The consent of the governed.

The contribution of Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, to political thought, is fundamental, but not well known.

In this study, I want to look at the institution of monarchy.

What does it tell us about the nature of government as the Torah understands it?

The command relating to a king

opens with these words. When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken

possession of it and settled in it and you say let's set a king over us like all the nations

around us, be sure to appoint over you the king, the Lord your God chooses. It continues by warning

against a king acquiring great numbers of horses for himself. He must not take many wives,

nor may he accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. He must write a safer Torah and he is

to read in it all the days of his life so that he may learn to the revere the Lord is God and not consider himself better than his brothers or turn from the law to the right or to the left.

The entire passage is fraught with ambivalence. The dangers are clearly spelled out. There is a risk that the king will exploit his power,

using it to acquire wealth or wives or horses, one of the status symbols of the ancient world.

This is exactly what Solomon is described as doing in the Book of Kings. His heart may be led astray.

He may be tempted to lord it over the people, considering

himself better than his brothers. The most resonant walking note, warning note, is struck at the

outset. Rather than commanding the appointment of a king, the Torah envisages the people

asking for one so that they can be Khokul Hagoyim like

all the nations around us.

This is contrary to the whole spirit of the Torah.

The Israelites were commanded to be different, set apart, counter-cultural.

To what to be like everyone else isn't for the Torah a noble wish, but a failure of imagination

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