The redemption and revelation of God were unsolicited acts of love that preceded the expectation of reciprocity. This relational aspect is fundamental to the understanding of authority and obligation. Divine authority is not coercive as is often supposed. God does not force the Israelites to obey - to enforce compliance would deny the very idea of Torah as both law and instruction since the free will of those called to observe it is presupposed in, and essential to, a norm or any teaching. Coercive power and moral authority should be clearly distinguished.
Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the inside out.
Exercising coercive power is a good way to lose authority - to engage in power struggles with children or students results in certain failure. When we resort to coercive power, we leave children with little choice but to rebel in order to exercise their own autonomy and forge their own identities. Since it is cultivated from within, moral authority is fostered by relationships in which feelings are shaped by the caring of one person for another, even though the relation may be asymmetric as with God and Israel. God's caring for Israel does not call for an equivalent act of caring toward God by Israel in return. In the fullness of a caring relation the child cared-for feels free to respond as herself, to create, to follow her interest without fear or anxiety.