mentalblog.com comments:
Brilliant.
Isn't there a gemara in Pesachim where R' Akiva tells his son not to reside in a city whose mayor or leaders are Talmidei chachomim?
Did R' Akiva have children? With his first wife?
If the so described archaic paradigms of Jewish leadership are utter failures then how do we explain the millennial continuity of the Jewish people?
Truman, the survival argument is tired. One has to looks at statistic of attrition to establish the statistical freshhold of survival. In fact I am as much impressed with Jewish survival as I am with survival of Eskimo. There are multiple factors and governance might not be one of them. I hold that the poor governorship contributed to the most recent destruction of holocaust, therefore your appeal to "continuity" (whatever f* this means) is in poor taste.
I, for one, stand in awe of Eskimo survival as it is a testament to the adaptive creative genius that G-d has bequeathed to mankind. That said, it is plain to all that the history of the Jewish people diverges from all others not only in its continuity and but its impact on the course of civilization. The matter of numbers, albeit few and fluctuating, only serve to prove the point. The classic forms of Jewish leadership and social organization must factor somewhere in the cosmic algorithm of our continued existence and relevancy; glaring examples of failure not withstanding. (Stubborn facts can indeed be tiresome.)
Excellent and brilliant observation and in fact it is NOT the first time something similar to this has been said by a notable personage.
It was stated at a convention for Orthodox outreach rabbis in America about twenty years ago by the Late Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Jakobovits%
2C_Baron_Jakobovits) who said it in the context of the need for Orthodoxy to take prepare itself to take over and prepare itself for its inevitable rise to leadership of the global Jewish community and its insititutions, as the secular establishsment shrank away and crumbled due to assimilation and intermarriage, and the need for the Orthodox to prepare for an outlook that goes beyond parochial and narrow interests but one that includes being able to be in positions of responsible leadership in organizations and government for the betterment of everyone.
It is still a vision and a dream and very far from being a reality anywhere unfortunatly. Maybe the true Jewish Messiah will get it right eventually when he finally shows up!
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