From Social Contract to Covenant

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Many a one believes himself the master of others, and yet he is a greater slave than they. How has this change come about? I do not know. What can render it legitimate? I believe that I can settle this question.”

These words, which open Rousseau’s “The Social Contract” are perhaps some of the most quoted words in political philosophy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was one of the greatest philosophers of the enlightenment and one of the biggest influences on the French Revolution, which of course would affect Western political thought from that point on. 

However, the opening lines of The Social Contract can be misleading. Rousseau’s piece wasn’t about the need to break societal chains, but rather, to learn how to live within them.

If we think of the three pillars of the French revolution in Rousseauian eyes, his work states that only Liberty (Liberté) can lead to Fraternity (Fraternité), and only Equality (Égalité) can lead to Liberty.

In other words, true freedom can only be granted to a society after it achieves some form of equality — the agreement and understanding that everyone was born with the same natural rights. Only when the people in society are considered equal and their goals are being considered equally, true freedom can be achieved. Once freedom is achieved, human beings are able to develop true Fraternity, or according to Rousseau, return to their natural state of Fraternity which has been distorted by false economical and societal indoctrinations. 

From Equality to Liberty to Fraternity.

To achieve equality, Rousseau suggests using a powerful tool which he calls La volonté générale, meaning, The General Will. He differentiates it from the concept he calls La volonté de tous - The Will of All.

“There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another out, and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.”

The Will of All - according to Rousseau, is merely the sum of many private interests. For example, in a given group of people most people would like to stop paying taxes. Though it is a collective will of a majority, it might harm the weaker members of society.

The General Will, on the contrary, is a proposal which is agreed  on by all as it is reasoned to benefit all. It acknowledges that there are different interests, but it wishes to compromise them by finding a common ground. This is The Social Contract.

Which brings me to our portion Bamidbar. 

Bamidbar opens the Book of Numbers with a census of the tribes, giving a detailed account of the number of men over 20 years of age who are able to fight. It specifies by name leaders of each tribe and gives a detailed setup of the camp, down to the direction each tribe should encamp in, their banners, flags and symbols and their relation to the tabernacle which stands in the center of it all.

אִ֣ישׁ עַל־דִּגְל֤וֹ בְאֹתֹת֙ לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֔ם יַחֲנ֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל מִנֶּ֕גֶד סָבִ֥יב לְאֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵ֖ד יַחֲנֽוּ׃

"The Israelites shall camp each man with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance."

19th century Rabbi and master kabbalist Yosef Chayim of Baghdad (aka HaBen Ish Chai), writes in his Torah commentary Aderet Eliyahu the following commentary for this verse:

“And it is found that the essence of raising their banner and their horn upward is through unity. And this is what is meant by “Each man by his standard, with the signs of their father’s house.” That is, what I commanded—that each man should be by his standard with the signs of their father’s house, that the letters of the Patriarchs should be written on the banners—this is [the meaning of] “with the signs of their father’s house.” This indicates to them that the Children of Israel must encamp and dwell together in unity.”

In a great Kabbalist fashion, Yosef Chaim explains that the banners of each tribes carried the letters of the names of the patriarchs: אברהם, יצחק, יעקב (Abraham, Issac, Jacob) in the following way:

Flag number one will take the first letters of each name - אי״י. Flag number two the second letters: בצ״ע and so on… Together the three names hold 13 letters. 13 is also the numerical value of the word אחד - one (אחד = 1+8+4 = 13).

One indicates unity.

To me what’s important here is that Rousseau and Yosef Chayim, or if you will, Rousseau and the Torah, hold the same basic ideas.

Our portion clearly states that the Israelite camp was made of distinct individuals who were very different from one another and deserved to maintain their individuality (with a placement, a role, banners, flags down to the names and number,) and individuality and identity were preserved.

At the same time, the sum of all of these individuals was forming - one, unity, or if you’d like, a General Will. The liberty, the freedom of the Israelites who were no longer slaves could only be achieved under their unification around the Divine. 

A lot has happened in political philosophy and in history since Rousseau wrote these lines. I think that with our perspective we can probably critique Rousseau by stating that his most powerful tool, The General Will is proven time and time again to be something that is almost impossible to agree upon.

Perhaps what we need is the missing piece in Rousseau’s theory, that which stood in the middle of the camp, with all the tribes organized around it and towards it and that is the tabernacle.

Perhaps the only chance at a General Will is by adhering to something which is external to us, something which leaves us undoubtedly equal. After all, a “social contract” can just be another way of saying… Covenant.