The Pious Person Is A Leader

Like most others, I have been in a morass of despair this weekend.

The loss of so many innocents at the hands of pure evil is without comprehension. We rail, we swear, we cry, we mourn, and we plead for answers and yet...they never come. We are rudderless and worse yet, we are leaderless. 

In my anger and my sorrow, I went looking for something, anything, that might help salve a broken soul. And while it is so very far from a solution, I stumbled upon a text entitled Sefer Ha-Kuzari written by the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Judah HaLevi. In what as become one of the most important apologetics of Jewish philosophy ever composed, the Kuzari is written in five parts in dialogue form between a rabbi and a pagan. The pagan has been idealized as the king of Khazars who, according to some scholars, converted to Judaism along with others in the Khazar nobility. (It should be noted that there exist arguments amongst historians as to the validity of the Khazar conversions, but HaLevi uses them as a literary license for his work.

In part III of the Kuzari, we find a discussion between the Khazar and the rabbi that discusses the necessity for righteousness and piety as a prerequisite for leadership.

Al Khazari: Give me a description of the doings of one of your pious men and how they behave.

The Rabbi: A pious man is, so to speak, the guardian of his country, who gives to its inhabitants, many provisions and all they need. He leads them justly and he wrongs no one, nor does he grant anyone more than his due. 

Al Khazari: I asked you about a pious man, not a leader.

The Rabbi: The pious man is a leader who is obeyed by his senses and by his mental acuity as well as his physical faculties, because as it is written: 'He who rules his spirit is greater than he that takes a city' (Prov. 16: 32). He is fit to rule because if he were the prince of a country he would be as just as he is to his body and soul. (Kuzari III 2-5)

According to Judah HaLevi, the requirements for leadership are the same as they are for any human being. Our leaders must be imbued with a sense of justice, an ability to give to all in the same manner, and to not oppress its people. In an absence of leadership, it is incumbent upon all of us to step up and to affect the change that is missing in those who declare themselves false prophets.

Rabbi Hillel said, "In a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human." (Pirkei Avot 2:5)

We have seen firsthand the inhumanity of our leaders. Those who gin up hate for craven political gain and survival have lost the moral authority to lead. The men and women who refuse to solve the problems of society with real and concrete solutions but only offer "thoughts and prayers", have sacrificed their claims for higher office. Those who stand by while their constituents are slaughtered cannot accurately be called "leaders" because they lack the basic sense of justice, piety, and humanity to claim the mantles bestowed upon them by their people. When leaders cannot even pretend to strive for humanity they no longer deserve to be in positions of power and should be removed via any and all peaceful, democratic means. 

I refuse to sit idly by while mass murder becomes the norm for our neighbours. I refuse to listen any longer to those who profess that nothing can be done. I refuse to pretend that walking into my synagogue surrounded by armed guards is normal...or my church...or my mosque...or my school...or my shopping centre...or my street...or my city...or my...

If you can look at yourself in the mirror and use your civic franchise to still vote for these cowards, I weep for you. If you still think that this is the society and the leadership that you deserve, I can no longer look past your hate and your racism. If you willingly enable these people with your money and your votes, you are a part of the problem and certainly have no real interest in the solutions. When history is written and your children and grandchildren ask where you were when, what will your answer be? I know how I will respond and I will stand proudly on my convictions because they are on the side of justice.

The pious person IS a leader.

A wanton, soulless, narcissistic, and craven man is not.

Zichronam L'ivracha. May the memories of all those who perished this weekend in El Paso and Dayton at the hands of hate always and forever be for a blessing. And may we all find the strength to stand up to the tyrants and bring a renewed sense of justice and piety back into the consciences of those who are charged with leading our communities. 

The Storm Before the Calm

Today's post is the first in a two-parter. The second half will follow later this week, but I felt the need to explain the genesis of part two in this introductory missive.

