Covenant and oath
Hello, Your Honor. I wanted to ask what the legal status of a covenant is. When I make a covenant with someone, is it a breach of oath or is it something in itself (another type of commitment)? If so, I would appreciate it if you could elaborate or provide sources on the subject for me to read.
There is no general answer to this because the concept of a covenant is not unambiguous. There are covenants with an oath and there are without.
Can the rabbi give an example of a covenant that is without an oath?
By the way, it is worth adding to the site the option of logging in as a user to make it easier to write questions and comments, etc.
I don't know what the example means. If you make a covenant without an oath, then there is no oath. Do you mean from the Bible? I don't know how to verify if there was no oath. The concept of covenant is not halakhic and has no halakhic definition.
I forwarded the request/suggestion to the site editor.
It is written, “You shall make a covenant with the Lord your God and with his gods.” This can be interpreted as a covenant with these or as simply a covenant that does not include these.
Thank you, Honorable Rabbi. It doesn't really sound from the rest of the verses and from the other commentators that this is actually an oath, and perhaps at most it is a specific type of oath, one that is cursed if crossed. In any case, it seems to me that, since in a covenant it was customary to cut something in two and pass through it, this covenant is a type of commitment (I don't know if it is necessarily bilateral, but it sounds like it) in which both parties each receive something in return for what the other receives from him. As if to say, it is a division of the commitments equally. Perhaps that is why the Tablets of the Covenant themselves are also written in this manner, as it is written later in the verse you cited: For the Lord has established you today as a people for Him, and He will be your God. The first five commandments fulfill the promise that He will be your God, and the last that we will be His people, which from their nature seem to be commandments for establishing social order (although I agree with you on the subject that all commandments are religious commandments, and I agree with you).
Or rather, these are oaths to curse.
This is an oath (see Rambam Shavuot 52:2 and 44).
Maureen: I think it's already possible to log in to the site using a WordPress user.
Okay, thank you very much and all the best!
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