<div></div>
<div>> There's an interesting article on <a href="http://www.azure.co.il">www.azure.co.il</a>, by a rabbi at Bar </div>
<div>> Ilan. He shows that the covenant section of Shemot has striking </div>
<div>> similarities to a Hittite suzerainty treaty. The nafka mina, he says, </div>
<div>> is that the brit was not made with the nation as a collective, as it </div>
<div>> was with each individual unto himself. </div>
<div> </div>
<div></div>
<div>I just checked: </div>
<div></div>
<div>The article is "G-d's Alliance with Man" by Joshua A. Berman. </div>
<div> </div>
<div></div>
<div>It turns out he's not a rav. </div>
<div>"Joshua A. Berman is an Associate Fellow at the Shalem Center and a lecturer in the Bible department at Bar-Ilan University. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book Biblical Revolutions: The Transformation of Social and Political Thought in the Ancient Near East."
</div>
<div> </div>
<div></div>
<div>I might add that Berman's opposition to the nation as a collective is not absolute. He says, "One is tempted to say that the role of the subordinate king is played here by the corporate body of the people of Israel as a whole.
<strong>And perhaps this is true to a certain extent.</strong> [emphasis mine] Yet, within the Sinai covenant itself we see that God in fact relates to individual Israelites. ... We may conclude, therefore, that to <strong>
some degree</strong> [emphasis not mine] the subordinate king with whom God forms a political treaty is, in fact, each individual within the Israelite polity; that every man in Israel is to view himself as accorded the status of a king—a servile, subordinate king under the protection of and in gratitude to a divine sovereign."
</div>
<div></div>
<div> </div>
<div>In the proceeding portion, it is clear that the notion he is arguing against, is not that the nation is in fact a collective. Rather, his argument is that were the covenant with the entire nation as a nation, then the king and the priests could represent the whole nation, and the individuals would have no religious duties, as was the case in Mesopotamia. Rather, each individual is a priest with as many duties (save a few exceptions) as a melech or a kohein. Thus, for example, the kohein is forbidden to mark his body, and later, so is the layman.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>So Berman's argument is only against the fact that the nation is one organic whole that can be represented by one individual. He has nothing against the idea that the nation is a collective composed of a mosaic of equally-liable-and-important individuals.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Mikha'el Makovi</div>