Solidarity from Sinai: Strengthening our Covenant

From eJewish Philanthropy (JUNE 11, 2024)

The American War of Independence didn’t create an American People, and the storming of the Bastille didn’t create the French Nation. In both cases, it was the establishment of a sort of contract among people, groups or states — the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, respectively — which served as the basis for their shared existence into a people or a nation.

Those foundational moments were inspired by Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, who put forth the idea that a society is established by means of an agreement among individuals — not the supposed divine right of kings, but the consent of the governed expressed in a “social contract.”

Read the full article by Andrés Spokoiny in eJewish Philanthropy.