familiali ties

Evidently, the ordinary definitions of a religion or a nation do not fit the Jews. Nevertheless, when the Jews are seen as an enlarged family or clan, their essence and way of life become aspects of the relationship of Jews as individuals to their family. The religion and faith are part of the rational and emotional tie between "children" and their father. The patterns of behavior and of life are the family way of the ancestors, and the national connection is only an extension of this family bond. It is a family that grew over the generations until it became a nation and yet remained in essence a family.

This is perhaps the unique quality of the Jewish connection. Sociologically, the family is the elemental unit of humanity. It is in many ways the most primal and primitive of social bonds, in contrast to national loyalty and belonging to a religious community, relatively modern and sophisticated connections. National, cultural, and religious ties are rational and conscious.

Family ties, however, are obscure and profound and far more difficult to articulate. But it is this very depth of experience that may have secured Jewish existence. It may be seen as a primitive and emotionally charged quality in the human soul, and not to be explained. It is, nevertheless, inexorably real and enduring.
~We Jews by Adin Steinsaltz