One Rabbinic Midrash depicts God uprooting Mt. Sinai to threaten the Israelites into accepting the Torah. There is little choice, nor do the Israelites accept on their own volition; it is between benign servitude or death; furthermore, they accept without first hearing the stipulations of the Torah -they chose to say Yes to God before they had heard what God would tell them to bear. What has it cost them? Persecution, Pogroms, and the Shoah. To be holy nation, to be set apart, only to suffer.

I think, though, at some level, there is resonance with this blindness found in Christianity. If one chooses (as if such as thing is possible) to become a Christian, it would be impossible if you actually knew what it entailed. Christianity entails a step further than complete surrender, even death, complete emptying of private ambition and will, all so that Christ might live. When people choose Christianity, they are choosing complete death for the hope of eternal life, which must fade with each tarrying year.

Too depressing? No?