Retroactive coercion doesn’t help, but maybe if in any case people no longer observe it, the acceptance is voided? And if you would say: why didn’t they argue that they simply wouldn’t observe it in practice? Well, once everyone accepts it, you can’t just stop. The whole discussion is about a case where it stops on its own anyway. An analogy would be the obligation to keep a custom, where you can’t simply claim to abolish it (see Pesachim 50b), but if people move from one place to another, the custom lapses on its own. If there were something to my argument, maybe that could explain the idea that the commandments will be nullified in the future—that they will become nullified because in practice there will no longer be anyone who keeps the Torah. And maybe that’s also what they meant when they said that the son of David comes only in a generation that is entirely guilty, etc. And whoever adds, they add for him.

I don’t see any logic in that at all: if someone already ate garlic, should he go back and eat more?

As for the idea that the commandments will be nullified in the future, it seems to me that nowadays a simple explanation has emerged. Technology will eliminate almost all the commandments. They’ll produce artificial meat and artificial milk and artificial pork, they’ll teach Torah by injection into the brain, honoring parents by pressing a button, and so on.

So now say instead: realities will be nullified in the future. (The two yods combine into a vav, and the aleph doesn’t count as part of the kollel.)

Nicely said indeed. It seems to me this connects to your question about Hasidic thinking. 🙂
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%A8-%D7%97%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D/#answer-62580

If so, the whole foundation of “place causes it” has fallen apart, and we must therefore say that in a previous reincarnation I was in Galicia, or that I drank too much miracle-working liquor in one of the well-known shtiblakh, and enough said.

Regarding the claim that the obligation is based on the public’s acceptance: before the days of Ahasuerus, was there no obligation to keep the commandments? If there was, then why does the Holy One, blessed be He, come with complaints and punish the people of Israel for their sins before the days of Ahasuerus?

Rashi explained there: “A major claim of coercion—that if He summons them to judgment, asking, ‘Why did you not fulfill what you accepted upon yourselves?’ they have an answer: they accepted it under coercion.”

Rashi seems to imply that this is not a conclusive answer. Rather, even though they accepted it under coercion, there is still an obligation; it’s just that regarding punishment there may be room for leniency. Likewise with the Talmudic case of ‘he was coerced and sold’—the sale is valid. In other words, even under coercion there is some basic resolve that is enough to conclude a covenant or sales agreement.

They were punished because they did not exercise the protest. The Talmud implies that if they had claimed they were retracting, they indeed would have been exempt from punishment. The meaning is that even the sinners of that period did not retract from the contract itself; they simply gave in to their impulse.

Even if the first acceptance was under coercion, doesn’t it still have some minimal binding force? Like in the Talmudic discussion of “he coerced him and he sold”?

First, that doesn’t seem plausible to me. There has to be some proportionality. If a person were to force me and all my descendants to be enslaved to him forever, it is not plausible that the contract would be valid. Second, filing a protest means that I say in advance that my consent is only because of the coercion. If Israel could retract, that means they filed a protest. If so, the contract has no validity. In the case of “he coerced him and he sold,” it is valid only where, at the time of the sale, the seller did not file a protest that this was being done under coercion and not of his own will.

Regarding the issue of proportionality, that may be true for an ordinary person, but when we’re talking about the Holy One, blessed be He, it doesn’t sound disproportionate, since He created us and the world.

As for filing a protest, to whom did the Jewish people file the protest? The Talmud seems to imply that there may be an option to file a protest, but not that one was actually filed. Beyond that, the very fact that the Jewish people said “We will do and we will hear” first shows that they genuinely consented to accepting the Torah, and certainly did not file any protest.

In the Shulchan Arukh there is a long section on the laws of protest. You can’t file a protest after the fact; otherwise there would be no need for it. Just retract, and that’s it. If you bring in the fact that He created us, then this is no longer just a plain contract but perhaps some kind of combined model.