Today, let’s consider the effectiveness of two different methods of goal achievement. We are dedicated to walking in the ways pleasing to our maker, knowing that this is the key to personal, family and national or community success and fulfillment. In order to establish methods to that end we must choose between many established models. YHWH designed a constitutional theocracy with judges who were to be chosen from the honorable elders of each tribe (family). Our people made, in my opinion, a great mistake choosing instead a human king. The by-laws stipulated that a king was required to painstakingly copy the Torah by his own hand. Even this measure did not insure that this human would not show favoritism and would always deal evenhandedly.

    Let us begin by studying two very different management strategies.

Preacher religions: (princes who establish fiefdoms)

    When most of us started we dealt with a top down management strategy wherein careful control was believed to be essential. Many of you came out of one protestant domination or another where that particular sect was held in esteem over all others. My background was in Roman Catholicism where brain bending indoctrination was a practiced art. All questions had established and written answers. ‘The Church says’, was something all of us could quote easily by the second or third year of catechism study. So I, and my school mates, had all the answers by age nine. This is top down management in its most rigid emanation.

    My cousins on the other hand suffered a similar mind bending fate but at the fringes of the Rabbis. My dear friend and second cousin was all to willing to tell me about ‘Moshe’s seat’. He told how it was ordained by HaShem. He gloried in the fact that the Rabbinical system alone had the power to establish correct interpretation. The Talmud quotes:

Michna Sanhedrin (11:3), which teaches that "It is more wicked to question the words of the rabbis than those of the Torah." To this is added: "Whosoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell." (See also Erubin 21b.)

    This sounded pretty much the same to me as the claims of all the other dominations.

    So in my quest to discover truth when I came to question the questions and all of the stock answers, I found myself only converting to some other top down structure. After throwing myself out of enough churches I finally began to question this top down structure as carefully as these various doctrines and dogmas. YHWH tells us we are not to put our faith in man. We can see man weakly falling back from assent with Moshe. Later, man demanded a human ruler, a king. Aren’t all these different ways of putting trust in man rather than YHWH?

Isa 40:10-12

10 See, our Sovereign YHWH comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.

11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?

Again:

Ps 23:1

YHWH is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

    If YHWH calls Himself our Shepherd why would we seek a religion or a man to be our shepherd?

    A Torah obedient management alternative:

    Now to the details in which, is said, the devil dwells.

    In these times, who do we turn to and how do we relate to human management? If we desire a community and build it on Torah, who among us is ordained to lead? Do we have a Moshe or a Yahoshua (Joshua), a Saul or a David? We, because our forefathers disobeyed do not possess the kingdom. YHWH may rule only if we chose to obey His written will (Torah). What then? What of our day to day activities? If our neighbor’s teenager is rebellious and refuses to submit to Torah we surely do NOT have the power to execute. However we CAN expel the offender from our camp.

Deut 21:20-21

20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is morally repugnant and a drunkard."

21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

This principle is oft repeated.

    A system of judges or elders had the special approval of Yahh because top down management may be correct but only when the One who sits in that seat is our Sovereign YHWH. His law and His will is recorded in Torah. We can build a management structure using Torah but first we must commit to a proposition that we do not have the answers. We don’t even know all the questions. A beneficial Leadership might be derived by a court of elders. Decisions of consequence would need be consensual within this community of covenanted brothers. Challenges to their judgment could be made publicly then their rulings could be amended or reversed if new understanding was found. This would be a lateral rather than a vertical structure until the seat of power is revealed by the Holy of Holies. Torah could stand as our constitution and declaration of dependence until He becomes our earthly Sovereign.

In my opinion any top down structure with mortal man at the top would,

one,

suffer from micro management and be limited to the insight, wisdom, energy of one individual.

two,

    It might well engender a strong man concept that could endanger the best interests of the members of the community.

    This has been an exercise in ‘writing out loud’. And please take this as only a beginning of study. His Torah is the foundational document of a nation of free, prosperous, hard working, land holding citizens who served YHWH and each other in loving justice. I pray we can do likewise.

    We invite your input and an open discussion of this most critical subject.