(Yerushalmi/Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'anit chapter 4)
We use the word “charisma” casually these days. Someone who is a popular and commanding presence, whose opinions are revered (sometimes beyond reason), and who gains a loyal following, is considered charismatic.
In
the realm of business, this can be an asset. But there is a down side too: Charisma
can command blind fanaticism in the service of megalomaniacs with dangerous
values and perilous agendas.[1]
Similarly, in politics a charismatic leader can serve the needs of the society,
or exploit the society to serve his narcissistic needs.
In
the religious and theological realm, charisma is a divinely bestowed spiritual
power or personal quality that lends an individual authority over large numbers
of people. The notion of “divinely bestowed” authority elevates religious charisma
to another ballpark. Max Weber
wrote about this phenomenon in Economy and Society. Thomas Robbins, in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, writes:
The notorious David Koresh (née Vernon Howell) rose to the
leadership of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the earlier schismatic
Davidian offshoot of the SDA Church (Bromley and Silver 1995, Pitts 1995).
Koresh "identified himself as the Lord's anointed and saw the standoff at
Waco as the literal fulfillment of an intensifying campaign by demonic earthly
rulers to destroy the righteous remnant" (Boyer 1993:30). It is arguable,
then, that the most potentially volatile form of personal charismatic leadership
is the messianic pattern in which charismatic leaders "identify the
millennial destiny of humankind with their own personal vicissitudes and
demonize any opposition to their aspirations and personal aggrandizement"
(Robbins and Anthony 1995:244). "Messianic" leadership combines the
instability of charismatic authority with the potential for volatility and
tension inherent in apocalyptic world-rejecting movements.[2]
Jewish
tradition has spawned a number of charismatic, messianic figures, among them Shimon
ben Kosiba, the subject of much discussion in masechet Ta’anit, chapter 4 of
the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud). Bar Kosiba led the Jews of the Land of
Israel into a disastrous revolt against Rome in 132 C.E. He is better known by
the appellation Bar Kochba (son of the star) because no less than R. Akiba
identified him as the long-await messiah. The Rabbis of the Yerushalmi, however, dub him Bar Koziba
(“son of lies” or “son of disappointment”), explaining:
R. Shimon ben Yochai taught: Akiba, my master, would interpret
the following verse: A star
(kokhav) shall come forth out of Jacob [and a scepter shall rise out of Israel,
and shall smite through the corners of Moab] (Numbers 24:17).
Shimon ben Yochai then interprets for us: A disappointment (koziba) shall come forth out of
Jacob. (Ta’anit 4:5)
Initially, the rebellion spearheaded by Bar Kochba
succeeded. Bar Kochba took on the title of Nasi (prince) and coins were minted
with the dates “the first year of the redemption of Israel” and “the second year
of the redemption of Israel.” The Roman Empire was compelled to commit 12
legions — nearly half its army — to fighting the fledgling third Jewish
commonwealth; the emperor Hadrian experienced costly losses. Concerning the
Jewish side, the Roman consul Cassius Dio,
who published an 80-volume history of Rome, wrote that 580,000
Jews died in the war, 50 fortified cities were razed, and 985 villages were
decimated. Even accounting for victor’s hyperbole, the revolt was an
unmitigated disaster.
Surprisingly, the Rabbis recollection of
Jewish losses was far greater. Writing generations after the cataclysm of Bar
Kochba’s failed revolt, they tell us that in Bar Kochba’s fortress refuge Betar
alone, 80,000 myriads were slaughtered by Emperor Hadrian. The Rabbis of
the Jerusalem Talmud don’t hold back: they view Bar Kochba with contempt,
derision, and loathing. They recount bone-chilling legends that reflect their
abhorrence of, and hostility toward, Bar Kochba.
R. Yochanan said: There were 80,000 pairs of trumpeters
surrounding Betar. Each was in charge of a number of soldiers. Ben Koziba was
there, and he required 200,000 soldiers to [cut off their] fingers [as a sign
of loyalty to him]. The Sages sent word to him: How long are you going to turn
Israel into a maimed people?
The Rabbis tell us that Bar Kochba, like so many
charismatic leaders, did not countenance opposition to his authority and
agenda. The story of how he murdered R. Eleazar of Modi’in is blood chilling.
