3. Power: A Healthy Scepticism

Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik, in an ennobling essay entitled, 'Who is fit to lead the Jewish People?', points out that the Torah was fearful of granting to any one person, or institution, the power to rule over fellow men. In a pithy but powerful phrase, adapted from the Hebrew, he declares:

Melech Elyon is distrustful of Melech Evyon – The King on High is distrustful of the King Below.

Generally speaking (although there are dissenting views), the Sages viewed the appointment of King Saul as a concession to the people’s weakness, rather than the fulfillment of one of the three duties incumbent on the people of Israel on entering the Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).

Devarim 17:12 and I Samuel 8:6

Why should kingship, or any leadership position, be regarded with such suspicion?

From the narrative itself, it would appear that the glory and material rewards of  kingship lead to a weakening of character and diminished powers of judgment - at least in Saul’s case. When castigated by the Prophet Samuel for taking forbidden spoils from the enemy, for example, the weary king blames the people but finally admits that it was his own fault and responsibility. [I Samuel 15:12 onwards]

• To recap: the king was appointed as a practical necessity, to avoid a situation of laissez faire, in order to lead the people in battle and to administer justice. But that is precisely the point: his duties were circumscribed to a small number of specific tasks, however critical they might be – but nothing beyond that!!

Conditions galore restricted the king’s movements and actions:

• He was to desist from amassing wealth;
• He was to be appointed by popular consensus, with the sanction of the Prophet, or Sanhedrin;
• He was to carry around with him a Sefer Torah that he himself had written, so that he would constantly remember that he, too, was answerable in the face of the Higher purpose.

From this perspective, leadership can be understood and interpreted as an unenviable role, fraught with the dangers of ambition, lust for power, and self-seeking - at the expense of those who are led. The rabbis even asserted that,

Lordship buries those who attain it (!)
Talmud Bavli, Pesachim, 87b

One of the great historical leaders, Shemaya, is quoted in the Mishnah Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), as saying:

Love work, hate lordship, and seek no intimacy with the ruling power!
Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:10

That such a strong expression as hate should be used by the rabbis of old says much for the classical view of leadership in Judaism. And corruption there was:

• Need we look further than the infamous King Herod?
• Shall we recall the ignominious removal of Rabbi Gamliel II, from the office of Nasi (President of the Great Assembly, in Yavneh) for his peremptory handling of one of his eminent sick colleagues? On his reinstatement, he was obliged to learn to share the leadership with Elazar…
• And how deeply do we have to delve to recall the dastardly deeds of tyrant kings, motivated by greed and lust for power?

 Further References:

Biographies of Biblical, Talmudic, and historical Jewish leaders
http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/default.htm

The Sanhedrin and its leadership  http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/economic/friedman/sanhedrin.htm

R. Gamliel II
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=G&search=gamaliel

Perspectives on Transformational Leadership in the Sanhedrin of Ancient Judaism. Mitchell Langbert, Hershey H. Friedman. abstract
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/economic/friedman/sanhedrin.htm