Saturday 16 February 2019

Who should we vote for?


As regular readers should know by now, I am not going to recommend here which political party to vote for in the upcoming elections. I will try to outline what the Torah expects from our countries rulers, what is most important and what is secondary. Although none of the numerous parties will follow these directives exactly, I believe that one should estimate who will come closest to them and vote accordingly.

What are the responsibilities of the government?

Before we can even discuss what needs to be done in different government departments, we need to clarify whether all of these areas should even be in the remit of the government. The status quo here is often accepted unquestioningly, but real leaders must be prepared to think out of the box.

The Rambam summarises the job of the king:[1] "His thought and agenda should be to raise the true religion, fill the world with justice, break the arm of the wicked and fight the wars of Hashem – as in the first instance we only appoint a king in order to carry out justice and war, as it says (Shmuel 1, 8:20) "Our king shall judge us, go out in front of us and fight our wars."[2]

There are a number of important observations to be made from this job description. The first of these is an apparent contradiction. In listing the king's agenda, the first thing that the Rambam lists is 'to raise the true religion.' It might not surprise us that this is first on the list for the most senior Jewish leader, but how do we explain the fact that this purpose is not mentioned as our reason for appointing a king (here the Rambam only mentions justice and war)?

I believe that the answer is that although ideally a king's driving aim should be 'raising the true religion,' this is not the reason for us to appoint a king. If this is truly the nation's first priority, a king is not necessary in order to achieve it. Conversely, if we have not got to the stage where this is what the nation as a whole wants, even the most righteous of kings will not be able to force the issue. Thus while strengthening the religion should be the first item on the king's mind, it is not part of his job description.

This is not the case when it comes to justice and war. While most areas of religion are private in nature, justice and war are inherently public issues that require leadership. Even if the majority of the people desire justice or are ready to fight a war, without a strong king or government there will be corruption and a lacklustre army.

Irreligious officials

A common dilemma for religious people at election time is when there seems to be a choice between a devout but incompetent leader (or party) and a competent but irreligious one. We have already established that the primary factors we are looking for in a leader are justice and competence in war, but in this situation we are still left with the question of what constitutes justice. Can an irreligious leader who favours secular law over Torah law be considered just?[3]

I believe that the answer is no, as enforcing secular monetary law in a situation of dispute over where to litigate is an injustice. However, this needs to be put into perspective. Justice includes many different facets and one who outwardly supports Torah law but acts unjustly in other ways is also not just. Thus while it would be hard to find an irreligious person who is considered 100% just, it is perfectly plausible that an irreligious official may be more just than a particular religious one.[4]

In short, my assertion is that once all factors are considered in defining justness we should be looking for the leaders who are the most just and competent,[5] even if they are less religious. In my humble opinion this is also the answer that common sense dictates and that therefore where necessary, efforts should be made to reconcile this with any sources that seem to suggest the opposite at first glance.

One such source sometimes quoted in these discussions is the ruling of the Rambam that only God-fearing people may be appointed to positions of authority.[6] Some have gone as far as to say that based on this, one must not vote for a party that has any irreligious candidates, as doing this causes people who are not God-fearing to be appointed.

I believe that this ruling is mistaken in two ways. Firstly, extrapolating from those addressed by the Rambam to an electorate consisting of the entire population over the age of eighteen is anachronistic. In a world where a select few (who hopefully were themselves God-fearing) were in charge of making appointments and had virtually free rein to choose whoever they wanted, it was usually practical to select God-fearing individuals without compromising on leadership skills. If the same was true today I would also advocate following the instructions of the Rambam to the letter.

The second distinction between the Rambam's situation and ours is more fundamental. The Rambam did not write that only religious people may be appointed. In the times of the Jewish monarchy and even in the times of the Rambam, there simply was no such thing as a 'chiloni' who defined himself as being irreligious. There certainly were people who did not keep the Torah in the way expected of them, but there was no institutionalised secularism.

The term 'God-fearing' used by the Rambam was precise. We know all too well that there are many religious people (i.e. those who keep to some form of religious code) who are not God-fearing. The Rambam was dealing only with religious people, and insisted that to be a leader even being both religious and courageous is not enough. Power corrupts, and a leader who acts primarily in his own self-interests is dangerous. In order to ensure that the leader will serve national interests, he must also be God-fearing.

