**5. Covenant of fate and covenant of destiny**

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a Jewish philosopher of the twentieth century, approached theodicy from a different perspective, one that focused upon human responsibility, not God and divine providence.

Rabbi Soloveitchik offers a distinction between two types of "covenants" for the individual, for a group of people, and I would like to read this as a suggestion for all of humanity. He distinguishes between the "covenant of fate" and the "covenant of destiny."

The covenant of fate is the partnership that is forged between people when they are faced with an external challenge. People form partnerships to protect themselves from enemies, or from natural or economic challenges. The "covenant of fate" is the same contract and the same partnership, in which individuals are willing to give up some of their rights in order to create a fraternity of the group.

The "covenant of destiny" is the partnership that human beings create in order to create a common vision, a common future, and a common goal. The challenge of the "covenant of destiny" is not an internal or external threat.

The experience of facing a natural calamity, an epidemic, is an experience that subjects us to the hand of fate, one which has no easy explanation. Humanity experiences its fate as "being bound up in the chains of existence, [and] stands perplexed and confused in the face of the great mystery called suffering." This is a most appropriate description of life during a plague, in the shadow of an invisible virus when the fear of our death and destruction and that of our loved ones becomes real. The words which Rabbi Soloveitchik chooses to describe the awareness of fate are bitter and painful:

*"The sufferer wanders lost in the vacuousness of the world, with God's fear spread over him and his anger tensed against it; he is entirely shaken and agitated. His agonies are devoid of any clear meaning and they appear as satanic forces, as outgrowths of the primal chaos that pollutes the creation whose destiny it was to be a reflection of the creator." ([13], p. 6).*

But it should be remembered that in contrast to this existence, there is another experience, the awareness that a person has a destiny. The experience of 'existence under the awareness of destiny' relates to humanity's active existence:

*"…when man confronts the environment into which he has been cast with an understanding of his uniqueness and value, freedom and capacity, without compromising his integrity and independence in his struggle with the outside world…Man is born as an object, and dies as an object, but it is within his capability to live as a "subject" as a creator and innovator who impresses his individual imprimatur on his life and breaks out of a life of instinctive automatic behavior into one of creative activity." ([13], pp. 5–6).*

For Rabbi Soloveitchik, the distinction between "fate" and "destiny" is one of the most important ideas in Jewish tradition in dealing with the problem of suffering. Our entire doctrine of suffering, he says, is based upon two dimensions of existence—one of humanity as a child of fate, and the other as a child of destiny, with humanity moving between these two experiences ([13], p. 2).

In Rabbi Soloveitchik's terms, Judaism teaches that humanity's mission in life is to turn fate into destiny, to turn a passive existence into an active one—to move from being an object dictated to by powers greater than he, to a subject who determines his own path and his life's meaning in his world.

In an image taken from the Hebrew calendar, the unique journey of the Jewish people from the Exodus from Egypt to the Covenant at Sinai is replicated by Jewish tradition every year during the period between Pesach to Shavuot. Two distinct covenants connect the individual Jew to the people of Israel: the covenant of Egypt and the covenant of Sinai, the covenant of fate and the covenant of destiny. The days between Passover and Shavuot are characterized as a period during which the people learned to transform their covenant of fate into one of destiny. Israel entered the "covenant of fate" against their will. The covenant of Egypt bound the fate of the nation together in a situation that was forced upon them, a life of slavery, and the feeling of being pursued. Out of the experience of individual suffering, the people of Israel learned that suffering was an experience that was shared by all, and emerged from it to enter into the collective covenant of fate and became a nation. This conferred upon them an identity formed by a collective historical experience, one of decrees and persecutions, pain and common suffering, and of the realization of the need to 'be as one' for the sake of the entire community. The readiness to enter the covenant of fate is worthy of honor and recognition: the readiness of individuals to take responsibility for the community, and the readiness and will to join together in times of distress, out of a sense of obligation and responsibility.

