Covenant as the Basis of the Jewish Political Tradition

Abstract

The biblical political teaching as manifest in the Jewish political tradition is an important political teaching for Jews and non-Jews alike and has been so recognized throughout the Western world. In essence, the Israelites took the idea and techniques of covenant making from their neighbors but turned them on their head. The covenant becomes the framework for mutual obligation and the basis of a new law and politics internally and externally. In the course of Jewish history, actual covenants and covenantal principles appear and reappear to give the Jewish political tradition both form and content. The Exodus and the Sinai covenant usher in an epoch in Jewish history, the principal political manifestation of which was the tribal federation. The associational model that emerged from this congregational form became the basis for the entire web of Jewish communal organization in the European diaspora.