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A Jewish understanding of Covenant
Colette Kessler
Covenant, in Hebrew B'rith, is at the heart of the Bible and Judaism. It is the central concept and its significance is grasped through time and space. B'rith concerns the relationship between God and his people Israel. It expresses the way in which the people has understood its role and its destiny, its vision of the world and its relationship to other individuals and peoples.
Before elaborating the subject further, I must clarity my own position with regard to this study. Without ignoring biblical criticism and sometimes taking account al its conclusions, my point of departure is the text as we have received it which unites the variety of sources. Jewish exegetical tradition takes as its starting point the edited text. It is in relating life to the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, drinking at the source of the unique Spirit which pervades them all, that post-biblical Judaism has given birth to a specific form of religious life. Through and in that Spirit, the ancient covenant is constantly revealed anew to us.
The Covenant of the Fathers and its Sign
The Jewish liturgy (Siddur or Machzo,) is the place par excellence where the religious consciousness of Israel finds expression. At the beginning of daily morning prayer, in those first benedictions which awaken us to a life given by God, we read:
"Master of existence, we do not rely on our own good deeds as we lay our needs before You ..."
The text continues with a short meditation on the lowliness of the human being, citing a verse from Ecclesiastes: "Man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity (2:19), and continuing:
Nevertheless we are thy people, b'nei britekah, the children of thy covenant, the children of Abraham, thy friend the seed of Isaac, his only son ... the congregation of Jacob thy first born son, whose name thou didst call Israel It is therefore our duty to praise your holy name and confess your Unity in proclaiming twice every day, morning and evening Eternal our God, the Eternal is One.
This text already says what is essential to the Covenant. The B'rith is an enterprise entered into by God with "our fathers", Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose "sons/daughters" we are. The B'rith unites us to God in our collective identity as a people, it is through it that we become People of God. As members of this people we wish to be, today as yesterday, privileged partners, the first-born and responsible in the B'rith. The B'rith is not simply an event in the past arising out of the mists of time, but is a present reality that will always endure.
Today as yesterday it never ceases to astonish us. Does it not above all speak of an unprecedented event? God, the totally other, came and comes into the history of humanity, and gives meaning to that history. The B'rith contracted with our fathers inaugurates a new era, which must always be made actual. Andre Neher has expressed this miracle of the B'rith magnificently: "The two concepts, hiatus and participation, are fundamental to the B'rith. In their compensating interplay the unique nature of the Jewish idea of B'rith is found".
In Abraham, election, choice and promise precede the Covenant. In a world of injustice and violence, in the world of Babel, God "finds' Abraham and brings him out of his country, his birthplace and his father's house, in order to send him to the unknown "land that I will show you" (Gen.12:1-2). God promises him a land and posterity. God "finds" Abraham, Abraham "chooses" God. He does this by welcoming others (hospitality in his dwelling-place open to the four winds in order to offer the shelter of his roof to whoever wants to escape from a brutal and inhospitable world, Gen.18:1-8), and by praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, image of this unjust and disqualified humanity. He did it by listening to God's promise and expecting from God what is humanly impossible: a child in his old age (Gen.15:1-6). This is what the text states when it says "He believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness". It is after Abraham accepted the divine command to perform a sacrificial rite (Gen.15:9-17)—according to tradition a prefiguring of the whole sacrificial cult—that, according to Scripture, "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying: To your descendants I give this land..." The Abrahamite B'rith thus appeared from the first instance as humanity's acceptance of the divine command. This essential dimension will be confirmed, one could say fulfilled, deepened, renewed, when God orders Abraham to submit, he and his descendants after him, to the precept concerning circumcision (Gen.17:9-14). "You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you". In this verse the B'rith is already qualified as B'rith Olam, a perpetual covenant, an idea we will return to later. Here we should like to emphasise the maintenance of this mitzvah by Jews in every generation, a mitzvah that is popularly called by the name of "B'rith". In spite of the seductions of assimilation, in spite of the risks inherent in this singularity the Jews, by reason of this "sign" which has been accepted, manifest the continuity of their fidelity, the actuality of Abrahamic faith. When, at the circumcision of his son, a father pronounces the consecrated benediction:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe who makes us holy through doing his commands and commands us to bring our sons into the covenant of our rather, Abraham
he enters into all that the centuries of bible and tradition have invested in this mitzvah. Going back to Abraham, promulgated in the Law (Lev.12:3), the interior dimension of the mitzvah of circumcision is made explicit by Deuteronomy and the prophet Jeremiah (Deut.10:12-22, Jer.9:24). They use the expression "circumcision of the heart", that is to say the indispensable effacement of the self to make room for the other and the ability "to be attached to God". The blood of the covenant of circumcision both recapitulates and transcends the blood of sacrifices. It anticipates and recalls the blood of the paschal Iamb (Ex.12:21-24), it proclaims and is a memorial of Jews martyred for the sake of the One God.
