Segulah, the biblical word at the heart of Jewish understandings of chosenness, is difficult to translate. The word appears three times in the Book of Deuteronomy (in our portion in 14:2, as well as 7:6 and 26:18), and it means something like “treasured people”. When God describes Israel as segulah, there are dimensions of possession and dominance as well as affection and devotion. One possible reading of the word segulah links it to a later Hebrew word, histaglut, which means “adaptation”. The am segulah, or a treasured nation, is a people that adapts to changing realities.