National revelation and national redemption

I realized something the other day. The Jewish view on the messianic age, heaven, the world to come, whatever you want to call it is based on national redemption. I was talking about this with some students recently. A big difference between Judaism and Christianity is the notion of heaven. For Christians, heaven exists. It's a place to which you have to gain admittance. But, it's an individual place. If a Christian has faith that Jesus died for his or her sins and acts upon that faith, he or she will have a place in heaven regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world.

But Jews are different. Our view of heaven is not that it is a place that exists but rather a place that we must create. It's what we pray for in the Aleinu. More importantly, we can't get there alone. Regardless of the life I lead as an individual, the reward of "heaven" or the perfect world only can happen if everyone gets there together. That's a really important difference.

Then it occurred to me that on the other end of the spectrum, revelation, the difference between individualism and nationalism also is what differentiates the Jews. Judaism is one of the only (perhaps the only) religion based on national revelation. God didn't appear to an individual. God revealed the overall plan to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai.

I guess that's why we need a minyan to pray. It's why we hear the sound "nu" in so many of our prayers ("nu" is the possessive pronoun "our").

We got the vision as a people and we can only achieve it as a people. We are all connected. It doesn't matter how good we are as individuals. I can be a good person yet, that's not enough to create heaven. That really changes the stakes, doesn't it?