How many covenants were made at Sinai?, W. wonders. Just one, you might have thought – the one which bound the association of tribes in captivity into a nation.
Rabbis have always debated this question. One said 603,550 covenants were made, one for each adult male who pledged himself in service. But another said these covenants were made 603,550 times, each man pledging himself to another. For it was not enough for each to act justly; the people as a whole must be just: one must obey the law and see it obeyed. Each man, then, is equal before God (the rabbis do not tell us about women). Each is bound freely, responsibly accepting his responsibility in the eyes of his neighbour. And more: each was responsible for his neighbour. The one bore the other. And it was only thus that God promised not only a land overflowing with milk and honey, but that his people, God's people 'shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation'.
A kingdom of priests: that's what W. dreams of becoming. A holy nation. But we're not much of a nation, the two of us. Not much of a kingdom! If only we could find others to walk with us! If only there were others who would walk with us to the promised land! But our friends are scattered, and at war with one another. God knows, they have their own problems.
And us? We who walk with the sea on our left and the Devon countryside on the right? I am responsible for him, W. says. But what is much worse is that he is responsible for me, for all the sins I have committed.
Only the young can reach Canaan, by which was probably meant the innocent, the free-born. Only the young might become the holy nation, the kingdom of priests … And that means that I am the obstacle to W.'s crossing into the promised land. I am the uncrossable desert across which he has been doomed to wonder.
Lars Iyer's Blog 