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EXPLORING
THEOLOGICAL
MYTHS
Different ways of looking at traditional beliefs.
RABBI JEREMY ROSEN

SHOULD JEWS BE GOVERNED BY A THEOCRACY ?

Do religious Jews want Israel to be a Theocracy, ruled by God? What is a Theocracy? Could a Jewish religious state not be a democracy or some other form of government? Of course we would want to define democracy. 'One person one vote' was certainly not practiced by the Greeks who excluded a whole lot of people from a say in government. There are many different types and forms of democracy practiced around the world today. By common assent, democracy, meaning that every citizen has an equal vote, is an imperfect system. However no one has yet come up with a better alternative. So without wanting to get into detail, the issue is whether people in general can have a say in how they are governed as opposed to having to accept decisions handed down either by absolute rulers or by religious leadership.

The first example of governance that the Children Of Israel had was Moses. The uniqueness of Moses lay in his special relationship with God. ' If there is a prophet , I make myself known to him in a vision, I speak to him in a dream. Not so My servant Moses, he is the most trustworthy in My Household. Mouth to mouth I speak to him and in a vision that is not a riddle and he can see an image of God.' He was the undoubted, if not the undisputed leader of the Children of Israel. If the narrative of the exodus confirms one thing , it as that no leadership ever goes unchallenged. It also shows the difficulties of government and of handling a restive population. More than once Moses asks for permission to retire or even die ( he asks to be blotted out of God's book ). However Moses does not govern alone. His brother Aaron was his mouthpiece ' Aaron your brother the Levite, I know he can speak…And you will speak to him and put words into his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his I will teach you what to do . It is also clear that there was already, in Egypt, a form of Jewish leadership by elders because Moses is told ' Go and gather together the elders of Israel.' Perhaps Moses felt that he had to take over completely from old forms of governance because later on in Exodus Jethro, Moses's father in law, sees how Moses is exhausting himself and he suggest delegation to ' Officers over thousands, officers over hundreds, officers over fifties and officers over tens. And they are to judge the people regularly and anything that is too difficult , they bring to Moses and anything small they can judge.'

The actual appointment of seventy elders who are inspired by God does not occur until later on in the Torah . There is some ambiguity about the actual timing . It is an accepted tradition in the Talmud that when Moses came down from Sinai he taught the Torah to the elders. Were these the original ones or the later appointed ones ? Either way there was some leadership role for the elders. According to the Midrash the transmission of the Torah went like this. ' Moses learnt from God ( literally 'The Greatness' ), in came Aaron and Moses taught him his study. Aaron moved and sat to the left of Moses and two his sons came in and Moses taught them their study. Then they moved and Elazar sat to the right of Moses and Itamar to the left of Aaron…then the elders came in and Moses taught them and then all the people came in and Moses taught them' . So this was the hierarchy that existed as the first system of governance.

The first test of the overall system came when Joshua fought the battle against Amalek. The religious leadership was in no position to lead the warriors into battle and so Moses sent his general out to fight but sat overlooking the fray to show his involvement. He had Aaron on one side and Chur on the other and they supported Moses during the course of the battle in which his hands pointing up to God signified the moral dimension to the battle. This incident indicates that below Moses there were three levels of leadership. Aaron representing the priesthood and the spiritual heritage, Chur who was the representative of the elders and the political assistant and Joshua, the military leader.

When Moses went up Sinai he left Aaron and Chur and the elders in charge . Chur is never heard of again. The Talmud suggests he tried to stop the people who wanted to make the Golden Calf and was assassinated. There is a clear command to establish a judiciary and to have a court of appeal with a dual role for the priesthood and a Chief Judge .

In Deuteronomy there is the controversial command about appointing a king. ' When you come into the land which YHVH your God is giving to you and you inherit it and live in it and if you say I will appoint a king over me like all the other nations around me. You may indeed appoint a king who YHVH your God will choose. From amongst your brothers you should appoint a king. You may not appoint a stranger who is not your brother. But he should not have too many horses and not take the people back to Egypt to get even more horses because YHVH your God has said to you will not return again this way. And he should not have too many wives so that they will not turn his heart or too much silver and gold. And when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom he should write a copy of this torah on a book before the priests and the Levites. And it should be with him and he should read from it all his days so that he learns to fear YHVH his God and to keep all the words of this Torah and these laws to keep them. So that his heart does not rise above his brothers to turn away from the commandments right or left.' The constitution, the Torah is above any individual and not even the king is above the law ( although later on the rabbis compromised and agreed that the King was in a special position) .

