COVENANT
From United Noachide Council Inc
A covenant - Oath is a "morally"-informed agreement or pact based upon voluntary consent, established by "mutual oaths" or promises and witnessed by the relevant higher authority, between peoples or parties having independent, though not necessarily equal status, that provided for joint action or obligation to achieve defined ends (limited or comprehensive) under conditions of mutual respect which protect the individual integrities of all the parties to it. Every covenant Oath-Brit involves consenting, promising and agreeing. Most are meant to be of unlimited duration, if not perpetual.
Theopolitically, "a covenant - oath is a promise that is sanctioned by an oath..." accompanied by an appeal to a deity or deity to 'see' or 'watch over' the behavior of the one who has sworn and to punish any violation of the covenant by bringing into action the curses stipulated or implied in the swearing of the oath." For a theological or political significance, "the oath was usually accompanied by a ritual or symbolic act."
A covenant - Oath "procedes" a constitution and creates the people or civil society which then proceeds to adopt a constitution of government for itself. Covenants Oath-Brit's can bind any number of partners for a variety of purposes but in their essence they are political in that their bonds are used principally to create bodies political and social. A personal covenant Oath-Brit can be between two individuals in simular to that of a union between male and female in nature
The Bible and the Origins of the Polity
The Book of Genesis begins with humanity emerging from one common ancestor and then, after the Flood, dividing into three branches or grand families: that of Ham, that of Shem, and that of Japhet. Ham and the Hamites are located principally in Africa, although they cross over into Asia in Canaan and the lower Mesopotamian valley for a brief period. Shem and the Semites are located in southwestern Asia, while Japhet and the Japhetites are located to the north of the Semites and westward into Europe.
If one reads the biblical text closely, we discover that hierarchical government originates among the Hamites, first in Nimrod's empire and then in Egypt. The organic state, on the other hand, originates with Japhet and his descendants, particularly in Yavan, among the Ionians, or Greeks. The covenantal polity originates among the Semites, particularly the western Semites, culminating in the covenantal polity of Israel.
Both Egyptian and Greek mythologies reinforce this biblical classification. The origins of the biblical world are in creation, while those of the Ionian world, by their description, are through generation, that is to say, organically.
In the first, God, by His will, creates heaven and earth and all things therein, including man and woman with whom He covenants an Cath-Brit.
For the Greeks, the gods are begotten. Gaia, the earth, begets Ouranos, heaven, with whom she then mates to bring forth Kronos and his brothers and sisters, after which there are a series of matings and struggles which create the gods as the Greeks knew them and the world as we know it. The result is a world developed organically but around competition, which competition is resolved by agreements among elites, as distinct from the world of God's creation in which God and man are linked by covenant.
According to the myths of the Hamites, individual gods came down to earth and assumed human form, each to rule his people through a power pyramid as in pharaonic Egypt. The myths of the Japhetites, or at least those of them in Ionia, gave birth to philosophy, just as the Semites gave birth to the Torah. Both philosophers and prophets are concerned with the pursuit of justice and righteousness. Hence they require a just political order for their teachings to be fulfilled. Each sought that political order within the context of the fundamental orientation of their civilization. For the prophets, that orientation was covenantal.
A covenantal politics, then, is directed simultaneously toward linking people and communities as partners in "common tasks" (Not equality) and allowing them space in which to be free. The very idea of a covenant Oath-Brit between God and humankind contains this implication in its most unusual form. The omnipotent Deity, by freely covenanting with man, limits His own powers to allow humans space in which to be free, only requiring of them that they live in accordance with the Law established as normative by the Covenant Oath-Brit. This view is reflected in the midrashic literature. In Genesis Rabbah 38:13 it is specified that Abraham chose God by the way he lived before God spoke to him, while the Sifrei makes the same point with regard to the mutual relationship between God and Jacob.
The Puritans' recognition of this aspect of the covenantal relationship between God and man in sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain and America became the basis of their federal theology. John Winthrop, Puritan Governor of Massachusetts, referred to this relationship as "federal liberty," or the freedom to freely obey the Law. A century later, when the federal idea was "secularized" by the descendents of the Puritans, "federal liberty" was redefined in terms of what actions were or were not constitutional.
