Three months away from election day here in Israel, we, as a community, need to think seriously about what we want our leadership to represent and how we want our government to function.
Thinking about these questions now will help us decide who is best qualified to lead and what the mandate of that leadership should be. It is a thought process that, over the years of declining democracy worldwide, too many people have simply abandoned the assessment process to the detriment of all.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory, whom many of us consider to have been the voice of morality of our generation, viewed political leadership not as the quest for power it seems to have become, but as a moral responsibility centered on service, covenant, and the creation of hope. He argued that true leadership empowers others rather than controls them.
True leaders serve the people they lead. Sacks contrasted hierarchical, pyramid-like power structures with service-oriented leadership that lifts others. Toward that end, he pointed out that a great leader encourages leadership in others.
As an example, Moses himself modeled this by involving the entire community in building a shared vision, shifting people from argument as a first response to informed cooperation.
In addition, leadership requires offering a compelling, shared vision of the future that inspires trust and overcomes despair.
Sadly, in today’s world, it is a real challenge to identify anyone who embodies all of the qualities Rabbi Sacks described. For sure, some autocratic leaders have a vision but, sadly, don’t see themselves as serving anyone but themselves.
In other cases, there are democratic leaders who, rather than encourage leadership in others, do all they can to undercut those with leadership potential. And as for morality, that ceased to be a requirement of leadership some years ago as well.
Add to these challenges the sad decline of societal norms, which have exacerbated the negative aspects of substandard leadership. We see that the age-old conflict between truth and power has returned anew, replaced by the noise of social media. The resultant erosion of mutual trust resulting from the undermining of truth by power simply adds fuel to the fire.
In addition, the rampant intolerance for opposing points of view and an almost complete breakdown in civil discourse destroys the very foundations of government by consent. Even the universities, which were always seen as safe spaces for ideological cross-fertilization, now seem to be intent on morally bankrupting their students.
How, then, do we emerge from this virtual swamp and reclaim our lost values? In the years before his untimely passing, Rabbi Sacks suggested that the most productive pathway out of the morass is to pursue “covenantal politics.”
He opined that cultures governed by self-interest, as so many are today, tend to be contractual. Getting to a “we-centered” culture requires a revision of identity, and for this, Sacks maintained, the paradigm of covenant may well be crucial.
According to Sacks, “A contract is a transaction. A covenant is a relationship. A contract is about interests. A covenant is about identity. That’s why contracts benefit, but covenants transform. A covenant creates a moral community.”
At a crossroads
Israel, in its early days, was centered more around a covenantal community given its development as a socialist society. The kibbutz was certainly a prime example, while the entire population received many of the benefits inherent in the kibbutz social structure even though the country was struggling economically.
To the credit of the Israeli leadership at the time, the Economic Stabilization Plan that went into effect on July 1, 1985, checked inflation and moved the country to a capitalist framework but kept the best parts of socialism intact.
People can discuss why that happened the way it did, but an argument can be made that it came about because, at its core, Israel was and remains a covenantal society which dates back to the biblical roots of our people.
With the passage of time, Israel’s significant integration into the world economy, our population growth, and economic progress made it possible for us to also pick up some of the bad habits of the countries whose culture we wanted to emulate.
As I often said to people who voiced a desire at the time for us to be like America, if you buy the culture of America, Europe, or anywhere else, you can’t pick and choose… You get it all, the good along with the not so good.
These covenantal values are what we will need to demand from those who choose to lead us in the future if we are to change direction and continue to grow after these past tumultuous years in Israeli, regional, and world history.
The questions that confront us as we move to elections are: (a) can Israel shift to being a covenantal society, (b) do we have the will that will take us there, and (c) can we find the leadership who will commit to such an altruistic but necessary goal?
It would seem that after what we have experienced since October 7, the will and the motivation are, indeed, still present in Israeli society.
The younger generation, about whom we had expressed so many fears regarding their commitment to the mission of Israel, proved their mettle during the Israel-Hamas war, demonstrating to all that they had both the dedication and the commitment required to take us to the next level of success as a country.
Clearly, the new political leadership needs to come forth from the cohort of young men and women who made us all so proud over the past three years. They will need, of course, to tap into the institutional history of others who have useful practical experience in running governments, people who are prepared to share their knowledge without forcing the young to bend to their will.
Israel is at a crossroads with an array of challenges that we will need to address over the coming years. To do so, we need new leadership that understands the meaning of covenant and how that translates to define the relationship between those of us who live here and the government in charge of the country.
It is incumbent upon us to make the right choices and do so after intelligent evaluation. Let us hope we are up to the task.
Carthago substituenda est!
The writer, a 42-year resident of Jerusalem, is a former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and a Board Member of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).