On The Covenantal Philosophy and Jewish Nationhood

From David Novak's introduction to "Philosophy of the Law: The Political in the Torah" by Shmuel Trigano:-

...Trigano is ofering here (and in his earlier works, too) a covenantal (berit) philosophy of Judaism and a covenantal philosophy from Judaism. This coming together is made possible by the fact that Trigano and we, his readers, are quite self-consciously living at a historical moment when the Jewish people has returned to the land of Israel and is now in the process of building a new Jewish polity there. To truly understand the covenantal needs of the hour, and to learn how these covenantal needs have ever been the Torah’s concern, that is the greatest challenge facing Jewish thought now. Only thinkers who are presently situated within the Jewish people — which means they are convinced Zionists — are able to ofer those building this new order any guidance on how to make it both authentically Jewish and authentically covenantal. And to do this with both Jewish learning and philosophical insight, the thinker needs to be both a philosopher of Judaism and a philosopher from Judaism.

First, that thinker must be able to fnd within the Torah a covenantal message. This Trigano does by showing how the biblical idea of covenant (berit) bespeaks a covenantal reality essentially diferent from the major leitmotif of modern covenantal philosophy: the social contract. Trigano does this with philosophical insight by uncovering the ontological presupposition of the uniquely Jewish idea of covenant in the equally unique Jewish idea of covenant in the equally unique Jewish idea of creation ex nihilo (in Hebrew, yesh me’ayin). Second, that thinker must be able to show how and why that covenantal message addressed to the Jews is, nonetheless, something the nations of the world can overhear and appropriate for their own covenantal needs in the world. Trigano does this, too, with
philosophical insight by arguing that the nations of the world need to fnd for themselves, as we Jews need to fnd for ourselves, a politics of nationhood that enables them to survive in the world through covenant without becoming assimilated into some nameless totality, and without attempting to dominate the whole world, both of which involve the loss of the nation’s own singularity in the process.