By Sanford Goodkin
It's good to be Catholic these days. They have a Pope and when one dies, another
is voted in by a hundred or so Cardinals, who have the written duty to vote in
another one as their leader. How comfortable that must be. But we Jews do not
have a pope or even a king. We are a leaderless society. Why is that?
Think of it; is it the prime minister or president of Israel? Is it a head Rabbi
somewhere? No, see our problem? We, the oldest continuous religion from which
most others are derived, have no leader. God warned us that we shouldn't have a
king, for He was our only King, but we wouldn't listen.
Abraham, Moses , and Isaac were not kings. Saul became the first one and must be
deemed a failure for he drank too much and was jealous of a harp-player, David,
who later became Israel's King, who was followed by King Solomon, a truly wise
leader. Following him were a succession of failures who went back to idols and
vanity and were replaced by God and we were back
to ground zero. In fact, Christians believe that their King of Kings, Jesus
Christ, comes directly from King David. Talk about confusing, for that kingship
has lasted more than 2000 years and they control more land than any chosen
place,
That's our problem, we look for leaders who are of flesh and forget that the
text of leadership is our Torah, which instructs our ethics and reports our
history, warts and all.
We are a breed, apart from all others, and can go for centuries without land or
leader. We are punished by our God until we are a tiny remnant; we wonder as we
wander; we search for clues to our God of mystery which remains as
unsatisfactory as trying to figure out Mother Nature. Hmm, do we need a Pope, a
King, or a text that instructs on how to be happy by following a
written code, or something?
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