This is a very important principle and one that is remarkable in the fact that it is so far in advanced of its time. In fact the issue of whether the king is above the law was famously challenged by King Yannai in conflict with Simon Ben Shetach. The aggressive behavior of the king and the passivity of the other rabbis led to a decision that the king was indeed above the law and the rabbis sought to explain the principle of Deuteronomy as applying only to the Davidic line. This of course hints at what the importance of the return of a descendant of King David meant to the Jewish people, dreaming of an honest and spiritual leadership and why messianism seemed so dependent on the reinstatement of the David dynasty.

Rabbi Nehorai claims that this law was simply a concession to the complaints of the people whereas Rabbi Yossi sees this as a positive command that is a requirement. Maimonides takes this to be one of the positive commands of the Torah.

2

The Torah presents a range of governing possibilities. The priesthood, the prophet, the Judge and elders. In fact Moses appointed Joshua to succeed him without appointing him as king. If kingship was the natural state the Torah required one may wonder Moses did not choose it. Joshua gave way to a series of leaders called 'the Judges' who were leaders of different tribal groupings and rarely commanded the loyalty of all the children of Israel. Famous names such as Samson, Jephtah, Gideon, Ehud and Devorah seem to have had different qualities and strengths but none was able to unite the people and to get them to follow the Torah of Moses. It is Samuel who next emerges as a generally accepted Judge. Throughout this period the priesthood seems to have been ineffectual. Eli, Samuel's mentor, of course was the great exception but his sons seemed to have lost moral authority.

When the people come to Samuel asking for a king he is strongly opposed . He sees this as an example of preference for military leadership over spiritual leadership. ' And it was bad in the eyes of Samuel when the people said ' Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to God. 'And God said to Samuel ' Listen to the voice of the people and to what they are saying to you. It is not you that they are rejecting but Me.' Whether because of their motives or because of his disagreement with the idea, Samuel does not take the appointment of a king ,initially, as a religious requirement.

Nevertheless from Saul and then David onwards, the favored form of government was the king with the Priesthood as a hereditary aristocracy given charge of the Temple and , in theory, educating and judging the masses. Yet the role of the priesthood as the fount of spiritual authority seems to have passed rapidly to the prophets. The classic example is Nathan's assault on King David after he took Bathsheba from Uriah the Hittite. One wonders why the priests did not intervene. If it was because Nathan was inspired by God one is bound to wonder why no priest seems to merit this communication directly from God. One can understand the role of Elijah and Elisha in the Northern Kingdoms because the Northern breakaway from the Jerusalem priesthood will have weakened the place of priests in the hierarchy. Nevertheless the priests as well as the prophets who emerged exercised different forms of spiritual authority. The Priesthood was the voice of 'organized' established religion. The prophet was not someone who was appointed or elected or voted into office. He or she emerged solely on the basis of their own personality and talents. They were the charismatic voice of God and spirituality. One might guess that the prophet was a product of the mystical traditions in contrast with the priesthood which stuck closely to a constitution that guaranteed it privileges of tithes and sacrifices. Certainly in both cases they were under the political power of the king, both in the North and the South.

The Torah also includes the Urim and the Thummim ,the Jewish equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi , in the equation of leadership. The stones engraved with the names of the tribes on the breast plate worn by the High Priest, could be consulted on a range of issues. The stones would light up certain letters and the priest would interpret them to the king. The Urim and the Thummim disappeared during the First Temple times and so did not play a part in the thinking of the rabbis as to how political leadership should develop. Similarly the loss of prophecy later on also took the prophet out of the picture of governance.

