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June 8, 2023 10:57 am
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What the Torah Told Us About Mob Rule — and How It Applies Today

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avatar by Jeremy Rosen

Opinion

Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law (1659), by Rembrandt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

This week, the Torah starts very optimistically, portraying the events that come at the end of the first year of the trek through the wilderness, when the Jews are within sight of the Promised Land. Lighting the menorah completes the construction of the Tabernacle. Its light symbolizes the Divine Presence and a bright future.

The final item of unfinished business is Moses’ attempts to persuade his father-in-law and his family to stay with them and join their invasion. Notice he is not excluding others from beyond the Twelve Tribes. Jethro declines and says he wants to go home. Why? Perhaps he felt he had not been taken seriously when he advised Moses how to manage the people. He had after all given Moses a lesson in the importance of delegation. Or did he sense trouble ahead, that something was not quite right?

Led by the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, the marching orders are given and then the children of Israel start moving to go into the land of Canaan.  And then everything begins to go wrong.

The people start complaining, and fires start breaking out. They blame Moses. He prays to God and God stops the fire. But then a much wider insurrection occurs, whipped up by trouble-makers in the group. The official cause is the food. The manna was boring and unexciting. But then they claim that things were so much better back in Egypt, where they claim to remember nostalgically the wonderful four-course meals they enjoyed, which never happened.

They gather their families in front of their tents to express their anger, which is directed at Moses. Moses turns to God and he’s in despair. He can’t be a nursemaid to them all. He can foresee the complete collapse of the mission he’s devoted so much to. It is too much. If this is how it is going to be he’d rather die. God then tells him to gather 70 elders to help him manage the people and that God will provide meat for them.

Moses calls the 70 elders together and gives them their instructions. Two men, Eldad and Medad, having been left out, prophesize doom. Joshua urged Moses to let him kill them. But Moses refuses. On the contrary, he says, he’d be happy if everyone could prophesize. He is not troubled by different opinions.

And there’s more insurrection. This time from within Moses’s s own family, Miriam and Aaron, who remind him of his words that others can be prophets too; they demand to be heard. In all cases, the rebellion is either put down or peters out.

What are we supposed to learn from this?  The obvious answer is how unstable mobs are. People are easily led, misled, and unpredictable. They can destroy and undermine the greatest of visions and intentions. Their interests are selfish and immediate. But different kinds of dissent are not necessarily destructive. Given time and patience things finally worked out.

The message for our times is pretty clear: The mob — whether from the right or the left — is dangerous, twisting facts to suit their agendas, imagining that it’s possible to achieve an ideal perfect state. People are messy, states are messy, and leadership often tries different angles and positions to maintain order.

The suppression of dissent is not the answer. It’s true that in Moses’ day, he had God to fall back on. Yet eventually, by the end of the 40 years, the people have learned to adjust to new circumstances. And this constant struggle between leadership and the populace is a feature of every generation in the Bible and every generation since. Yet somehow, we survive.

Is it God? Our tradition? Both? No matter what, it’s not without the attendant pain and casualties on the way.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.

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