For the people of Israel Abraham is the first of the fathers because the covenant established with him by God laid down an order and a duty: "I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice" (Gen.18:19). The covenant is signified in the working out of the commandment. The justice prescribed must be written in a legal form transmissible through a line of descendants. "Keep the way of God!" With Abraham justice took the form of a law. It is in following this way of justice that the posterity of Abraham will be "a blessing for all the families of the earth" (Gen.12:3).
In Abraham a decisive step was taken in the development of the human race. That is why he must no longer be called Abram, but by his covenant name of Abraham. Thus the covenant is shown as the meeting place between the history of the human race and the divine plan. This is why our masters have been able to say that the covenant rested on a kind of "creation contract". Renewed with Isaac (Gen.28), then with Jacob, who would be called Israel, the covenant henceforth will be irreversible; God himself will remember the covenant made with the fathers in order to judge the sons, save them and pardon them (Ex.2:23-24; Lev.26:42 ...). In its beginning the covenant contains the promise al Iris end.
The Covenant with the People and its Signs
That which was promised at the time of the patriarchs for posterity became a reality for a people at the time of Moses. God will bring his people out of Egypt because, mindful of the covenant with their fathers, he heard their cries from the depths of their slavery. He will "take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders..." (Deut.4:34).
As with Abraham, it could be said that election precedes covenant. It is already in the heart of "the concentration-camp world of Egypt" where a few at least of the children of Israel "had not forgotten either their language or their name", that th ey would still find the strength to "cry out to God" in their deep distress and that God would "hear and bring them out".
The first mitzvah imposed on them is the opening of a new era: "This month shall be for you the beginning of months" (Ex.12:1). The covenant found its first expression after the exodus from Egypt, when God said to Moses "Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is first... is mine" (Ex.13:1): a demand made of the people to affirm that they were different from other peoples, to constitute themselves henceforward as the people of God. This prelude will find its fulfillment, its consecration, fifty days later at the foot of Sinai, in the unique and decisive event of their entire history, when they proclaim: "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient" (Ex.19:8; 24:7). In committing themselves in this way "In the same moment" (the Midrash says) "with one heart, as a single person", Israel collectively committed itself to this B'rith Olam, this perpetual covenant with God. The laws which could structure them into a "treasured people", Am Segulah among all the peoples, must now be inscribed in the collective structure of the people. Buber says that Israel is a theopolis. The covenant will be sealed by the sprinkling of blood. Moses says "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words" (Ex.24:8). It will be consecrated by "these words", words which will be engraved on the "tables of covenant" (Deut.9:9,15) and in the "book of the covenant" (Ex.24:7). On Sinai, the uncertain unity of the Hebrews, sons of Jacob, gave birth to a people united by the name of the election of Jacob, Israel. In the unprecedented brilliance of the theophany of Sinai Judaism recognised an irrevocable gift of love. The Ten Words engraved on the stone were already, at least for the moment, written into their hearts.
The "sign" par excellence of this eternal covenant is the sabbath (Ex.31:13-17). The Sabbath, which the biblical author placed in Genesis as the seal on the creative work of God, as an expression of the Covenant of God with his creation, is entrusted to Israel. Rashi, in commenting on these verses from Exodus, says: "It is a sign of greatness among you. I have chosen you so that you will inherit as your day of rest my day of rest, to make known to the nations of the world that I am the Eternal who sanctifies you". Throughout its history and its wanderings, Israel has always treasured the Sabbath as well as Circumcision, adapting their observance to the situation. By means of the sabbath it is possible for a Jew (an individual) to complete the work of creation by alternating a work ethic with a time of rest. The sabbath is in this world like "a foretaste of the world to come". In it and by it the "eternal Covenant"f Inds expression in the here and now.