R. Eleazar of Modi’in would sit on sack cloth and ashes
and pray every day, saying, “Lord of the universe! Do not sit in judgment
today! Do not sit in judgment today! Hadrian want to go see him. [The
Talmud then describes how a Samaritan convinced Hadrian to allow him to spy on
Betar on behalf of the Emperor and thereby pave the way for Hadrian to defeat
the city. The Samaritan enters Betar through a drain pipe, finds R. Eleazar,
and pretends to whisper into the rabbi’s ear. The Samaritan spy is caught and
brought to Ben Koziba, and he confesses his mission.] [Ben
Koziba] went to R. Eleazar of Modi’in. [Ben Koziba] said to him, “What did this
Samaritan say to you?” He replied, “Nothing.” [Ben Koziba] said to him, “What
did you say to him?” [R. Eleazar] replied, “Nothing.” [Ben Koziba] gave
[Eleazar] one good kick and killed him. Immediately a heavenly voice broke
forth and said, Woe to my worthless
shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword descend upon his arm and upon
his right eye! His arm shall shrivel up; his right eye shall go blind! (Zechariah
11:17) Forthwith Betar was taken, and Ben Koziba was killed.
The Rabbis continue to describe the slaughter that
ensued in disturbingly graphic terms. For example, Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel
recalls the massacre of school children in a manner reminiscent of the way R.
Chananiah b. Teradyon was said to have been martyred at the hands of the Romans
during the Hadrianic persecutions[3]:
It has been taught: Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel says, “There
were 500 schoolhouses in Betar. The smallest of them had no fewer than 500
children… On account of the sins, they wrapped each one [of the children] in
his scroll and burned him, and out of them all, I alone survived.
The Rabbis next tell us that the Emperor, Hadrian,
owned a vineyard that was 18 mil
square (approximately 10 miles square, with a perimeter approximately 40 miles
in length). The Rabbis tell us: The length [of the
perimeter] was the distance from Tiberias to Tzippori (Sepphoris).
Hadrian, they recount, surrounded his vineyard with a wall of the bones of slaughtered
Jews that was as high as a man is tall, and as wide as one’s handbreadths. They
hold Bar Kochba responsible for the deaths making that wall possible.
There is no end to the Sages’ contempt and scorn
for Bar Kochba. With the divine imprimatur bestowed upon him by R. Akiba, he
was inordinately dangerous. Charisma can
be dangerous; combined with a messianic overlay, it is deadly. Together,
charisma and messianism often come packaged in a personality who is
manipulative, exploitative, grandiose, callously unconcerned about human life,
and excessively confident. Recall Shabbatai Tzvi, Jim Jones, David Koresh,
Osama bin Laden.
Charismatic leaders are often described as
“visionary,” but the ones who carry the label messiah harbor visions that are
harbingers of death and destruction. Again, Thomas Robbins:
The absence of institutional restraints upon charismatic leaders
interfaces with the lack of institutional supports available to sustain
leaders' authority. "Charismatic authority," notes Wallis (1993:176[4]) "is a fundamentally
precarious status" because leaders' claims to authority rest "purely
on subjective factors." Followers' perception of the leader's
extraordinary qualities may be situated and ephemeral. The charismatic leader
must continually face the prospect that his special "gift of grace"
will no longer be perceived and his authority will fade. Johnson (1979[5]) analyzes a spiraling
process whereby the steps that Jim Jones took in response to challenges to his
charismatic authority brought into play new factors that potentially undermined
his authority, and that in turn required new defensive responses. The leader's
increasingly frantic defensive measures to shore up his authority and the
unanticipated consequences of his responses contributed to the cataclysmic end
of the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana.
Long before Max Weber and legions of sociologists and experts in business leadership wrote about the dangers of charismatic leaders, the Sages of the Yerushalmi were acutely and painfully aware and penned their prescient warning.
© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman
[1] See Jane
M. Howell and Bruce J. Avolio, “The
ethics of charismatic leadership,” Academy of Management Executives, 1992, Vol. 6 No.2; and
Daniel Sankowsky, “The
Charismatic Leader as Narcissist,” Organizational
Dynamics, Spring 1995, Vol. 23, No. 4.
[2] http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/charisma.htm.
[3]
Avodah Zarah 17b. As an aside: I recently attended a wonderful family event in
Los Angeles where my family took a walking tour of downtown LA. I noticed that
the public library has quotes concerning books and reading cut into sheets of
decorative metal outside the library. I further noticed that one was in Hebrew,
so I cross the street to take a closer look. I hardly knew what to make of what
I read: Gevilin nisrafin v’ha-otiyot porkhot ba’avir (“The scrolls
are burning but the letters are escaping to heaven.”) These are the words Rabbi
Chananiah ben Teradyon is said to have uttered when the Romans wrapped a scroll
of Torah around him and lit it on fire. Very unsettling.
[4] R.
Wallis, "Charisma and Explanation," Secularism, Rationalism and
Sectarianism , ed. E. Barker et al. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993): 167-179.
[5] D. P. Johnson, "Dilemmas of
Charismatic Leadership," Sociological Analysis 40(1979):315-323.
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