Rav Yakov (Bereisishis 9:25) And he said cursed is Canaan he will be a slave to his brothers There are among our haters of the nations of the world who categorize Israel as a racist nation, because the Torah says that Canaan is cursed and he will be a slave to his brothers. They claim that is because the Torah degraded the race of Canaan to the level of a slave. But in fact it is surely not so. It is clear that the view of the Torah is against racism, as I have already shown this in my commentary to Bereishis (1: 22) from the language of the mishna in Sanhedrin (37a]: which states “For what reason was man created as a single person – in order that a person can not claim that my ancestors are superior to your ancestors because G-d made the human species different from the other species and created only one person so that the human beings would not come to be racist.
In light of this we need to explain the actions of Noach in cursing Canaan to be degraded him below the rest of humanity which seems to be a clearly racist act. In fact it has nothing to do with racism, racism means that one race is elevated above another race because of its origin and lineage and as if it was created from superior and better "material" and the like. But the reason that Noah divided between them was because of the corrupt personality of Ham and his son Canaan. This degraded nature was passed on to their descendants as is stated in Pesachim (113b) Five things Canaan commanded his sons: Love robbery and love fornication and hate your masters and do not speak the truth, and since Noah saw such corruption in the family of Canaan, he cursed them that they who will remain slaves all their lives and will not come in the congregation of Israel.
And similarly concerning what we say, "You have chosen us from all the peoples", which the haters of Israel claimed that from this we consider ourselves superior to the nations of the world. It is certainly not because Judaism is racist – G-d forbid! We say it because we have acquired fair and honest attributes from our religious leaders and teachers such as Abraham Yitzchak and Yaakov, and we stood on Mount Sinai and received the Torah of God from the mouth of our Rabbi Moses. Consequently we have become more refined and elevated than the other nations, but only because we have improved ourselves by involvement with Torah and mitzvos and by getting closer to G-d. But in fact anyone who wants can convert and join us and then he too can say about himself "You are our choice from all nations", which is not true in the other racist nations that do not allow anyone from outside to join them.
And this is obvious from what we say, You have chosen us from all the peoples, and we say the same in the blessings of the Torah every day that He has chosen us from all the peoples, and yet in the order of Selichos we say, "We are more guilty than other nations ". It is puzzling, how can we say that we are the chosen ones and yet more guilty. But it is as we said, our virtue is not inherently in us or religion or our superior origin, but in the fact that we were chosen from all nations because of our refinement, so therefore when we sin and do not protect ourselves from doing wrong, we are are the guiltiest of all people, because the higher the level of man, the higher his sin if he fails.
