A central focus of the book is on the idea of holiness, which Shoval sees not as an abstract ideal or a “mystical experience” but as a “practical plan of action.” In other words, it is through holiness that God is able to articulate a political philosophy and model to enable the Jewish people to be his enduring partner in an unbreakable covenant, one that will help heal and perfect God’s greatest but most frustrating creation: man.
It is exciting to see the Bible through Shoval’s eyes. He finds in the story of Abraham a culmination of God’s exasperation with the idea of perfecting man, choosing one man, and then his family, to be the bearer and expositor of all that God seeks to imbue into humanity.
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