[Avodah] John Locke and Tzedaqa

[David Riceman]

Micha Berger wrote:
> 3- Contract isn't the right model. A beris is a covenant, not a
> contract. By which I intend to make the following distinction:
>
> contract: two parties enter an agreement in order to share the burden
>     of getting both of their needs met. A can't accomplish his own goals
>     without B's help, B similarly needs A, so they enter into a contract
>     to work together to accomplish both's needs.
>
> covenant: two parties anter into a unity in order to accomplish that
>     union's common goals. A beris is like a marriage, which is why matan
>     Torah is allegorized as a chupah, and teaching nachriim Torah compared
>     to arayos.
>   
How would Avraham's bris with Avimelech fit this paradigm? Yaakov's bris 
with Lavan?
> - duties based law, which can be contractual or imposed. The problem
>   here is that power corrupts, and handing someone the authority to
>   impose duties can dangerously lead to oppression E.g. The US chose
>   a rights based system because the founding fathers of this country
>   felt that King Charles III crossed that line. And so they abandoned
>   duties-based gov't altogether.
>   
I guess that you mean King George.  They didn't abandon duty based 
government, they left it at the state level (my own home state, 
Massachusetts, still fined people for not attending church until the mid 
1800s).

David Riceman