Kohelet Joins the Debate

Last week, I wrote to you about my idea of expanding the idea of inviting various ushpizin to dine with us in the sukkah to include all sorts of non-traditional invitees. I’ve been thinking about that idea all week—wondering whom I should or could invite aside from Lady Oumuamua and Prince Borisov (neither of whom would actually be that much fun to host, given that they are both basically rocks whose sole claim to fame is their origin in deep outer space). Lots of potential ideas came to mind in that regard, some whimsical, some semi-serious, some almost reasonable. (And, yes, the whole concept of “reasonable” does need to be stretched just a bit if we’re going to talk seriously about inviting the spectral presences of the long-since-dead to dinner in the first place.) Perhaps I’ll propose the idea earlier on next year and invite suggestions about whom exactly to include on the invitation list.

And then I watched the debate on Wednesday evening between the top dozen individuals vying for the chance to run for President as the Democratic candidate in 2020. I realize that it would have been impractical to hold the debate in a sukkah, but that’s really a shame: seeing them all gathered in a rickety hut with canvas walls and a roof made of grass might just have moved things along a bit faster. (Was it only me who thought so, or did at least some of those people appear to be injecting themselves into the mix just to make the same point over and over?) And then, just when I thought I had had enough and would just read about the last hour in the paper on Wednesday morning, I was taken entirely off-guard by the sight of King Kohelet—ghostly, but otherwise in full royal regalia—striding confidently up to the invisible thirteenth podium and taking his spectral place among the others.

No one else seemed to notice him there. Even I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t having some sort of tele-hallucination, but there he was for all (or at least for me) to see, his famous book tucked securely under his arm and his ability to take in what was unfolding around him more than obvious. (How an ancient king of Israel could speak English, I didn’t pause to ask myself; he was, after all, the wisest of men—as Scripture says specifically and unambiguously. Maybe he took English in high school!) Mostly, of course, he’s known as Solomon. He reigned as Solomon. He published his other works—and foremost among them the Song of Songs and the Book of Proverbs—under that name too, but this work—the product of his old age, when his wisdom was at its fullest flower—he brought out as King Kohelet, a mysterious name cited several times in the book itself but always left unexplained. Perhaps he used a pseudonym to suggest the universal nature of the lessons he wished to teach. Or perhaps Kohelet really was an actual nickname of some sort, perhaps a name one of his seven hundred wives made up as a term of endearment. But our custom of reading Kohelet’s book—called by the ten-dollar name Ecclesiastes in most Western circles but almost always by its author’s name in Jewish ones—our custom of reading Kohelet during Sukkot made his presence almost logical: having come up from Sheol on his annual author’s tour of the world as his book is read and debated in countless thousands of sukkot in the course of the festival, why not stop by an actual debate and see what he could add to the discussion? So what if they weren’t actually holding it in a sukkah? Surely, he must have thought, that really is just a detail! And, as we would naturally expect from the wisest of all men, it turned out that he had a lot to say.

The basic givens on Wednesday night were obvious. Everyone present on that stage wishes to be elected President. All have plans! Senator Warren has become known for saying that almost as a personal mantra, but they all have strategies for fixing what ails our land (or at least for what they perceive to be ailing our nation) and none showed any reticence about touting his or her proposals as the very best. And, although each would-be nominee has shortcomings of various sorts (including, at least for two, a complete lack of experience in government) and none has yet emerged as the ideal candidate that the others will eventually have no choice but to support, the setting seemed to require that each candidate vaunt him or herself maximally, responding to whatever question was formally asked with some version of that candidate’s standard stump speech. As a result, what was supposed to be a thoughtful debate about principles, policies, and platforms turned into a long infomercial that differed from “real” infomercials merely with respect to the time spent tearing down other candidates either overtly or by clever (or not so clever) innuendo.

The king listened carefully, as did I. And then, when the din subsided somewhat, he offered the would-be nominees some thoughtful advice that, if you ask me, they could all do well to take to heart. Kohelet wasn’t the wisest of men for nothing!

First, he noted clearly there is no virtue more becoming to a true leader than humility. The clearest way to establish your right to lead, therefore, is to stop bragging about your accomplishments…both because there will always be someone whose accomplishments are even more impressive than yours and also because nothing is less suggestive of the ability to govern than arrogance. As a result, the more you beat your own drum, the more it feels as though your real interest is in denying your listeners the possibility of appraising your worth frankly and honestly. True leaders, says the king, always seek to self-improve…and self-improvement must unavoidably be born of frank self-analysis. And that was the king’s first point.

Secondly, he went on to note that the sign of a true leader is the willingness to work far more intently on the actual work of governance than on the portrait of oneself destined for the history books. Knowing everything would be a useful skill to bring to the office of President. But since no one actually knows everything, those who would lead should instead demonstrate their commitment to the pursuit of wisdom itself—through study with learned teachers, through the contemplation of the works of intelligent authors, through the taking of counsel with people more experienced and more knowledgeable than themselves are, and through the repudiation of negative character traits they have somehow inadvertently (or not so inadvertently) acquired. Those who would lead should therefore present themselves as students of the wise, as people who desire to listen far more intensely than to lecture others. Accepting that others could do as good as job as they themselves is key, as is then trying to transcend that thought by seeking to attain a heart of wisdom that truly does set them apart from the rest. Self-knowledge is key; the nation, says Kohelet, led by a king who only knows of himself what the sycophants and yes-men who surround him tell him is hardly being led at all.

Thirdly, the king noted that true leaders blame no one for their own errors of judgment. If they admit to having occasionally acted poorly in a given situation, they never blame the situation as though it, rather than they themselves, was at fault. In fact, true leaders always accept responsibility for their own mistakes and move forward humbled and chastened by them: what the people need in their leaders is specifically not braggarts who can’t imagine ever having done anything wrong, but rather the kind of people who learn from their errors and consistently strive to become better and more virtuous as they move forward through life.

Fourthly, the king noted—and clearly—that people worthy to lead invariably listen very carefully to others…including to their opponents in debate and dialogue. King Kohelet said this repeatedly too, noting that it is always better to hear a wise person chastise you than to listen to a fool singing your praises…and that instead of responding instantly to any hint of criticism with a thousand different explanations intended to defang the critique, it shows greater leadership potential gratefully to embrace the criticism and to be willing to learn from it. No one enjoys being critiqued, he admitted freely, much less harshly. But whereas fools run from criticism, the wise run toward the thoughtful individual prepared to evaluate their work honestly and thoughtfully. Those worthy of the charism of leadership are therefore those who are constantly striving to improve, to become more virtuous, to become wiser and more insightful. The king couldn’t have been more clear that no one who wants to become a national leader should be unable to imagine learning something from the thoughtful comments of others…even when those others are one’s direct competitors.

Finally, the king noted that those who would lead their nation forward need to demonstrate an ability to take the long view. Eventually, he correctly noted, every single voter alive today will pass from the scene. The would-be candidates themselves will pass from the scene. But instead of taking that as license to ignore the consequences of their actions now (or their inaction), they need to consider future generations as pre-constituents, as people whose interests they must have at heart now even if they are unable to vote in our national elections right now. And this point too the King stressed repeatedly: the mantle of leadership can only be legitimately worn by someone willing to respond to the interconnectedness of the generations personally and viscerally, and who is willing to accept the responsibility for the kind of earth we bequeath to our grandchildren’s grandchildren. And to their grandchildren as well because, in the end, a willingness to look deeply into the future is a prerequisite for leading in the present.