Nobody is Above the Law

The Torah declared that the nation’s highest echelon of leadership was subject to the law even more than the average citizen. It is clear from this legislation that there was an awareness that power brought with it great potential for abuse and malfeasance and therefore, must be contained:

If, after you have entered the land that your God has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” you shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by your God. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kin. Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since יהוה has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since God has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Thus, he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:14-20)

It was ever more so obvious that kings would likely find means to subvert laws such as these as unnecessary. The rabbinic sages used Shlomo HaMelekh, King Solomon, allegedly the wisest of kings, to illustrate the folly of such an argument:

When the Holy One blessed be He gave the Torah to Israel, he gave positive mitzvot and prohibitions, giving the king a few mitzvot, [as it is stated]: “Only he shall not accumulate horses for himself… and silver and gold [he shall not greatly accumulate for himself] and he shall not accumulate wives for himself, and his heart will not stray,” (Deuteronomy 17:16–17). Shlomo rose and thought to outsmart the decree of the Holy One blessed be He, and said: Why did the Holy One Blessed be He say: “He shall not accumulate [yarbe – yod resh bet hey] wives for himself,” isn’t so that “his heart will not stray?” I will accumulate and my heart will not stray.

Our sages said: At that moment, the [letter] ‘yod’ that is in ‘yarbe’ ascended before the Holy One blessed be He, bowed down and said before Him: ‘Master of the Universe, didn’t You say that there will never be a letter negated from the Torah? Behold, Shlomo arose and canceled me. And today, he will negate one letter and tomorrow another, until the entire Torah is negated.’ The Holy One Blessed be He said to the letter yod: ‘Shlomo and one thousand like him will be negated, and not a single frill on a letter of the Torah will I negate.’…

What is written about him? “It was when Shlomo grew old, his wives led his heart astray” (I Kings 11:4). Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai said: It would have been preferable for Solomon to have been a sewer cleaner than to have this verse written about him… (adapted from Shmot Rabbah 6:1, Shinan ed. pp. 182-4)

In this story, Shlomo, saddled with arrogance born of power, entitlement and a sense that he was smarter than everyone else, presumed that he could operate above the law and that he could play the system. The story’s point is that if he would have abided by the law, not only would he have saved his own reputation but even more importantly, it would have saved the nation from sliding off course. This is why the Torah transmitted special laws for the king and made him carry with him the Torah at all times. The Torah’s awareness of the unique problems which power brings with it, should serve as a warning that this problem never disappears, even for those who presume to be the “wisest of all men”.