Whether or not an irreligious person can be God-fearing is a question with philosophical and psychological aspects, and one could argue that a truly God-fearing person could not remain irreligious. However, the Rambam was not talking about such a person, as they simply didn't exist.

The crucial question is if nowadays, when institutionalised secularism does exist, can a slightly different quality 'substitute for' fear of God in ensuring faithful leadership. As it is commonly accepted in the world at large that a good leader is one who acts in the interests of his nation, I feel that the answer is yes. If all else was equal I would still vote for a religious candidate over an irreligious one, but rarely is all else equal.

A summary so far

We have established that the three most important factors in electing a leader are his decisions in war and justice, as well as the conscientiousness to always put the country's needs ahead of his own. I have already written enough about war in War and Peace and elsewhere, and 'justice' is far too broad a concept to give guidelines for here. It suffices to point out which government ministries are necessary to take care of these areas, before moving on to explaining how some other departments should be dealt with.

Only the security (defence) and foreign ministries are directly responsible for issues of war and national security. Justice is obviously administered by the justice ministry, but the interior and interior security ministries are also necessary to keep law and order. The finance ministry is also critical in the management of funding for all of this. There is broad consensus over the centrality of these six government offices, although many would argue that several others are as important or close behind. We need to try to explain why the Rambam apparently disagrees.

Education

Throughout our history, the Jewish People have always put education at the top of our priorities. Many centuries before most of the world was literate, R' Yehoshua ben Gamla, the Kohen Gadol (in the first century C.E.[7]) instituted the appointment of teachers for all from the age of six or seven. This institution was for the benefit of orphans who did not have a father to teach them – if there was a father he could be relied upon to ensure that his children received an education.[8]

The above is a strong source for the need for a centralised education system. However, it must be pointed out that this institution was not made by the king, or even by the Sanhedrin. It was made by the Kohen Gadol, who would not normally have had access to public funds to pay all the teachers. In Ma'aser- religious income tax I explained that the main role of the entire tribe of Levi (headed by the Kohen Gadol) was to teach Torah. It would be reasonable to suggest that most of the teachers were Kohanim and Levi'im, whose livelihoods came from t'rumos and ma'asros.

It would not have been practical to enforce the separating of t'rumos and ma'asros, and as I wrote in the same post there were periods of time when many did not give. This meant that funding of the education system depended on the will of the people and not on the government. The role of the government is to lead, but in areas other than security and justice it is not to enforce.

Nowadays, although the people are still united when it comes to the importance of education, there is a huge divide when it comes to how we choose to educate our children. Until there is consensus, there is no moral basis for any attempts by one group to impose their educational philosophy on others. Thus in my view, it is a travesty of justice for the government to use our taxes to fund only education systems that they approve of, or to vary the level of funding based on the materials taught.

That being the case, the only reason to raise money for education from taxes at all is to be able provide for those who cannot afford to pay for the education of their children by themselves (most could afford it if the money we pay in taxes for education was returned to us). This is an issue of welfare and not of education, so my (perhaps extreme) conclusion is that the entire Ministry of Education could be closed down.

The next thing to explain is what the role of the Ministry of Welfare should be (if anything),[9] but this and other government departments will have to wait for another post.


[1] I will not discuss here how in an ideal world we would restore the monarchy of the House of David, as we are a long way from this and for those of thus not yet blessed with prophecy, there is no way of telling what the world will look like when it does happen. My assumption here is that the government of today should (for the time being) be doing the same job that a king is supposed to do. I also assume that they have more or less the same halachic powers, a point proven by R' Shaul Yisraeli in Amud Hayemini siman 7 (available here).
[2] Hilchos Melachim 4:10
[4] Furthermore, in the current situation even the most well-intentioned leader would not have the power to restore Torah Law, whereas increasing the justness of the courts (and the government) in other areas is more practical.
[5] If there is a conflict between justness and competence I have no way of proving which should come first, but common sense should dictate that in this situation we would need to weigh up the respective damage caused by the corruption of one candidate and the incompetence of the other.
[6] Melachim 1:7.
[7] It is explicit in Gittin 56a that his widow was alive at the time of the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash (c. 70 C.E.).
[8] Bava Basra 21a
[9] Some of the foundations for this have been discussed in Tzedaka- Who gets what?

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