However, there is also another covenant, the "covenant of destiny," which is entered into when the shared bond between people is not 'the product' of common suffering but rather a shared ideal, the desire and readiness to enter into an agreement to lead an ethically elevating and worthwhile life. The "covenant of destiny" is one:

*"that the people have chosen of its own free will…which manifests itself as an active experience full of purposeful movement, ascension, aspirations, and fulfillment… the life of destiny is a directed life, the result of the conscious direction and free will." ([13], p. 65).*

In these days, the "covenant of fate" of the Jewish people about which Rabbi Soloveitchik taught can be understood in broader terms as a "covenant of fate of humanity." The need to fight fear, chaos, and danger, and the fear of impending suffering and the threat of death—can serve as the basis for a covenant that we must enter into with others in order to save ourselves. I would like to think that the message taught by Jewish tradition—to transform fate into destiny—can become a message for all humanity. We can find the power of the spirit in these days, when all of humanity cooperates in making parallel and collective efforts to fight the threat of the virus in any way possible, and enter into a "covenant of fate." This covenant can then be transformed into another covenant and partnership, a "covenant of destiny" for the elevation of all humanity.

An all-inclusive covenant of destiny for all of humanity conveys the idea of a combined effort to create an inspiring and noble foundation for life and survival, one in which humanity's involvement is not only a response to distress, but also a part of its ability to become a partner in the greatest project of all—human's creation. In biblical terms, a covenant can be created in this time that represents mankind's readiness to respond to God's call: "Let us make a human being"! It is as if He says:

"you and I together will create human"—human being becomes God's partner in his own creation. The next step is for this unique covenant to transform it into a covenant of destiny, which has the potential to give new meaning to the concept of the partnership of humanity.

According to R. Soloveitchik, Thomas Hobbes described the natural state, and how the state is a kind of "political or social contract" in order to preserve and defend itself. Humans make a social contract that allows them to move from the "natural state" to the "political state." For Hobbes, as well as for Rousseau and Spinoza, these are the ways in which society—as a society—faces the challenges of the natural state. The natural state is threatening, in the behavior between one person and another. The natural state threatens the challenges that nature poses to man.

The motivation to preserve, each for himself, his unlimited natural rights, will lead to an all-out war. The "Social Contract" describes the way in which human beings, of their own free will, are willing to give up some of their personal rights in order to create a "society." Human society means the existence of political authorities.

## **6. Reading genesis again: two stories of the creation of man**

One of Rabbi Soloveitchik's best-known descriptions concerns the distinction between the creation of man in chapter one in Genesis and his creation in chapter two. For R. Soloveitchik, these two chapters are not proof of two different traditions, but the biblical explanation of the inner duality found within all human beings. This is the deep understating of the contradiction in the nature of man: "The two accounts deal with two Adams, two men, two fathers of mankind, two types, two representatives of humanity, and it is no wonder that they are not identical".

In order to understand this description, there is a need to reread Genesis with the nuances of the narratives of creating a human being. The first human being is described as the first man in chapter I:

*"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them. And God blessed them and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the heaven, and over all the beasts which crawl on the earth." (Genesis 1: 27-28).*

The story of creating man in Genesis II reads differently:

*"And the eternal God formed the man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. And the eternal God planted a garden eastward in Eden … And the eternal God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to serve it and to keep it." (Genesis 2: 7–8, 2: 15).*

In the first, man comes out of nature, and is given the role of controlling nature. The commandment that appears in Genesis "and multiplied and filled the earth and conquered it, lowered the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air," is the prototype of the conquering man, who conquers the continent that would become the United States, and seeks to control the nature around it, and fill the whole country. This

is man, for whom outer space and the ocean depths are the subjects of his interest, primarily to control them, to understand them, and to use them.

The first person of chapter one in Genesis is the person who is commanded by God. He is called to live in the land, to work and guard it. His cosmic function is to preserve as much as possible the flora, the fauna, and the whole of nature. This is the person who finds himself limited by prohibitions and rules. He is the one who accepts the restriction of "and from the tree which in the garden you shall not eat of it … for in the day you eat of it you shall die."

*"Adam the first, majestic man of dominion and success, and Adam the second, the lonely man of faith, obedience, and defeat, are not two different people locked in an external confrontation … but one person who is involved in self-confrontation. … In every one of us abide two personae—the creative majestic Adam the first, and the submissive, humble Adam the second." ([13], pp. 84–85).*

*"God created two Adams and sanctioned both. Rejection of either aspect of humanity would be tantamount to an act of disapproval of the divine scheme of creation which was approved by God as being very good." ([13], p. 85).*