The origins of the Hebrew word "brit" tell us much about this fettered freedom or liberating bondage. Of the two Accadian words which scholars suggest are related to it, biritum means "space between" while beriti means "fetter" or "binding agreement." This notion of dividing and then binding together is present in the Hebrew phrase lichrot brit (literally: to cut a covenant - Oath-Brit) and on the ceremony which went with that term, which in earliest form involved the halving of an animal and passing between its two parts to symbolically reunite them. It survives in the Jewish ceremony of brit millah (the covenant of circumcision). This Oath-Brit - sealed by the outward sign - seal of circumcision is none other than the 8th law, of the seven laws of the Children of Noach.
Theologians tend to describe foundations of theistic belief systems as a kind of revelation. Actually, a more accurate term would be divine communication. According to the Bible, God did not so much reveal Himself to His people, that is to say, move from being hidden to being visible, as to enter into direct communication with them. When God speaks to humans, He does so more in the way of a normal communication than a revelation. It is rather matter of fact, as if dialog between God and man is expected. This is a covenantal posture and outlook. Covenant is not a matter of revelation which essentially is a unilateral act among radical unequals. The conditions of covenant require communication with both sides participating, in which the radical inequality is overcome at least for purposes of the communication.
It can be said that the ties of covenant Oath-Brit are the concretization of the relationship of dialogue which, when addressed to God, makes humans holy and, when addressed to one's fellows, makes men human. As the Bible itself makes clear, the covenantal bonds transform a mystical union into a real one, making life possible in an all-too-real world and, at the same time, creating the possibilities for a whole new realm of what Max Kadushin has called "normal mysticism," or the fusion of the highest goals of the mystics' quest with the demands of everyday living. In addition in recient days Rabbi Moshe kerr teaches that a gentile (non-Jew) establishing an Covenant Oath-Brit with the Ancient of days (Elohim) while holding a Sefer Torah scroll actually cuts a brit upon his or her soul (Circumcizing his or her heart) between the individule and Elohim (God). This type of Oath-Brit, will cause teh individual to receive a new soul which will then be attached to the one giving the Oath. Attachment in the sense of a perminant soul which will be able to exist after the death of the individual. As opposed to a gentile without the Oath-Brit, which when his or her life expires the soul expires with them, thus no perminancy. The progress of civilization can be traced as corresponding to the periods in human history when the historical vanguard has recognized the vanguard idea and sought to concretely apply it to the building of human, social and political relationships.
In sum, a covenant-based politics looks toward political arrangements established or, more appropriately, compounded, through the linking of separate entities in such a way that each preserves its respective integrity while creating a common association to serve those purposes, broad or limited, for which it was called into being or created from nothing as living brit covenant, ie a binding attachment. These purposes range from keeping the peace through a permanent but very limited alliance of independent entities, to the forging of a new polity through the union of "previously" separate entities" to create a new whole. For example according to Rabbi Moshe Kerr, regarding the makeing of the Oath-Brit while holding a kosher Torah scroll for the purposes of creating a covenant Oath-Brit relationship with the Elohim (God), not to commit acts of Theft, Oppression, and Sexual deviance, against your fellow bnai brit (Children of the Covenant). Mentioned are 3 of the 7 natural universal laws passed down to all humans from the descendance of Noach. Violating these 3 laws caused the destructive flood in the time of Noah.
Taking the application of the Oath-Brit covenant for use today, we can see new multiple societies devellop(a second nation born of that of Abraham), established from the gentile, goyiem nations. Jacob - Israel was Abraham's firdst born son, of many which God promised to Abraham. A creation of one brit nation to another brit nation and that built based upon a true covenantual foundation such as the Oath-Brit covenant over seen by Elohim. Not only will there be created a new relationship with Elohim, but an allied coventantual relationship is created and formed between bnai brit Noach peoples, and the Bnai Brit Israel. A s a leader of nations Israel as first born will take care of the siblings as a first born should! Israel will then be established truely as a light unto the nations. Meading Israel receives the unlimited power from God which is then redistributed to the siblings for nurshment and continued existance. Therefore It is necessary that the developing bnai brit Noach make a covenant with the bnai Israel thus the creation and formation of an Intra Bnai Brit Alliance. Having been done so will make it possible to bring correction to the world, Tikune Olam.
A covenant-based politics is not simply a symbolic matter; it has to do with very concrete demands for power-sharing and the development of institutionalized forms and processes for doing so. Whether in its theological form or secularized as the compact theory of the origin of civil society, the covenant principle has manifested itself in different ways, in different times and places, regularly reemerging as one of the fundaments of politics.
To learn more or for more information or to request to participate in giving a Torah based oath, please go to http://www.IntraBnaiBritAlliance.org
