ABSTRACT
In David Hartman's covenantal anthropology, contrary to the schema of the akedah model, human initiative and freedom is religiously praiseworthy. For Hartman, "the ethical is constitutive of a covenantal conscience and must enter into the manner in which Halakhah is to be applied". Tensions within the covenantal dialogue are revealed early in the biblical narrative. The binding covenant between God and Israel is legal and moral. God is the giver of the law and of morality. The prophet Jonah refused to prophesy against Nineveh out of his regard for the putative honor due the Father. In Judaism, as in religion generally, conscience conventionally is held suspect. What is feared is that the conscience may end in apostasy and anarchy. While there is no Hebrew biblical term for conscience, we come across a biblical phrase that comes close to the sense of conscience. That term is found in the awe of God, "yirat Elohim".