The Covenant with the Fathers
A Guarantee of the Covenant with the People
From the moment the "tables of the covenant" were given to Moses on the heights of Sinai, the people of Israel began to sin by making the golden calf. In the account in Exodus as in many others, the Bible does not try to hide the backsliding of the chosen people, the first born of God. Moses then teaches the people, through his own prayer, the value of intercessory prayer, a plea for pardon which is based on "the covenant of the fathers". Even though unfaithful, the people must know that it can continue to live under the eye of God (Ex.32:12-14).
The prayer of the synagogue is rooted in this inaugural prayer of Moses. Three times a day, in the opening Benediction of the Amidah, Israel places its trust in the hasdei-avoth, the merits of the fathers (this can also be translated: the dignity of the fathers or the grace of the fathers), asking God to hasten the coming of the final redeemer. It is on these "merits of the fathers"that the Jew relies in order to dare to implore the pardon of God at the most solemn moment in the liturgical year, from Rosh ha Shanah to Yom kippur, during the supplications of the Selihoth, from the musaf of Rosh ha Shanah to the most solemn moment of the ne'ilah of kippur.
The Conditional and Permanent Covenant
We have already noted that from the time of the covenant with Abraham, this b'rith is called b'rith clam, a perpetual covenant. Nevertheless, at the moment of the establishment of the Sinai Covenant, the tense used is the conditional: "And now, if (im) you listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasure among all the peoples". What does this im mean, often replaced in Deuteronomy by ki (when) (cf.Deut.28:62-64; 30:1). B. Dupuy writes: "The preposition im opens up an alternative, indicates a choice. The covenant is thus conditional, but the realisation of the covenant is not put in question." Everything happens as if, by the covenant, Israel was called to fidelity despite sin, as if Israel were vowed to this fidelity even through dereliction and death (one thinks of the Inquisition, or closer to our times, of Auschwitz).
A distance can arise between God and his people because of sin. The bible understands that the mission of the people of the Covenant has to be put to the test of history. It knows that the mitzvoth, the precepts imposed by the Torah of Moses to help the people of Israel scale the ladder of holiness, can themselves become a stumbling-block. And so the bible does not hesitate to describe, even to foretell, the faults committed by Israel. But it also points out the remedy: God has foreseen for the human race the ever-open possibility of teshuvah, of return to him in order to fulfil his demands, so that Israel may once more become what it has committed itself to be. In the very order of the chapters of Exodus, between the revelation on Sinai and the sin of the golden calf, the rabbis read this openness to teshuvah (Ex.19- 30:2). From the fact that the commands relating to the construction of the tabernacle precede the account of the golden calf episode, which, according to the text, happened while Moses was on Sinai, they deduce that "the remedy preceded the sickness".
On the other hand it is after the sin that the prayer of Moses - dare one say it - forces God to express the patience of his infinite mercy and his grace (hesed) which extends "to the third and the fourth generation" (Ex.34:31-32 and 34:5-8).
If the gift of the covenant is irrevocable, this does not mean to say that the people of Israel would be assured of a calm and tranquil existence. Bible, tradition and history are all there to show that this would be a false illusion. How many times, from Exodus to Chronicles, have not Moses, the prophets and the wise men denounced the infidelity of Israel, the transgression of the Torah, the "breaking of the covenant", the abandonment or forgetfulness (Lev.26:15; Deut.17:2; 31:16; I K.19:10; Ez.16:59; 18:8; Hos.6:7; Jer.11:10 etc.), menacing Israel with curses or chastisements, with oppression by the nations and exile. This is why the bible, the torah itself, speaks of the "renewing" of the covenant: by Moses in the plains of Moab (Deut.29:1-9), by Joshua before his death (Jos.24:25), in the time of the high priest Jehoiada (II K.11:17) and finally by King Josiah after "the book of the Law' (Deuteronomy, according to all the exegetes) had been found in the temple (II K.23). In fact Deuteronomy insists particularly on the covenant made at Horeb with all generations. It is also Deuteronomy which puts most clearly in evidence the gratuity of this election unmerited by Israel, granted by the love of God and by his fidelity to his oath made to the fathers. It also sets out clearly the demands to which Israel must respond, infinite demands to conform to the perfection contained in the "Kol ha-mitzvah" which implies the fulfillment of the whole Torah, of which God alone holds the secret.
