ACUTE ANGLES: King or No King?
Dear Rabbi. Is Judaism pro- or anti-monarchy? Yours, Debra.
Dear Debra,
You ask a good question which is not simple to answer!
This week’s parasha sets out the mitsva to appoint a king. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 20b) lists it as one of the three mitsvot (along with eradicating the seed of Amalek and building a Temple) incumbent upon Klal Yisrael on entering the Land. And Rambam lists it as Mitsva #173 of the 613 mitsvot of the Torah, while also expressing the ultimate hope in the arrival of the Messianic king, scion of David, at the end of days (Hilkhot Melakhim 11)
Yet we find the prophet Samuel (I Sam. 12:17) inveighing against the nation, declaring “great is your wickedness that you have perpetrated in the eyes of G-D to ask for yourselves a king!”
Of one other mitsva do we also see an ostensible discrepancy between the Torah and a prophetic stance, namely the offering of korbanot. In the Torah it is called rei’aikh nikhoakh laShem, “a pleasing aroma to G-D” while Isaiah (1:11) rails: “why do I need the multitude of your offerings, says G-D”. The reason for the discrepancy is the same. Temple rituals had become mere empty status symbols. In the same way, Am Yisrael’’s request to Samuel for “a king to judge us like all the nations” was precisely what Moses had warned the people not to demand (Deut.17:14-15): When ….you will say “I shall set a king over myself like all the nations that are around me ….”, [no, instead] you will surely set over yourselves a king that G-D will choose (based on the commentary of Malbim)
The kings of other nations were not selected according to Godly rules. They were brought to power mainly for their ability to conquer and subdue, to accrue wealth and glory for their nations. The kings of the ancient world were dictators who regarded themselves as the absolute authority of all they surveyed, answerable to no-one else. Relics of this type of dictator still survive in the form of leaders such as Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. No absolute dictator has ever succeeded in defying Lord Acton’s celebrated adage: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
A Jewish king, on the other hand, is answerable to G-D and his people. He cannot amass horses, silver and gold or wives. He is to write two Torahs, one to be kept in his treasury as a symbol of the ultimate authority of G-d and one to be with him at all times to remind him constantly of his obligations. He must be G-d-fearing, observant of the Torah and, above all, humble, not “exalting himself above his brethren” (17:16-20).
Simply put, the ideal Jewish monarchy is a constitutional monarchy, the constitution being the Torah, the Power behind the throne being G-D!
Moreover, the navi (prophet), as emissary of G-D, is frequently sent to rebuke, chastise and regulate the conduct of even the best of kings – witness Nathan’s chastisement of David (II Samuel 12:1-15), Isaiah’s rebuke of Hezekiah (Isaiah 39:3-8) and Jeremiah’s lament over Josiah for failing to listen to his advice (II Chronicles 35:25; Lam 4:20). No Jewish king can ever be above the law!
Notwithstanding this, the Jewish monarchy in and of itself manifests glory and honour. The Talmud in Berakhot (9b) declares: a person should always strive to run to greet the kings of Israel, but even to encounter the kings of the world’s nations so that if he is privileged he will be able to distinguish between their glory and the [infinitely greater and nobler] glory of the kings of Israel.
As any student of Tanakh (Bible) is aware, the period of the kings of Judah and Israel was, to quote Charles Dickens, “the best of times [and] the worst of times”. Righteous kings who fully upheld the Torah (sadly few) sired wicked sons and grandsons who steered their subjects along the paths of idolatry and immorality. Post-Tanakh also, the Hasmonean kingdom which had begun with such promise, spawned kings who denied our faith. Yet this kingdom was “recognised by Rambam and by all traditionally accepted authorities as a kingdom epitomising the realisation of prayer and national desire” (Sefer Toda’a by Rabbi Eliahu Kitov). In Rambam’s own words “honour was restored to Israel for 205 years!”
It would seem then that the importance and virtue of our kings lies not entirely in their own merits or demerits, but what the personage of a king represents for Am Yisrael. Again to quote Kitov: “Even years of disgraceful, irreligious leadership are regarded as years of honour for which the nation ought to give thanks to the Creator. Dishonour for Bnei Yisrael is subjugation to nations which did not receive the Torah, and which have always denied its values.”
So, Debra, as far as the monarchy of our nation is concerned, the consensus would seem to be that it is an entirely positive thing, with the caveat that ideally the king must subject himself to G-D and the Torah and see himself as a humble servant of the people and not as a high-and-mighty dictator like the ancient kings of the nations. Even King Mashiakh, the ultimate human king, will be, Judaism teaches, accompanied or ‘shepherded’ by the prophet Eliahu.
As far as our ideological stance on the monarchy vis-à-vis the nations of the world: on the one hand the Talmudic quote from Berakhot above encourages us to seek out non-Jewish monarchs -and there is a blessing to say on seeing a king or queen as opposed to a president or prime minister. On the other hand, we also know that our most heinous persecutors in history have been reigning monarchs – Hadrian of Rome who outlawed b’rit mila, Shabbat and festival observance and the teaching of Torah; Edward I who expelled all Jews from England; Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile, Spain who forced thousands of Jews to choose between apostasy or exile and death; Philip IV who banished Jews from France; Henry III who forced Jews to wear humiliating badges and banned the building of new synagogues; Ivan the Terrible of Russia and others. Hitler y. sh, our most heinous persecutor, was not a king as such, but he was a ruling dictator.
It would seem that Judaism would certainly favour a constitutional monarchy, but it would also happily endorse any constitutional democracy which purports to uphold the basic laws of morality as enshrined in the Noachide code. (Sadly the world does not boast a great many of such democracies any longer!) Ultimately however, we look forward with unquenchable hope to the time when all the nations of the world will accept, as its supreme king, the King of kings and revere His eternal constitution, the Torah!
