Our Leaders Lack Vision – Time for the People to Raise Up Prophets

Instead of expecting our leaders to gain vision, we the people should take up the tools of political prophecy to build the country we deserve, together
The weekly protest against the government’s dangerous and ruinous policies at my local highway junction in Israel has taken to ending with a note of hope. This week, Dor Kalev, one of the organizers of our local democracy activist group, called us to action: “we don’t only need new leaders. We need a new prophecy.” A new vision for who we could be, and how we could become.
I’ve increasingly heard similar calls in recent days. As Rabbi Seth Farber told Daniel Gordis: “with the exclusion of the hostages issue, because there it’s just bring them back, we’re missing a vision. We’re missing a vision for what the state wants to be.” Without such a vision, Farber and others have noted, it is impossible to chart strategy for a winning campaign, to overcome present conflict for future reward. Without a future to hope for, it is impossible to inspire hope.
Yet there is a conception that developing a vision is a hard thing, one reserved for the divinely appointed. A thing only certain leaders can do, requiring the people to wait for the appointed time. But this is not the case. Over the past few months I’ve been leading half-day FutureTense workshops for civil society leaders across Israel teaching the tools of a strategic school known as foresight, which, when applied to social movements, I’ve come to call political prophecy.
What I’ve learned through this process is that it is entirely possible to fulfill Moses’ wish: all of our people can be prophets, albeit politically, socially. Prophecy, in the Hebrew tradition, is structured in three parts:
- A description of the broken present
- A vision for what the future we want to inhabit
- A call for a set of new actions we can do to bridge the present to the future
Most importantly, Hebrew prophecy is never about “them.” As Erin Kopelow reminds, “it is always about us. What we want for our future and what we need to do to get there.” Hebrew prophecy assumes agency. No matter how bad the current situation, no matter how mighty the foe. It recognizes that we can’t control what others do, only how we need to act to control our destiny.
One does not have to be filled with the spirit of the most Holy to describe their experience of the troubles of the current moment, imagine a future they’d like to inhabit instead, and think backwards from that desired future as to what steps need to be taken in order to get there.
Political prophecy, I’ve learned, is best done in groups. It is through the interaction that one is able to listen forward, to reflect on one’s own experience of reality through the eyes of others.
In one of the workshops I led, for example, hosted at the ANU Museum by the Koret School for Jewish Peoplehood, the participants whose day jobs consisted of leading educational initiatives for the Jewish Agency, foundations, and social movements, came to learn that they all shared a similar vision for the future even if their political positions and religious beliefs conflicted in the present. Present disagreements were overcome when understood through a desired future state. Compromises were more readily agreed to when they were understood within a common vision. Yet we rarely get there. “Most educational programs talk about the past,” reflected a former government ministry director general from the Religious Right. “The Exodus, the Holocaust, etc. We rarely talk about what will be in the future.” As another, from the secular Left added in agreement, “Without this picture of the future, it’s difficult to go backward and think about what’s needed to get there.”
Just imagine if we were to discuss the current crises faced by Israel and the Jewish People from the perspective of the future. Arguing over whether the ultra-Orthodox serve in the military based on current coalition politics is one thing; imagining how the State of Israel will function in 2035 is another. Arguing over how to reform the judicial system in Israel based on past injustices is one thing; imagining a State of Israel in 2035 where all individuals trust the law and its enforcers and then engaging in the crafting of laws build a bridge to that future is another. Deciding on policy to maintain a coalition is an exercise in power; deciding on policy based on what will ensure a better future all see themselves in is an application of prophecy.
Waiting for our leaders to develop what American president George H.W. Bush once called the “vision thing” is an exercise in futility. Nearly every one of our current leaders and would-be prime ministers have been in their positions for nearly two decades, and none have yet shown their ability to rise above the current moment, to present a better future. This leaves prophecy to us, the people. Some artists and activists have already begun the process of envisioning the future. It is up to us to join them, to turn their imagined future into prophecy. The future is literally ours to build together.