Performing the Covenant: Akedah and the Origins of Masculinity

Abstract

Following Derrida's open-ended question why woman is excluded from the biblical covenant, I suggest that the feminine ethics of self-sacrifice evolved from the Judeo-Christian discourse of the sacred: the contract between man and God is grounded in the economy of sacrifice. In fact, woman's self-sacrifice, though irrelevant for the sacrificial economy, is the satellite around which the performative language of ethics and theology could revolve.