistance. We Jews were to try to project his vision in our daily lives, to reflect his concern for justice, righteousness and mercy. We were to be the players who tried to act out his script. In this context, the emergence of the prophets can be seen as God's need to periodically remind us of our failures in doing as we were bid.

And in this context, I can now see Jesus and Mohammed as prophetic carriers of this message with Jesus giving particular emphasis to "love" and Mohammed to "justice."

A good morning's work! -- George S. Baroff, Chapel Hill

Building will make intersection worse

I am writing in response to Jesse James Deconto's Jan. 6 article, "Developers heading north."

My wife and I moved from downtown Raleigh to the Northwood neighborhood in Chapel Hill about a year ago. Northwood is a quiet, well-established, formerly rural neighborhood bounded by Eubanks Road, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Weaver Dairy Road. As such, it will be affected greatly by the impending development in the area.

I understand that not all of the proposed development in the northwest area will occur at the same time (per Phil Post's comments) -- and that it may not necessarily occur as proposed -- but it will most certainly occur to some extent or other. The Weaver Dairy Road/MLK Boulevard intersection is already an ugly traffic mess at peak periods without ground having been broken on any of the proposed developments. Said developments will only exacerbate the problem, and will further choke up MLK Boulevard's intersections with Perkins Drive and Eubanks Road just to the north and closer to Interstate 40.

We in Northwood already risk our lives trying to cross MLK by foot to get to shops and services at Chapel Hill North, often making driving a more desirable option. What makes sense about getting into a car and traveling less than half a mile just to cross a road? Future developments along Eubanks and to the west of MLK will be faced with the same limitations and barriers, made worse by increased traffic.

Since the development is certainly coming, shouldn't it come in the context of thoughtful planning that will take into account the unwieldy increase in traffic, severe lack of existing pedestrian access, and the gobbling up of open space in the area? That's what I'd like to see, and I'd like to think that the Town Council would agree with Del Snow's proposal to form a Northwest Planning Committee. It's not too late to avert this disaster. -- Christopher A. Clemmons, Chapel Hill

Development glut will have effect on schools

I was surprised to see no discussion of how the residential construction boom in the northern reaches of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School District will affect the very schools that are the magnet for this development.

The third high school will open a year late, despite overcrowding at the two existing facilities, because it was so difficult to find a suitable piece of land. Where will the land and funds for building and staffing new schools come from?

Impact fees cover only a tiny fraction of these costs. It is time for our elected officials to enforce the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. -- Stephanie London, Chapel Hill

Population growth overwhelms planet

Time magazine's Person of the Year is YOU. That's right. You and me and every other person on the planet have been chosen as "person of the year" in 2006. We are becoming aware of people power, we are told.

This could mean that almost 6.6 billion human beings have been picked because all of us comprise an extraordinary force of nature within the world in which we live. The magazine article reports a de-emphasis of the "great man theory" of history in favor of a recognition that a large mammal species with so many members and so much influence is worthy of high status.

This favorable notice is long overdue. However, such belated awareness of the powerful global presence of 6-plus billion humans is not a fact about which we can simply take pride. The unbridled growth of certain distinctly human activities of Homo sapiens overspreading the Earth looms ominously before humankind on the far horizon and could soon pose profound challenges for humanity.

The unregulated growth of absolute global human population numbers could literally overwhelm the limited resources and ecosystem services the Earth provides to humankind for its benefit. Because we have adequate knowledge that the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit is finite.

The current scale and rate of growth of per-human consumption in the United States alone has passed beyond "conspicuous consumption" and now approaches the obscene. If the undeveloped countries of the world were to follow the U.S. example of increasing and unrestrained per capita consumption of natural resources, scientific data indicate that before the close of the first half of the 21st century the human population worldwide can be expected to dissipate those resources to the point when our species will be literally "eating itself out of house and home." -- Steven Earl Salmony, Chapel Hill

Candidate's late arrival irks woman

Like many others, my friend and I arrived early for the Dec. 30 4 p.m. John Edwards event at Southern Village. This meant that we waited nearly three hours for his appearance.

If Edwards had wanted my vote, he would have had at least one person on his staff with the good sense to inform the frustrated audience that he would be late and why. Failing this, Edwards would have had the good manners to apologize for his presumably unavoidable delay. -- Jean Call, Chapel Hill

List should have included restaurant

In the Sunday editorial on downtown businesses ("Keeping score as businesses come and go"), Julian's, Sutton's and the Carolina Coffee Shop were named as institutions that provide a link to Franklin Street's past.

With due respect to those places, I'd like to add Ye Olde Waffle Shop, in business since 1972. Since my move to Chapel Hill in the early 1990s, the waffle shop, its people and the food they serve have given me not just a link to Franklin Street's past but also to Franklin Street and the community. -- Sally Walters, Chapel Hill