Leadership needs to be clearly established. It can't be dubious, tenuous, or unstable, because it leads to chaos. There can certainly be changes of leadership, but when that happens, it needs to be done well, or we're back to the chaos we were fighting to avoid in the first place. The Bible recognizes this, but quite honestly struggles to figure out how to make it work. It's as if God is kind of new at this whole human-beings-with-free-will gig, and is learning over time. Sometimes even God needs a learning curve.
The beginning of our Torah portion tells us, "You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your
tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice" (Deut. 16:18). We are also later given the laws of how to choose a king, and how that king should rule, as well as various legal statutes to help govern our society. But there's one problem that persists, one pretty major player who threatens to ruin the entire system: God. As long as there is a Divine voice telling us what to do, there is no way that a human court can succeed. Just ask Moses how easy it was to lead the Israelites through the desert...
The problem is, we always want God to tell us what to do. It's true, we like the idea of a court of human judges, but only right up until the moment they hand down an unfavorable verdict. When that happens, we try to appeal to a higher court, then an even higher court, and eventually we demand that our case go to the Highest Court: the one in heaven. It undermines the entire system! There is a wonderful rabbinic midrash (story), wherein a group of rabbis were arguing about how to rule in a particular case. One rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer, held the minority opinion, and he called upon God to display miracles to prove that he was right. Miracle after miracle indeed appeared to show that he was correct, but the other rabbis refused to change their minds, until ultimately Rabbi Joshua looked upward and yelled out, "Lo Bashamayim Hi," "It is not in heaven!" God cannot step in and decide for us, or we will never trust ourselves to make choices, stand by our opinions, or build up a functional society.
Today, you often hear people say that God told them to do one thing or another. I respectfully
disagree with them, because I don't think God speaks directly to individuals, telling us to do, say, or believe anything. God endowed us with free will in order to make those decisions for ourselves. The first time that God actually steps in and tells you what to do, you'll never trust yourself to make another decision again. "Do I want waffles or pancakes for breakfast? Eh, I can't decide. God, a little help please?"
We don't hear a Divine voice the way people did in the Bible, because God finally realized that intervening cripples us. God tried to step in with our ancient ancestors, but eventually realized it was preventing them from ever truly becoming independent and self-reliant. God's heavy-handedness doesn't help us along, and it doesn't solve any of our problems. We need to make it work on our own. That doesn't mean, however, that God is absent in the world. God is always there - always - to offer support, comfort, strength, courage, and a proverbial shoulder to cry on. Sometimes even a punching bag when life treats us unfairly or when tragedy strikes and all we want to do is yell at the world. But in the end, we all have to figure out our own path to walk, and then just start walking.
Photos in this blog post:
1. Image courtesy of Rabbi Jeremy Gerber.
2. CC image courtesy of Valerie Everett on Flickr
3. CC image courtesy of the prodigal untitled 13 on Flickr
4. CC image courtesy of TheCulinaryGeek on Flickr
5. CC image courtesy of anna gutermuth on Flickr
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