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发帖数: 3758 | 1 http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/1932762/jewish/Gr
By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
There is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week’s
parsha. The text says that “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he
must write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll before the levitical
priests.”1 He must “read it all the days of his life” so that he will be
G‑d-fearing and never break Torah law. But there is another reason
also: so that he will “not begin to feel superior to his brethren” (Kaplan
translation), “so that his heart be not haughty over his brothers” (
Robert Alter). The king had to have humility. The highest in the land should
not feel himself to be the highest in the land.
This is hugely significant in terms of the Jewish understanding of political
leadership. There are other commands directed to the king. He must not
accumulate horses so as not to establish trading links with Egypt. He should
not have too many wives for “they will lead his heart astray.” He should
not accumulate wealth. These were all standing temptations to a king. As we
know and as the sages pointed out, it was these three prohibitions that
Solomon, wisest of men, broke, marking the beginning of the long slow slide
into corruption that marked much of the history of the monarchy in ancient
Israel. It led, after his death, to the division of the kingdom.
But these were symptoms, not the cause. The cause was the feeling on the
part of the king that, since he is above the people he is above the law. As
the rabbis said,2 Solomon justified his breach of these prohibitions by
saying: the only reason that a king may not accumulate wives is that they
will lead his heart astray, so I will marry many wives and not let my heart
be led astray. And since the only reason not to have many horses is not to
establish links with Egypt, I will have many horses but not do business with
Egypt. In both cases he fell into the trap of which the Torah had warned.
Solomon’s wives did lead his heart astray,3 and his horses were imported
from Egypt.4 The arrogance of power is its downfall. Hubris leads to nemesis.
Hence the Torah’s insistence on humility, not as a mere nicety, a good
thing to have, but as essential to the role. The king was to be treated with
the highest honor. In Jewish law, only a king may not renounce the honor
due to his role. A parent may do so, so may a rav, so may even a nasi, but
not a king.5 Yet there is to be a complete contrast between the external
trappings of the king and his inward emotions.
Maimonides is eloquent on the subject:
Just as the Torah grants him [the king] great honor and obliges everyone to
revere him, so it commands him to be lowly and empty at heart, as it says: '
My heart is empty within me'.6 Nor should he treat Israel with overbearing
haughtiness, for it says, “so that his heart be not haughty over his
brothers.”7
He should be gracious and merciful to the small and the great, involving
himself in their good and welfare. He should protect the honor of even the
humblest of men. When he speaks to the people as a community, he should
speak gently, as it says, “Listen my brothers and my people...,”8 and
similarly, “If today you will be a servant to these people...”9 He should
always conduct himself with great humility. There was none greater than
Moses, our teacher. Yet he said: “What are we? Your complaints are not
against us.”10 He should bear the nation's difficulties, burdens,
complaints and anger as a nurse carries an infant.11
The model is Moses, described in the Torah as “very humble, more so than
any person on the face of the earth.”12 “Humble” here does not mean
diffident, meek, self-abasing, timid, bashful, demure or lacking in self-
confidence. Moses was none of these. It means honoring others and regarding
them as important, no less important than you are. It does not mean holding
yourself low; it means holding other people high. It means roughly what Ben
Zoma meant when he said,13 “Who is honored? One who honors others.” This
led to one of the great rabbinic teachings, contained in the siddur and said
on motzei Shabbat:
Rabbi Jochanan said, Wherever you find the greatness of the Holy One,
blessed be He, there you find His humility. This is written in the Torah,
repeated in the Prophets, and stated a third time in the Writings. It is
written in the Torah:
“For the L‑rd your G‑d is G‑d of G-ds,
and L‑rd of L‑rds,
the great, mighty and awe-inspiring G-d,
who shows no favoritism and accepts no bribe.”
Immediately afterwards it is written, “He upholds the cause of the orphan
and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing…”14
G‑d cares for all regardless of rank, and so must we, even a king,
especially a king. Greatness is humility.
In the context of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth the Second, there
is a story worth telling. It happened in St James Palace on 27 January 2005,
the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Punctuality, said
Louis XVIII of France, is the politeness of kings. Royalty arrives on time
and leaves on time. So it is with the Queen, but not on this occasion. When
the time came for her to leave, she stayed. And stayed. One of her
attendants said he had never known her to linger so long after her scheduled
departure time.
She was meeting a group of Holocaust survivors. She gave each survivor – it
was a large group – her focused, unhurried attention. She stood with each
until they had finished telling their personal story. One after another, the
survivors were coming to me in a kind of trance, saying, “Sixty years ago
I did not know whether I would be alive tomorrow, and here I am today
talking to the Queen.” It brought a kind of blessed closure into deeply
lacerated lives. Sixty years earlier they had been treated, in Germany,
Austria, Poland, in fact in most of Europe, as subhuman, yet now the Queen
was treating them as if each were a visiting Head of State. That was
humility: not holding yourself low but holding others high. And where you
find humility, there you find greatness.
It is a lesson for each of us. R. Shlomo of Karlin said, Der grester yetser
hora is az mir fargest az mi is ein ben melekh, “The greatest source of sin
is to forget we are children of the king.” We say Avinu malkenu, “Our
father, our king.” It follows that we are all members of a royal family and
must act as if we are. And the mark of royalty is humility.
The real honor is not the honor we receive but the honor we give.
1.Deuteronomy 17:18.
2.Sanhedrin 21b.
3.1 Kings 11:3.
4.1 Kings 10: 28-29.
5.Kiddushin 32a-b.
6.Psalms 109:22.
7.Deuteronomy 17:20.
8.1 Chronicles 28:2.
9.1 Kings 12:7.
10.Exodus 16:8.
11.Maimonides, Laws of Kings 2:6.
12.Numbers 12:3.
13.Avot 4:1.
14.Megillah 31a. |
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