By reason of the covenant the people of Israel is, one might say, the mediator for the nations; it is, according to the words of Isaiah, B'rith Am, "a covenant to the people" (Is.42:6); it is Servant and Witness. The covenant must be recognised by both Israel and the Nations in its first and final value, the universal covenant of God with the whole of creation.
Particular Covenant with a Universal Meaning
The covenant is the expression of a permanent tension between the particular and the universal. The formula of the Sinaitic covenant already quoted says it in a striking way: "You shall be my own possession (segulah) among all peoples ... a kingdom of priests and a holy nation ... for a Irthe earth is mine" and the covenant with Abraham was made so that he and his descendants should become a benediction for all the nations of the earth. Everything happens as if the bond between God and his creation aspired to be universal before being particular, in order to bring out the point that the universal must be read and lived through the medium of the particular. As Rashi remarks in the commentary on the first verse of Genesis: The Torah does not begin with the first mitzvah given to Israel (Ex.12) but with the account of creation.
The mitzvah given by God to Adam, and transgressed by him, made the prophet Hosea say, speaking of Israel "They, like Adam, transgressed the covenant", a verse interpreted by Rashi: "Like Adam ha rishon, the first man, they transgressed the covenant; that is to say, Just as Adam, in Gan-Eden (paradise) transgressed the mitzvah which I gave to him, Israel transgressed the mitzvot, the covenant" Ben Sirach confirms this, anticipating the interpretation of Rashi (Sir.17:11-12). The mitzvah, the covenant, appears here clearly as a "creation contract", a project of life, a precious tool offered to humanity to become what it should be, the image of God.
The covenant with humanity is clearly explicit in the text on Noah. When, saved from the flood because he was found to be "tzaddik (just) in his generation", God promises him that never again will a flood come upon the earth (Gen.8:21-22; 9:16). The word B'rith is used. Noah becomes the fresh beginning of a renewed humanity. The rabbis interpreted this covenant with Noah as including the laws which must govern the whole of humanity. They are seven and include the prohibition of idolatry and consuming blood, the obligation to set up tribunals ... (cf.Talmud Sanh.56b). The sign of this covenant is the rainbow. It is universal "perpetual".
The covenant with Noah features in the prophets, especially Deuterotsaiah, as a guarantee of the specific covenant with Israel. It is associated with the creation, the end of time, the new heaven and the new earth (Is.65:7 sq.). This link between the cosmic order and the covenant with Israel, already announced by the prophet Jeremiah, is found again in Nehemiah in the beautiful prayer recited at "Yom ha amana" (the day of the covenant) (Neh.8:9). Deuteronomy meditates on the unprecedented character of the act of election for which only the act of creation can serve as image (Deut 4:31-40). Election and covenant are rooted in creation, and by this very fact herald redemption: "the end of the act is already contained in its beginning" are words found in the Lekhah Dora, the hymn welcoming the Sabbath. The special covenant with Israel is rooted in the universal covenant, being at the same time the way and the meaning. This is also the reason why it is irrevocable.
The Covenant as Hesed
Deuteronomy introduces a characteristic dimension of B'rith, that of Hesed this is a word difficult to translate, rich in meaning, which can be rendered as "love' but also as "violence in love", "grace", "goodness", "tenderness", and also "possessive tenderness" (Deut.7:9,12): "The Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations ... the covenant and the steadfast love which he swore to your fathers to keep'. His hesed is one of the thirteen attributes of God listed in Ex.34:6-7.