3

The last Judean kings and their families were exiled to Babylon and there their positions gave them authority and led to the position of Exilarch. Zerubavel, who was from the royal family led the initial return to Judea. But there is no evidence that he was declared a king. We can only guess as to whether this was because the Persians did not want to raise hopes of complete independence or whether the Jews themselves felt that it was time to move beyond the manifestly incompetent leadership system that had led them to exile. Ezra, the mastermind behind the re-establishment of the Second Commonwealth, is considered almost as great as Moses. ' Ezra was fit to have had the Torah given through him had not Moses come before him.' The testimony of the books of Ezra and Nechemia evidence his remarkable job of reinstating the rule of Torah and renewing the credibility of the Priesthood. The Talmud credits him with a series of innovations. Among them was the establishment of the Sanhedrin ( to be accurate the name Sanhedrin did not appear till the time of Greek influence later on, the more accurate term would be Beth Din HaGadol ) as the judicial authority of the community. The Sanhedrin, sitting in the ' Hewed Stone chamber' of the Temple, fixed times and dates for the community throughout the Diaspora as well as in Israel. From this moment on the Sanhedrin becomes the model for Jewish governance. It was essentially a meritocracy. One had to earn one's place by study and achievement. It is true that it was a self perpetuating body but the moral and legal requirements of the Torah were there as an objective test and standard for entry. Indeed the Talmud sees the Sanhedrin as originating with Moses, existing at the time of King David and Mordecai and Esther. This underscores the importance that the rabbis attached to the institution. It judged, in theory, king and priest, rabbi and commoner.

The Sanhedrin was the consistent authority, in theory, throughout the Second Temple. Government changed. Internally the battle between Sadducce and Pharisee meant that there were constant power struggles. Alexander the Great brought the Jewish state came under Greek domination. During the post Alexander battle between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the priests and the Sanhedrin were constantly calling on outside powers to intervene in their internal battles. The High Priesthood became the senior position and gave its holder the virtual power of local king. Even within the priesthood itself rival clans battled for political supremacy. When , as with the Hasmoneans, a period of autonomy is allowed, the Jewish king also played one party off against the other. But as the later Hasmonean kings battled between themselves and spent more time ingratiating themselves with the Romans , the Sanhedrin took over more and more of the internal workings of the Jewish religion. After the destruction of the Second Temple and the transfer to Yavneh, the Sanhedrin was the undisputed source of Jewish authority for almost two hundred years.

The actual leadership, as opposed to the judiciary, of the Jerusalem community was divided between Zugot, Pairs, the Head of the Beth Din and the Academy and the Prince, the Head of the Community. A similar pattern existed in Babylon. So over and above the judiciary there were the titular heads, the equivalent of the President. But already , under this system, local communities had forms of local government, administered by officials either appointed or elected. There were Gabbaei Tsedaka whose job it was to collect and to distribute charity . Sometimes they were appointed by the Beth Din and sometimes locally. There were the Seven Good Men of a City who functioned to make crucial decisions like shutting down a synagogue . They were appointed by the citizens of the city, a clear indication of the rights of citizens to say who would represent them even 'though there is no indication whether the citizens of a city were defined on the basis of residence or property ownership. But it would make sense to suggest that thirty day residence gave a person rights since this is the period required for fixing a mezuzah on ones living quarters and being eligible for local poor support. But the clearest evidence of this involvement of locals in public appointments is in the statement ' One does not appoint a Parnass( Official ) unless one consults the community.' Here there is a very clear precedent for political consultation and indeed for some sort of democracy in appointments. There is also the right of the local citizens to fix market prices, weights and measures, workers wages and they have the right to impose their decisions. The language used implies that all the citizens share in the decision making process.

There is one remarkable incident which cannot be passed over and this is the vote to depose Rabbi Gamliel as Head of the Academy. There are three different versions in the Talmud of how Rabbi Gamliel humiliated Rabbi Yehoshua on the issue of when Yom Kippur would fall and on the issue of whether the Evening service was obligatory or voluntary. In both cases Rabbi Yehoshua deferred to Rabbi Gamliel but the humiliation continued. Rabbi Akiva led a revolt and they deposed Rabbi Gamliel and replaced him, temporarily , with Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah. However sacrosanct the religious leadership was, it could be challenged. Admittedly this was a challenge of peers and not democracy in the sense that we understand it, but it says something very clear about the nature of government.

4

Sadly , throughout the Second Commonwealth outsiders interfered with Jewish affairs and internal divisions gave government a bad name. This is reflected in the different attitudes in the Mishna to' Reshut', the ruling power. Shemaya said ' Love work, hate authority and have nothing to do with the ruling power' Clearly Shemaya is referring to Roman rule here although his words might equally apply to a puppet Jewish regime of which there were many in the two centuries on either side of the Common Era. Rabbi Gamliel living some two hundred years after Shemaya said ' Be careful of the ruling power because they only come close to a person at a time when it benefits them, they appear friendly when they can benefit but they will not stand by a person when he is in need.' A bitter comment on the experiences he must have had as head of the Jewish community, dealing with local Roman officials. On the other hand stands the opinion of Rabbi Chanina , an officer of the Priesthood ' Pray for the welfare of the ruling power, for without fear of them a man would swallow up his neighbor alive.' A cynical opinion of human nature pre-empting Hobbes's comment fifteen hundred years later that men are ' nasty and brutish'.

