Moses, Charisma, and Covenant

• Author: David G. Rapoport
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200202
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Article

MOSES,

CHARISMA,

AND

COVENANT

DAVID

C.

RAPOPORT.

University of California, Los Angeles

Let no one marvel if in speaking of new dominions both

as

to

prince and

state,

I

bring forth very exhalted instances, for men walk almost always

in paths trodden by others..

.

.

I

regard

as

the greatest Moses.

.

.

.

[Olthers

rvho

have founded kingdoms will be worthy of admiration; and if their

,

particular actions and methods are examined, they will not appear

so

different from those

or

Moses, although he had

so

great a Master.

hlachiavelli,

The Prince’

OSES

is the Hcbrew Bible’s niost important and intriguing personality.

No

one is described in more detail, and legends have been “woven

M

around nearly every event of his life.”2 The twentieth century, too, has

found him fascinating. Sigmund Freud and Theodore Reik have psychoanalyzed

him. Martin Buber has reconstructed Moses

as

an “historical” personality, and

Arnold Schocnberg‘s greatest opera has been acclaimed

as

“the most profound

interpretation” of Israel’s lawgiver “in modem art.”S Incvitably, Freud, Rcik,

Buber, and Schoenberg are driven to discuss Moses as

a

political figure; for what-

ever else Moses may be, he is preeminently

a

political personality.

The

odd thing

is that contemporary political scientists have nevcr treated him in that capacity.”

Moses

is associated with two major accomplishments

-

“liberation”

(the

dis-

solution of the bond to E,gypt) and “founding” (the establishment of

a

“neb?

order, one in which religious and political elements are inseparable). The Biblical

account is the first account

of

a

liberation

and

a

founding in Western history; and

until the Reformation is completed, it is probably our most influentialP

NOTE:

An

earlier version of this paper, “Moses and Charisma” was given at the

1976

ISPA

Annual Conference, Edinburgh; the Southern California Conference

on

Political

Thought, Claremont University,

1976

;

Politics Colloquium and the Hillel Biblical

Studies Group (both at UCLA),

1977.

All sessions provided much useful comment,

particularly necessary for

a

clumsy novice treading in the well-cultivated, highly-

specialized field of Biblical scholarship.

*

The Prince and The Discourses,

Luigi

Ricci,

trans.

(New York: Modern Library,

1950),

VI,

2.

‘K.

Kohler, “Moses,” in

The Jewish Encyclopedia,

12th edition (London: Funk and Wag-

nalls,

1925).

For the legendary accounts, see

L.

Ginzberg,

The Legends

of

the Jews

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,

1946).

Vols.

2

and

3.

The

article, “Moses,”

by

H.

Gazelles, Supplement

V,

Dictionnaire de la Bible,

Pirot and Robert, eds. (Paris:

Libraire Letouzey,

1957),

pp.

1308-37,

contains

a

useful survey of recent literature.

’

D. Daiches,

Moses: Man in the Wilderness

(London: Weidenfeld,

1975).

p.

255.

See also

S.

Freud,

Moses

nnd hfonotheisrn

(New York: Vintage,

1969);

T.

Reik,

Mystery on

The Mountain

(New York: Harper,

1949);

and

hl.

Buber,

hfoses:

The

Revelation and

the

Couenant

(New York: Harper,

1959).

I

found Buber’s work

to

be the most useful

analysis and am greatly indebted to it.

‘

Despite his lavish tribute, hlachiavelli decided not to analyze

hloses’

political significance.

Additional references occur in

The Prince,

XXVI,

1

and

2,

and

The Discourses,

I,

1,

6;

I,

9,

5;

11,

8,

3;

and

111,

30,

4.

Often mentioned in the works of traditional theorists,

Moses probably receives the most direct attention from Hobbes and Spinoza who are

concerned with

his

role in the Sinai Covenant.

*

The founding experience is important to” Greco-Roman thought, but with the exception

of

the tyrannicide concern. that tradition lacks

a

liberation theme.

In

the Reformation

when interest in the Hebrew Bible revived and when uprisings and migrations were

common, liberation and founding became important preoccupations. They are crucial

conceptions, for example, in understanding the settlers

of

New England. The literature

of American blacks has always bcen deeply concerned with the liberation theme of

Exodus, because no people emphasized its origins in slavery as much

as

did the Jew.