This dimension of hesed in the B'rith is also present in the meditations of the rabbis and the mystics, as can be seen in Jewish prayer and liturgical life even today. To quote a few examples; in Psalm 136, called the Great Halle!, the expression "for his steadfast love (hesed) endures forever" occurs 26 times; it sings of the presence of God in his creation, his creatures and the whole history of Israel; it is recited each morning by the pious Jew. The final formula of the benediction which precedes the Shema in the morning is: Blessed are You Lord, who chooses His people Israel in love. Note that the verb is in the present tense. For us the covenant is not something past, revoked, fallen into disuse. It is present in our lives, it is fulfilled in our very existence, in fidelity to the Torah, in the tension between the founding acts of the past and the hope that it will see the light of day as "new covenant" at the very heart of history.
Ritual acts like the daily putting on the Tefillin on the arm and forehead, symbolize for the Jew the bond of love which, because he is "son of the covenant" unites him to God. While making this gesture he must pronounce the words from the prophet Hosea (2:19). "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord". In the context of Hosea these words situate the covenant with Israel in the context of harmony with nature and peace with other peoples. Thus in fulfilling the mitzvah of the tefillin, the Jew must express the fact that, in the here and now, by obedience to the precepts of the Torah of Moses, he is invited to prepare in "this world" a foretaste of "the world to come". There is certainly a risk attached to it, that of believing that the material act is sufficient for the fulfillment of the mitzvah. As Martin Buber said, it is a question of "fulfilling the mitzvot while looking on them not as a point of arrival, but as a setting forth on an endless road" (Two Types of Faith, N.Y. Harper, 1961, pp.56-78); or, to use a liturgical expression, their end is to "unify our hearts to love and fear your Holy Name".
The Two Forms of the One Covenant, Old and New
Chapter 31:31-33 of Jeremiah reads:
Behold the days are coming. says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
These verses are as rich in meaning as they are difficult. We know that they are a stumbling block between Judaism and Christianity. Here I will try to present the Jewish understanding of them, starting from the two great classic commentaries on the prophets, Metsudath David and Malbim.
In Jewish tradition the B'rith ha-dashah, the new covenant, is no different from the Sinai covenant, the eternal covenant. When the prophet Jeremiah saw and understood the extent of the disaster of the destruction of the temple, place of the Presence, the sanctuary where the Tables of the Covenant were kept, he passed on to his people the word of God, the word of fidelity to the covenant. In the crisis, the covenant was not broken, but confirmed. It would receive a modality which had not yet been announced or manifested. The prophet enunciated the divine message in solemn words: "I will put my Torah within them"; that is to say, It is I myself who will guide their hearts so that they accomplish the Torah. Everything came about as if God had two ways of assuring the reception of the Torah by his people: on the one hand the explicit gift of the Torah, given at Sinai, and in second place the inclination of the heart, aroused by Himself, towards this same Torah. He revealed this to them by the mouth of a prophet, at the moment of exile.
According to Malbim, the covenant is written into human nature. In effect human nature has need of a law. The Torah given by God was in line with this nature. But, when it was given to the Hebrews, it was in some way "before its time". They were not ready to enter there because, according to Malbim, they had been debased by the slavery they had undergone in Egypt. It was necessary to impose this Law and this was an act of hesed on the part of God, violence and love, a grace by which they could enter into the covenant. But they broke it, they sinned. What is announced by the prophet is a regime, an economy, a time when the law will no longer be violated because it will be in their hearts, "not learnt"; it will be like a second nature.
Just as the Olam ha-ba is the world which comes in this present time - we have mentioned it several times already - the new covenant arouses a second nature within the first, which will make known from within the demands of the Law revealed by the first covenant. In virtue of this divine strength, it is possible to "fulfil" the law. The external law, with its obligations and even its transgression, was necessary to reach the new regime of that same Law. The prophet is not announcing an institution but is describing the future. In the centuries which follow there will be a renewal in line with this word, leading to a new fidelity to the first covenant.
From the standpoint of the perspectives sketched here it will be possible to look at the Christian reference to the "new covenant" (B'rith Ha-dashah) from a Jewish point of view.
Colette Kessler is a graduate of the Institute for Hebraic Studies in Paris. She is presently responsible for Talmud Torah of the Jewish Liberal Movement of France. She is a member al the Executive Committee of the Council of Christians and Jews of France. She was the recipient of the 1990 Prize of this Council. For a number of years she has taught at the SIDIC Centre in Paris.
