Thread by @ZoharAtkins

I wrote about two models of covenant, the conflict between obligation and choice, the parallels between Abraham and Rebecca, and the Torah's (complex) relationship to family life.

With thoughts on @PatrickDeneen and Pierre Manent along the way.

etzhasadeh.substack.com/p/a-lily-among…

The pairing of Abraham and Rebecca recurs thorughout Jewish history. The first set of tablets are given to us by God, while the second set are composed by Moses.

The covenant is said to have begun when God lifted the mountain over the heads of the people and threatened them with death, while it was only ratified later, in the time of Purim, when the people “established and accepted it upon themselves.”

Abraham, the first set of tablets, and the mountain over our head, are figures of origination, figures in which consent has not yet entered the picture. Rebecca, the second set of tablets, and Purim, are figures of choice, figures of agency, figures of modernity.

Neither obligation nor choice are good in and of themselves. Obligation to bad norms is terrible; choosing endeavors that are harmful may be a victory for the abstract principle of choice, but it is a loss for virtue.

The problem is that we don’t always choose what is virtuous. And so while liberalism celebrates the choice as an end in itself, anti-liberalism claims that it knows best how to mold people to make the right choices.

I found more than a grain of truth in Deneen’s description, which offers a critique, from a socially conservative point of view, of the American Dream.

And yet the ability to leave a bad place, a bad community, a local tyranny, is something that is only possible under a regime of choice.

Taking the long view, we see the power of origination not only in Abraham’s theological quest, but in Rebecca’s earthly one. Perhaps her desire was not to follow God, but simply to get away from evil.

For some, the language of God is meaningful; others struggle with theological language, yet resonate with the sheer sense that the world should be ordered by a principle other than “might makes right.”

Sometimes we are obviously called to greatness, and sometimes we must find the call ourselves, hiding, like a lily among the thorns.

Shabbat Shalom.