Blacks have been less interested in Exodus’ founding theme.

124

?Vestern Political Quarterly

h4y concerns will be with what Machiavelli called Moses’ “particular actions

and methods” and with the modes

of

authority justifying them.

htoses

is Israel’s

first charismatic leader, one who provides the standard by which all later leaders

in Israel are measured. But Moses became

a

“true’’ charismatic leader only

after

the Covenant was ratified. Covenant legitimizes the legal order, too, and there-

after charisma and law in Israel’s history exist to sustain and supplement Covenant.

Obviously, no discussion of charisma is complete without examining the relevance

of Webeis formulation.

I

will argue that Weber did not fully see hoiv Biblical

chafisma was related to Covenant and

to

the law, arid that, consequently, the

typology

he developed for analogous political phenomena

was

seriously flawed.

I

will discuss the

hioses

of

the Hebrew Bible,

not

the “real” Moses, and for

this reason the text will be treated as

a

coherent entity in the hope of reclaiming it

as

a

political commentary for

a

discipline which seems

to

have forgotten it?

I

do

recognize that the text contains separate narrative strands which offer different,

sometimes conflicting, details reflecting particular

views

of individual traditions

and generations. Still, the strands have heen

woven

together to offer

a

“remark-

ably consistent” picture; and “[m]ore and more

it

is being realized that the Bible

is to be treated as a whole,’’ as it used to be, “and not interpreted according to

separate units.”’

The major problem the text

poses

for

a

secular political scientist is hoiv to

deal with God. Machiavelli seems to susgest that we should treat God

as

a

myth

created

by

Moses

to have beneficial political effects.8 Freud and Reik found this

course attractive also, though they were

less

inclined to believe the results to be

beneficial. Interpretations of this sort have been ingenious but not convincing,

because their authors pay attention to the text only when it supports them. Weber,

a

non-believer, and Buber,

a

believer, were much more persuasive, assuming that

the initial task of the responsible commentator is

to

be true to the text and explain

the stnicture of belief that it contains before speculating on the implications of the

belief within the context offered and seeking analogies

to

make the experience more

universal.

IVherever possible

I

will follow the text’s organization. The Hebrew Bible

does not describe

a

concept or

a

character directly. It tells

a

narrative, and the

notions underlying

its

development are meant

to

be understood by seeing the vari-

OUF

relationships

of

the incidents described. Consequently in the first two sections,

“liberation” and “founding,”

I

try mainly to interpret the action described. The

treatment of the concepts of authority takes place largely after the narrative is

completed, and when we have sufficient material to evaluate Weber.

’

The text also contains concepts which have influenced subsequent political speculations

enormously. The Biblical suggestion, for example, that covenant is the only moral, and,

therefore, the most durable root for

a

political community has in the form of the social

contract. become

a

dominant, if not

the

dominant, metaphor for Western theory since

the medieval period. While important social contract theorists do not always emphasize

the Sinai Covenant, some (i.e.. Spinoza) make it their central focus and others (i.e.,

Hobbes) refer to it often. The secondary literature

has

generally ignored the significance

of

Sinai for social contract theory. See, however.

P.

Ramsey, “Elements of

a

Biblical

Political Theory,”

Journal

of

Religion

29 (1949)

:

258-83.

Perry

Miller‘s discussion

of the importance

of

Biblical covenant in Calvinist thought is the most useful

one

avail-

able.

The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century

(Cambridge: Harvard Uni-

versity Press,

1954).

‘M.

Noth,

Exodus:

A

Conimentary

(Philadelphia: Westminster,

1962),

p.

12,

and

D.

J.

McCarthy,

Old Testament Covenant

(Oxford: Blackwell,

1973).

p.

55.

For

a

survey

of the various academic approaches to the Hebrew Bible, see

H.

Hahn,

The

Old

Testa-

ment in Modern Research

(Philadelphia: Fortress,

1954).

*

hlachiavelli does not say that hloses created God. That

would

have been impossible in his

day, though he could and did make similar claims regarding other religions. He does

say that the text does not distinguish between the acts

of

hloses and those of God.

(The

Prince

VI,

2).

No

misreading could be more flagrant

or

more susgestive of his

own

view.