Party to a
Covenant
Most of us have, at some point in our lives, negotiated and signed
contracts of significant consequence. It
might have been an employment contact, or a contract for a major purchase such
as real estate or a large durable good.
Many of us have, in our lifetimes, signed such contracts a number of
times. I certainly have! When I purchased property. When I enlisted, and re-enlisted in the US
armed forces. When I took congregational
positions, here and elsewhere.
When we are asked to
sign an important contract, we are often filled with dread. For one thing, we’re often afraid that we
won’t understand some major part of the agreement. After all, such contracts are seldom written
in the language of everyday speech. Even
when someone is well-educated and normally uses an extensive vocabulary, the
words of contracts are often unfamiliar and engender some level of
discomfort. We refer to the language of
contracts as ‘legalese,’ a term which is usually taken as a pejorative. The point is that it is language likely to
trip us up for lack of, or incorrect understanding. But of course, the use of ‘legalese’ in a
contract is usually only for the purpose of precision – to convey the terms of
the contract as precisely as possible so that there would be no chance in the
future of misconstruing the intent of the parties when the contract was
executed. Nevertheless, it is
language we don’t normally use otherwise.
And therefore, some of us have a tendency to read contracts with a
mindset that the other party is trying to somehow trip us up and get us to
agree to something we did not intend.
There are other
fears when signing an important contract.
Even if we are satisfied that the intent of the other party is entirely
honourable and without any intend to mislead.
We may fear the large amount of responsibility, to which we’re
agreeing. And we wonder if the gain we
will experience through the transaction is commensurate with what we’re being
asked to commit to.
Surely, everybody
hearing my words this morning can relate.
Even if you can read ‘legalese,’ the language of a contract, with
reasonable fluency. Even if you have no
notion that the contract is intended in any way to ‘trip you up,’ to get you to
agree to something that is not in your best interest. I can tell you that, because I prize clarity,
I go through every important contract line-by-line and consult others on what
specific items in the contract means.
And if I’m dissatisfied with anything stated in the contract, I
ask for it to be changed before I’ll agree to it. And I presume that the other party, even if
they are the party presenting the contract, has gone over it with the same
level of care. And then, despite the
best efforts of both parties to produce a contract that is entirely
satisfactory to both parties, it is possible to miss something. To not see clearly the consequences that
would follow from some part of the agreement.
When that happens, you uphold the contract as a matter of
integrity. And look to the next contract
to negotiate better. There’s absolutely
nothing unreasonable in any of this.
Viewed through this
prism, and understanding the history of Near Eastern contracts and legal
documents, the procedure described in the narrative of today’s Torah reading
becomes less mystifying than it might otherwise be.
Abram has already
taken extraordinary steps to do as God wished.
He separated himself from his home and his land to sojourn to a place
which he did not know from the start.
After all, God didn’t say in advance exactly where he was going. He only said “Go to a land that I will show
you.” I think we can all relate to the
risk that Abram was taking in going forth.
What if I told
you the following: Get on a plane to
San Francisco, and when you get there I’ll do x or y for
you. You would be able to make a
rational decision based on how much you liked the idea of going to San
Francisco. But what if I said the
following: Get on a plane to a
destination that you will not know until you’ve arrived? You’d understandably be less inclined to
agree. Okay, I’m only Don Levy, not
God…but even so! You would be entirely
reasonable in demanding to know the actual destination.
Now, time has passed
since Abram did in fact do as God bade him.
He has made the trek to Canaan.
He has seen the land that God promised.
But he has also grown old and has not had a child by Sarai. This seems not in keeping with what God
promised Abram in the first place: Go
forth…and I will make of you a great nation. Abram has thus far kept his end of the
‘deal,’ but he doesn’t see where God has done likewise.
So now God is
spelling out the terms of the Covenant, or contract, explicitly. He reassures Abram that he will, indeed have
offspring of his own and that they will be as numerous as the stars. He spells out specifically the limits of the
land which Abram will possess. He names
the current occupants of the land, who shall be dispossessed of the land in
order for Abram and his progeny to possess it.
He even foretells the exile from the land that Abram’s offspring will
experience when they sojourn in Egypt.
The fact that
Abram is closely questioning God’s intent and the specifics of the Covenant is
clearly not cause for any hard feelings on the part of the Deity. God is entirely happy to be questioned in
this way. He responds with
patience. Abram’s questioning of God’s
intent only indicates that Abram wants clarity.
God is happy to provide it.
And then God
performs a ritual that, to our sensibilities, has got to seem very strange: He instructs Abram to bring a number of
animals and cut them in two. And then,
after dark had set in, a flaming torch passes between the pieces of the
animals.
Strange as this
ritual seems to us, scholars know that it is modelled after the testaments to
contracts among the nations of the ancient Near East. In other words, instead of using language or
symbols that could be construed as ‘legalese,’ God is using that which Abram
will understand unambiguously given his prior life experience.
How should we
take this exchange as a whole? I believe
that we should take it as a model. It
shows how two parties with respect and regard for one another, can conduct
negotiations leading to execution of a Covenant, or contract. Even when one party is God Himself, he clearly
is not of a mind to ‘pull rank’ and belittle Abram for his legitimate concerns. I’m sure that the Sovereign of the World has
other issues drawing His attention than the concerns of one man, no matter how
important. But God treats Abram with
respect and deference. This Covenant is
clearly of great importance to God. He
therefore responds to Abram’s concerns seriously.
When we
negotiate contracts with one another, it is perhaps natural to approach the
process with a bit of impatience at times.
After all, we make a great emotional investment in our positions. And in the contractual language that we’ve
composed to ensure the integrity of our positions. But if we take the negotiation presented in
the 15th chapter of Genesis as a model in the way I have proposed,
then we should be ready to stand back and negotiate with a degree of
dispassion. Many of you, who are in
business, negotiate important contracts far more often than I do. You know what I’m talking about. It’s something to think about. Shabbat shalom.
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