Our family has been coming down to the South Florida region for almost as long as I have walked the earth. This area plays prominently in my admittedly sepia-coloured childhood memories. When money was tight and family vacations were done on the cheap, it wasn't unusual for all of my parents to pile all of us kids into my mom's 70-something Ford station wagon and head south on I75. (My sister-in-law, keeper of the family archives, recently sent me several very embarrassing photos from that era. If you really need to see them, contact me offline.) As we grew older and my parents began wintering down here, visits with my kids became the norm, and now The Husband and I are fortunate enough to have our own winter misery-escape hatch in the North Miami area. In many ways, South Florida feels like a second home. Admittedly, there are some things about being here that I will never truly understand and will never fully reconcile, but I have been able to rationalize it as quirky variances in the Canadian/American dynamic. This is in no way America bashing, nor is it in any way a demonstration of our vaunted Canadian pomposity. It is simply a statement that while we live close to one another, we are different.

And...sad to say...my family has not been totally immune to the violence that seems to be more random here than at home. A dear friend of my parents was shot and killed as part of an aborted robbery while he parked his car at a neighbourhood restaurant. He had less than $50.00 cash in his wallet. His murderer was caught while shopping at Walmart with his bounty. A few years back, a Toronto couple, well-known in the Jewish community, was murdered while in their condo just down the street from us. Their killings remain unsolved.

And yet...we keep returning. The snowbird flight plan is deeply ingrained. Canadian winters are wretched and as we age, we tolerate them less well. And...we tend to view these incidents merely as random acts of violence.

But last Friday felt different. The killings at the Fort Lauderdale airport hit me right in my sweet spot.  It was oh so close and oh so personal. Every single day, we know people going through Terminal 2 at FLL. This is the terminal that services all of Air Canada's flights. Torontonians, Montrealers, and Ottawans fly in and out many times a day from this place. I have been there hundreds of times, both as a shuttle service and as a passenger. My children have stood in the exact spot where people died. A friend had exited the airport with her thirteen-year-old son a mere hour before the horror. My cousin's parents were in the upper concourse waiting for her aunt as the shots rang out. They are thankfully fine.

We count ourselves, all of us, amongst the fortunate. A different day, a different week, a different time.....

And while I am fully aware that these horrific events nauseatingly occur on a daily basis in the United States, I have never before experienced the kinship I felt Friday. I felt an even more intense loathing and disgust than I ever had before for those milquetoast politicians who offered thoughts and prayers on Twitter while having zero intention of dealing with a gun problem so cancerous and rampant that even those suffering from acute mental illness have access to them. I detected a bilious taste when I listened to loathsome shills for the NRA talk falsely about "good guys with guns." I vented on Facebook about the false stories about the murderer coming from Canada. I ridiculously felt a need to defend my country from the Pandora's box of absurdity that has been unleashed down here. And most of all, I was discomfited by how easily and how quickly people here moved on from the tragedy. The ordinariness of it was profoundly disturbing. There were questions about flights being delayed, luggage lost, traffic around the airport, and how all of it would impact the daily lives of citizens. I've been waiting for news of memorials. It hasn't come yet. I can tell you how to retrieve a lost cell phone, but not the location of a vigil. In short...I felt and still do feel miserably depressed. I am exhausted and I am sad. This place of interlude and respite has become like a dystopian teen novel, and the really really sad part of it all is that I see it getting worse, not better over the coming years.

Since Friday, I have needed to find a way to revive and renew. I have taken refuge in the arts. I have listened to music, watched some very fine films, read a terrific novel, and chatted with some amazing visual artists at a weekend show. There is healing in creativity and I have sought out the oasis.

There are days when it feels as though the world around us has simply imploded. How we cope with those times defines us and illuminates a path forward in a profoundly aberrant environment. It is my belief that we are living in an era that is deviant and extreme. But we can regain the upper hand on the chaos by reveling in the beauty and the imagination of our most creative souls. All of this will be further fleshed out in part two of this post.

Zichronam Livracha...May their memories always be for blessing.