With the break down of the Jerusalem community during the third and fourth centuries and the dispersion of more and more Jews to new centers in the Diaspora, the governing of Jewish communities became more local and more varied. Medieval rabbinic responsa show that it was assumed that citizens of a town, members of a Jewish community, had a say in the running of their own affairs. Even 'though the basis in the Talmud is tenuous, there is evidence both of the principal of ' No taxation without representation ' and of the right of citizens to have a say in their government even if they had no property or assets. In Christian Europe the Jews belonged either to the King or the Church. Often they were given control of their own internal affairs with the proviso that they provided money to their 'owners' in exchange for a respite from persecution. Who the king chose to delegate this internal authority to varied from time to time and from place to place. The most famous and most powerful example, for a time, was in Eastern Europe, the Vaad Arbaa Aratzot of sixteenth century Poland had both rabbinic and lay representation as did many of the administrative committees that were established throughout Europe to manage Jewish affairs.

In the eighteenth century, emancipation created a new set of circumstances. Jews in various stages began to be treated as citizens of their states. Their communities were governed by state-decreed organizations like The Consistoire in France became the pattern for those countries through which Napolean had traveled. Under Islam, persecution was less harsh. Jews were officially Dhimmis, second class citizens like Christians and other non-Muslims, they too , were subject to the varying whims of their overlords and governance varied. Privileged Jews like the Duke of Naxos ran their own affairs and those of the communities under their care. Others were less fortunate. The Ottomans allowed a great deal of internal independence to each religious minority under the overall control of the Empire. Over the past two hundred years Jews have lived under a whole range of different political and economic regimes, some more tolerant than others, some more cruel. The guiding principle has been 'The Law of the Land ( on civil matters ) is the Law.' No single pattern of government has achieved unanimous approval. All halachic experts have agreed that a Jew choosing to live in a land and under a legal system, has an obligation to obey the law of the land. The only way out is emigration.

It is not possible to say that any one form of economic theory or fiscal policy is a 'Jewish' policy. We can see clearly from the Torah that consultation in one form or another is required and we can see that there are obligations on the citizenry. Obligations exist as religious imperatives on the community to take responsibility for the poor and the disadvantaged and on those who have, to help those who have not. These obligations are enforceable. Any form of policy that does not include this within its remit would be failing in its duty. However which type of fiscal system best ensures this, is open to debate. Capitalism may place the emphasis on individual freedom to accumulate wealth but most capitalist systems still subsidize and support to varying degrees welfare, health and education for the weaker members of its society. And conversely those Marxist systems that supposedly put the people before financial success have often tended to provide less well in the long run for their citizens because their fiscal policies often failed to generate the wealth needed for Government welfare. The broader moral imperatives of Judaism still leave flexibility to explore different policies and systems of government. The requirement of Torah is to subject them to constant analysis and scrutiny.

5

There are two models we should look at in considering a religiously approved form of Government Throughout the period of exile, Jewish thinkers ( and indeed Napoleon ) have returned to the model of the Sanhedrin as the ideal system of government. The historical desire to see the House of David restored as part of a messianic Golden Era did not negate the idea of the Sanhedrin as the constitutional means of government. The return of the Davidic line was a more a magnificent symbol of leadership that combined military strength and power with the capacity to sing and write psalms in praise of God, the ideal combination. It was also the symbol of a period in which there was no foreign oppression or ' Shibud Malchuyot' , the 'domination by alien Nations'. There was still room in a messianic world for an Elijah to solve problems or for a Sanhedrin to administer the rules and deal with daily problems.

