Fanatics

I have the pleasure of lecturing weekly on the Bible. We are now in the first Book of Shmuel (Samuel) which marks an important watershed in the evolution of Israelite political life. In many ways the issues we face today are not dissimilar to those times. There is a TV show called ” The House of David” now showing on Amazon Prime. Curiosity led me to look it up. A fascinating example of how to take a Biblical story and mess around with it. Some legitimate source material, a Samuel who likes like a New Age Hippy from California, playing fast and loose with names, but some nice singing of Psalms and other Biblical texts. No I don’t recommend it.

I do recommend an excellent short book The Beginning of Politics:  Power in the Biblical Books of Samuel. By Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes.

It is the character of Saul that led me to think about the nature of political and religious leaders and why they so often go wrong. The system that had prevailed after the death of Moses and Joshua was one in which the 12 tribes had a kind of autonomy but were rarely able to come together either territorially or politically. Occasionally a leader would arise who, based on his or her ability to rally the people around, became the de facto ruler for the course of their lives. Which usually lasted for a generation or so. At the same time there were high priests controlling the Tabernacle. They were the de-facto religious heads of the people. If we just read the text and not the Midrashim (whose agenda determined interpretation), it is fair to say that the system, although occasionally helping defeat enemies failed. Simply because of the corruption or weakness of the leadership and the constant preference for Israelites to abandon their own culture for whichever external one came to dominate. 

Shmuel was the last of the judges. In his old age there was a problem of succession. His sons were not morally fit to follow him. The tribes came and asked to appoint a king. Which Shmuel objected to on the grounds that God was their king. But possibly since the Torah had already said (Devarim 17:15) that if you want to appoint a king to be like the other nations you may go ahead. Which does seem like a reluctant concession rather than an ideal. God apparently agreed with Shmuel. Even so Shmuel persisted in warning everyone about the dangers and limitations of the monarchy. 

These became clear as his selection of Saul turned into a disaster. However great subsequent monarchs such as David, Solomon or Hezekiah were, the historical record shows that monarchy was certainly not the ideal form of government. The Torah seems to be conveying to us that although religiously there was a revealed constitution and a system of oral law, when it came to politics, we were constantly changing the system and looking for better ways of doing things. Even if we were borrowing from other cultures. 

I am fascinated by the depiction of King Shaul, initially the simple honest, modest, straightforward reluctant monarch, appointed for his physical rather than his spiritual qualities. As he grappled with the challenges of his role, he fell into deep depression and suffered from psychotic outbreaks.

Even before Shaul was finally accepted by everyone, there was an episode in which he meets a group of prophets in a state of ecstasy. Dancing with music in some ways reminiscent of the Hare Krishna movement (1 Samuel 10:10-13). Shaul, hitherto uninterested in religious activity,  is caught up in their enthusiasm and joins them. Much to the surprise of everyone else. Perhaps this was a forerunner of his later psychotic fits. After his initial encounter with Shmuel  there is another episode (1 Shmuel 19:24)  where he ends up rolling naked all day and all night. In other words, overcome by religious ecstasy can have a very negative and dangerous effect on a person. The whole of his career is a record of how to combine the religious and the mundane. How to balance realpolitik and the preservation of one’s power and authority and where to draw a line. All the challenges of authority then as now. Just look at what the Knesset is like and Rabbinical authority.

The story of Shaul raises an issue that I have always been troubled  by. Which is the dividing line between ecstasy spirituality on the one hand and chaos, corruption even distortion on the other. Where do you draw the line between religious passion and lunacy? It is relevant now because at this moment we are experiencing such a dissonance within the religious world. The numbers and intensity of extreme Jewish life particularly in Israel have led  to a rise in violence, aggression and  marginal sects. This dichotomy goes back to Pinchas the son of Aharon, the zealot who took the law into his own hands to stave off an eruption of pagan chaos (Bamidbar 25:6-9). Yet his zealotry and extra judicial action was considered a rare exception. Something not to be treated as a general rule.

In Israel we are seeing an increase in bands of young men, on the face of it religious, actually fighting each other in yeshivot over whose rabbi is better. This past week another example of violence when gangs of extremists attacked an orthodox mayor simply because he makes the decision about demolishing a redundant synagogue they disapprove of. He and his family were attacked and their houses and their cars burnt. This was not a rare occurrence. Not a week goes by when there aren’t demonstrations of hundreds of young Charedi men who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Despite country being under constant attack. Their way of life is being protected by other young men and women giving their lives for them. This seems to me to be terrible abuse of religious responsibility and what happens when religious passion and commitment is carried so far as to be self-destructive. At the same time, secular passions are also becoming more violent.  Wherever we look passionate belief, whether religious or secular is increasingly becoming physical and brutal. Traditions of polite, civilized disagreements are no longer valued. And clashes of religion and cultures are pulling our societies apart.

I am particularly concerned about the failure of religious leadership  around our Jewish world. I take it personally because there is much in it that I care about. Even if there are signs of a softening and a recognition that change is essential, when I hear supposedly religious leaders calling for violence, civic unrest and intolerance glorifying political and fiscal corruption. Religion and spiritual ecstasy can be very dangerous if not controlled. And Shaul is an example of that. I fear we are experiencing a paganism within religion that the Books of The Bible describe in great detail. I can only pray that a new generation will come to its senses and adhere to the moral compasses of our Biblical prophets. 

Jeremy Rosen  March 2025