Guest AuthorOnce upon a time — so goes a Jewish folk tale — in the small town of Belz in Poland, the Yom Kippur fast became a trying ordeal for the pious congregants. Normally, Yom Kippur is a solemn occasion.
On this day each year God judges us to life or death with irreversible finality. No more prayers, nighttime recitation of psalms, no more opportunities to bring food to the poor, or stuffing the charity box. Today the hand of God descends with justice for the innocent and the guilty alike.
But on this particular Yom Kippur in Beltz, people were exceptionally anxious. They sat in their pews, engulfed in white prayer shawls, their heads bent in prayer, the pits of their stomachs growling with hunger and dread. You see, this year a terrible epidemic was raging through the town — perhaps even the country or, God forbid, the whole wide world. Scores of people dropped dead every day — good, righteous people, people who deserved to be judged to life! So why would the Lord’s judgment be death for all?
Perhaps their saintly leader, Rabbi Gaon, who has led them through many joys and tragedies, will tell them what to do. And then he appeared on the podium, dressed in pure white as befits this day, his grey beard neatly trimmed, and his gait as straight as ever. Suddenly, he is joined on the stage by the sexton, who brings in a table covered with a white tablecloth, and on it a plate of roast chicken with mashed potatoes. Next to the plate he sets down a glass of tea. Not saying a word, the rabbi sits down, eats his meal, and drinks the tea. The men stare at this spectacle in astonishment.
The rabbi finishes, wipes his lips with a napkin, and stands up. “My friends,” he addresses the congregation, “there is a terrible disease raging in town, and in order to fight it we must remain strong. The Lord knows that this is not a time to fast and He will forgive this transgression. Go home, sit down with your families, and have a nourishing meal. Keep up your strength so you may stay alive!”
And that’s precisely what we in America need today: a leader with the imagination and courage to eat on Yom Kippur! Do I think we have one? No, I don’t. Do you? I wonder.
We have two epidemics: one material, and one spiritual. The disease is called Ebola and, with enough nourishment in the form of medicines, smarts, technology and grit, we can defeat it. But the spiritual disease or, to borrow from President Jimmy Carter’s lexicon, the malaise of the soul, which is spreading as fast as the virus, is much harder to conquer. It may even rob us of the enthusiasm and energy needed to battle the real scourge.
America’s reputation in the world over the past 100 years was built on the belief that here “things work.” I know this for sure. I’ve lived in many hapless societies, in which people knew that in America “things work out.”
We don’t believe it anymore and the world does not believe it about us.
We, the eternal optimists, feel lousy about ourselves.
For example: when politicians demanded that President Barack Obama appoint a “czar” to lead us in fighting Ebola, he appointed an apparatchik. His name, we were told, is Ron Klain. Ron who? A few of us Googled him, but most didn’t bother.
Leadership is a mysterious quality. You cannot learn it, or wield it by proxy. I wonder if we understand this. For instance: when Democratic Senate candidate Allison Grimes from Kentucky refused to answer who she had voted for president, the media “heads” asked: Who is running her? And when Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, in a tantrum, for seven minutes refused to come on stage because of the presence of a fan beneath Charlie Crist’s podium, a media pundit asked: Who the hell is advising Scott?
What a disgrace! Not only do we lack leaders, but we lack the intellectuals who might sense what leadership ought to be!
Rachel Patron is a former opinion columnist for the Sun-Sentinel. She resides in Boca Raton and is at work on a contemporary American novel. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
