Throughout our lives, there are always individuals who serve as role models and leaders. We look to them to guide us.
And they gain that power and authority with us based on trust.
Without that trust, we stop paying attention, and their role is diminished. Followers are what make leaders, leaders. When the trust is broken, their leadership is broken.
In the Torah portion, Shoftim, one of the main subjects is the role of judges and leaders in society. Two sections call out to me in particular:
The first is a powerful statement about justice, which you might have encountered before:
Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:20)
This verse is the grounding for the Israelites entering the land. When you enter it, you shall establish courts and justice, and you shall pursue justice.
Now, there is a lot on the surface that can be gleaned from this, but the rabbis take an interesting approach. This is what they said on Sanhedrin 32b:
The Sages taught: The verse states: “Justice, justice, shall you follow.” This teaches that one should follow the best, most prestigious, court of the generation. For example, follow after Rabbi Eliezer to Lod, after Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai to Beror Ḥayil.
What is happening here?
This verse comes to teach us, according to this Gemara, that we should follow the best court in our generation. And then, the Talmud provides an example of who we might want to follow. A bit later, it goes on to list a bunch of different rabbis in different cities that we may want to follow.
The rabbis fundamentally recognized that leaders were a part of our regular lives.
Back in the Torah, only a few verses down in the next chapter, we read this:
If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault—matters of dispute in your courts—you shall promptly repair to the place that your God will have chosen, and appear before the levitical priests, or the magistrate in charge at the time, and present your problem. When they have announced to you the verdict in the case… (Deuteronomy 17.8-9)
First off, even the Torah knows that life is more complicated than what the Torah can reasonably plan or legislate for. The Torah itself establishes a framework for when situations are complicated.
Second, what is the plan? Find trusted leaders. Go before priests or magistrates or whoever the case may be. Go up the food chain and find someone trusted.
However, it isn’t so simple. Nothing ever is. What happens with leaders who aren’t so trustworthy?
There is a concept in the Talmud of the zaken mamre, the rebellious elder, and it is based on the verse mentioned above.
Here’s what it says in the Mishnah on Sanhedrin 86b:
A rebellious elder according to the court, who does not observe the ruling of the court, is executed by strangulation, as it is stated: “If there shall be a matter too hard for you in judgment…and you shall arise and ascend unto the place that the Lord your God shall choose…and you shall do according to the matter that they shall declare unto you…and the man that shall do so intentionally, not to listen…and that man shall die” (Deuteronomy 17:8–12).
A rebellious elder who ignores the court is potentially liable to death based on the verses we looked at above.
Essentially, this category of leader would rule in contradiction to the established court. Not just in ways that might be considered basic disagreement but would lead people truly astray.
The Talmud expands on this on the next page:
The Sages taught in a baraita: A rebellious elder is liable only for instructing another to perform an action involving a matter for whose intentional violation one is liable to receive karet, and for whose unwitting violation one is liable to bring a sin-offering; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir.
Rabbi Yehuda says: One is liable for a matter whose essence is known from the words of the Torah itself and whose explanation is understood from traditional rabbinic interpretations of the Torah. The elder is not liable if the essence of the matter with regard to which he issues his ruling does not appear in the Torah or if the entire matter is written in the Torah.
Rabbi Shimon says: Even if he differs with regard to one of the minutiae of the scribes in interpreting the Torah, the elder is liable, irrespective of the severity of the transgression.
So, when is this leader liable?
According to Rabbi Meir, they are liable when they’ve caused someone to make a serious transgression intentionally or a more minor transgression intentionally. This is based on the transgression itself.
According to Rabbi Yehudah, they are liable when they’ve caused someone to transgress if the thing is relatively obvious in the Torah and the rabbis have already put in time to explain it.
Meaning, that some things are not that clear in the Torah. Perhaps it was confusing! No, when the rabbis have explained it and it is generally known, then the leader who caused someone to transgress is liable.
According to Rabbi Shimon, causing someone to misunderstand regardless of the transgression itself, that is enough to become liable.
The Talmud goes on to explain the reasoning and sources for each of these rabbis, but regardless of which opinion you hold, each one makes a serious case for why this matters.
As a side note, this framework becomes limited over time by Halakhic authorities in the following centuries.
So how is this all connected? What do these verses and Talmud sugiyot mean altogether? There are three core lessons:
Leadership is about trust.
The rabbis were concerned about leaders who might lead the Jewish people away from their form of Judaism. As much as they might pretend otherwise, during this time, rabbinic Judaism was not the primary version of Judaism. The rabbis wanted to maintain authority and trust.
More broadly, it is a good reminder that we trust people who come personally recommended.
When you’re looking for a contractor, plumber, elected official, tutor, or even a dentist, we look for folks who have built trust among those around us. We’re always seeking someone who comes recommended.
Leaders are no different.
Leadership is a relationship.
The rabbis recognized that leadership was a relationship.
The language of the Talmud is not just leader or rabbi, but also elder. This denotes someone who is in our lives, who has experience, a person we might know and recognize.
Those relationships can be tenous. Those relationships require tending and honesty.
Even today, as public figures are not known as personally, who are encountered via social media or other platforms, we expect to feel as though we know them.
Leadership is about doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.
Leaders are meant to lead us to our best selves, to be examples and role models. Otherwise, they might just be people who we encounter for a moment. Random people who might be interesting.
And while they are human and fallible, we look to them to guide us toward a better future.
When leaders drive us toward the wrong thing, we should be suspicious and concerned. We should take stock, not just in them, but in what they are doing to us as well.
Now, being a bit rebellious is generally a good thing, at least to me. The rabbis are clear that there is a threshold for the rebellious elders. The really do attempt to set the line when these individuals have begun to encourage people to do the most egregious of things, in our case, actions that retain the punishment of karet, being cut off from God.
But simply we look to leaders to bring out our best and we look for the best in them too.
I've been struggling with Shoftim because frankly it seems to be very nonsensical. It feels like in a big way, this was a source of thousands of years of mistakes and faulty leadership, and eventually loss of faith in a big way. Maybe it's just tone, but it really seems actually bad to me.