Q&A: Regarding Acceptance by the Community
Regarding Acceptance by the Community
Question
Hello Rabbi, and happy holidays,
In another responsum, a side discussion came up regarding acceptance by the community, and there I asked:
Incidentally, I wanted to ask about the point that obligation to the word of God is based on the community’s acceptance. If we assume the community had not accepted this obligation upon itself, would that mean the community would not have been obligated to the word of God? After all, the command itself remains in place ("He held the mountain over them like a barrel"). And from the perspective of the Holy One, blessed be He, He commanded the community immediately and for all generations. Meaning, even without the matter of the oath and the community’s acceptance, there is an obligation that applies to later generations by virtue of God’s command to them. Seemingly, one could understand that what the community’s acceptance added was an additional binding layer: that is, when a person who belongs to the community rebels against the word of God, he is rebelling not only against God but also against the community that accepted upon itself to keep the word of God.
On that you answered there as follows:
I don’t think so. I wasn’t there, and the covenant that was made obligates me only by virtue of my belonging to the community. If I understand correctly, the coercion was not to obey but to swear and undertake the communal obligation (something like: "they compel him until he says, ‘I want to’"). That is also why there was the claim of a great protest against the Torah until Purim, when they accepted it again. It follows that without this there would have been no obligation at all.
About that I wanted to ask: true, you weren’t there, but the Jewish people were there, and the Jewish people are still alive (a community does not die). In other words, the Jewish people are still obligated by virtue of the command at Sinai, and you today are part of the Jewish people, and therefore you are obligated by virtue of the command at Sinai even today. Isn’t that so?
Best regards,
Answer
The obligation for later generations comes by virtue of belonging to the community. And indeed, a community does not die, and therefore later generations too become obligated by virtue of the original obligation. So your question does not pertain to our obligation today, but rather to the question of the nature of the original obligation: was it our undertaking or the command? I already wrote here once that it is apparently some combination of the two. That is why in the Torah itself we find both the coercion of the mountain held over them like a barrel and "we will do and we will hear." But both the command and our undertaking apply to later generations only by virtue of the principle that a community does not die.
Discussion on Answer
It is possible that the acceptance only turned us into a community, but it seems more likely to me that although the command alone would have been enough to obligate, the Holy One, blessed be He, nevertheless preferred to base it on a mutual covenant. With that in mind He commanded—such that only if we accepted would we become obligated.
Okay, so I’ll ask about the nature of the original obligation: are you claiming that the validity of the obligation is based on two necessary conditions—the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the community’s acceptance? If one of them does not exist, there is no obligation. But seemingly, in simple terms, the condition of God’s commanding the community alone should be enough to establish a communal obligation, just as when the Holy One, blessed be He, commands Abraham something, Abraham becomes obligated by the command even without any declaration of commitment on his part.
Maybe you mean that the community’s acceptance itself is what constitutes the community as a community, and without that acceptance there would have been no community at all, only a collection of individuals each commanded separately, and after they die, their descendants are no longer commanded. Something like what you said in the last lecture in Ra'anana about the Passover offering, that it fuses individuals into a community. Did I understand correctly?