The Talmud describes the Sanhedrin in these idealistic terms ' Rabbi Yochanan said one does not appoint on the Sanhedrin anyone who is not a man of wisdom, of fine appearance, of height, of age, familiar with magic and speaking seventy languages so that the Sanhedrin does not have to rely on interpreters.' The reasoning is clear, that the members should be in a position to evaluate evidence without the personal nuances that a translator might give and without the tricks that clever illusionists or anyone else might try to persuade or delude. The members would be independent and of such ideal character and free from any human frailty that pure justice would prevail. The ideal is of absolute independence of mind. The realistic likelihood of this is minimal. After all Shimon Ben Shetach, quoted above, could not find such a Sanhedrin strong enough to stand up to King Yanai. Nevertheless in examining the possibility one should bear in mind that the Sanhedrin then and in theory in the future could not function in a vacuum. 'Experts' were consulted and brought in to testify in a very similar way to the select committees and hearings that a major part of congressional, senatorial and parliamentary life nowadays. Just as a rabbi giving advice on medical issues calls on the latest expert medical advice, so too government would be expected to call on economists and industrialists to advise on legislation.

When people talk about Theocracy they can mean different things. Literally they can mean ' the rule of God'. But the Torah and its development have already taken us into a situation where the development of halacha has become a human process, albeit within ordained guidelines as the story of Achinai's Oven , quoted in an earlier chapter, indicates. The Sanhedrin would classify as the rule of Rabbis rather than of God, something many find as frightening as the rule of God. But of course there is a difference between ' the rule of Rabbis' and the rule of democratic institutions given rabbinic guidance. In the end it depends on the package and the history of Jewish self government is such that accommodations are always possible. Just as the Beth Din had tremendous leeway to impose punishments or to desist from applying them, from detention to the death Penalty. So too, the Beth Din could negotiate different forms of advisory and consultative bodies with varying functions. It is wrong to suggest that there is no room for democratic institutions in Judaism. Just as it is incorrect to suggest that Judaism has nothing to contribute to political decision making.

On a practical level the Jewish model would be to have country run according to Jewish Law which could perfectly easily accommodate civil and spiritual issues that are the day to day business of any legal system. The current Israeli system is a dual track one. Officially Israeli Law is an amalgam of Ottoman, British Mandate, Jewish and hybrid law but citizens can choose a parallel system of Judges applying only Torah law. Both systems are Government appointees. Over and above the judiciary sits the Knesset. The role of a democratically elected parliament would be to function as they do in most Western democracies and the Sanhedrin would function both as an upper house subjecting legislation to scrutiny based on spiritual considerations and as a court of higher appeal.

The second example for a modern style of government is , surprisingly, a constitutional monarchy. The rabbis experienced absolute monarchs and sought to justify their authority. Originally, according to the Torah the king was subject to Jewish Law and not above it. But as circumstances changed so too did their attitude. They allowed the king to be above the law in his responsibility for maintaining Law and Order. ' Rabbi Joseph said ' They only said this of the kings of Israel ( the Northern apostate kingdom ) but the kings of the David House both judge and are judged'. In one of the discussions on the principle of ' The Law of the Kingdom is the Law' the Rashbam ( replacing Rashi's commentary ) says ' All taxes , impositions and custom charges instituted by kings for the running of their kingdom are the law because the members of the kingdom willingly accept them upon themselves to obey the laws of the king and his statutes. Therefore it is an absolute law.' In deciding on how to run his country a king could choose the details of the form of government that he felt appropriate. His absolute power extended, ironically to imposing a form of government that could even limit his own constitutional power. There is no reason why a king should not decide that democracy, for example, is the most appropriate way to run his country.

In other words, it is possible to see a model for government that takes the spiritual as the guiding imperative without it being tarred with the brush of Theocracy which implies no useful role either for lay men and women or for democracy. We are still evolving our ideas of the ideal form of government. In the West there are plenty of arguments still be decided on voting systems and on effective governance.

The point of this is to emphasize that traditional Jewish models still have something useful and positive to contribute to the debate and still relevant as possible forms of government that could incorporate many of the ideas that we admire in present systems, while adding dimensions that many of feel are sadly absent. The checks and balances of the Sanhedrin model would avoid the extreme of secularism an amorality on the one hand and Khomeniism on the other.

Meanwhile, sadly, there is such animosity between different religious groups and within them , not to talk about the gap in Israel between the religious and the secular, that there is little likelihood of this situation becoming more than academic in our lifetime. One can hardly envision the gamut of Hassidic groups coming together under one authority let alone the rest ! Nevertheless, as with the Messiah, the Jewish tradition encourages us to think, to believe, to plan and to hope for a better form of government as well as for a better and more equitable form of society.