The Blessing of Being Leaderless

There are many things that distinguish Judaism from other religious traditions, but the one that stands out to me these days is how profoundly leaderless we are.

Of course we have leaders in the ordinary sense—people elected or appointed to fill necessary roles. But I mean leadership in the grander, spiritual sense. Jews have no representative of the Divine on earth, no equivalent of a Pope. We have no model of divinely-sanctioned human behavior—no Jesus, no Muhammad, no Buddha. And that's been our blessing.

Our biblical leaders—Abraham, Moses, David—were remarkable, inspired figures, but they were also deeply flawed and recognized as such. Their stories are as much about failure as fulfillment. They made serious mistakes even while carrying out their divine assignments, sometimes precisely because of those assignments. Almost none of them wanted the job in the first place.

This has given Jews a healthy skepticism of leadership and a realistic view of human nature. It may also be one of the qualities that has irritated others about us for centuries. Paired with our spiritual self-regard as a “chosen people,” our refusal to bow down—even to ultimate authority—has not always endeared us to the nations.

It’s hard being a leaderless people.

Some modern Jewish movements have tried to soften the disadvantages of this leaderlessness by creating their own leaders. Hasidism is the clearest example. Founded by the Baal Shem Tov in the 18th century, Hasidism responded to the political upheavals, intellectual elitism, and assimilation pressures in Eastern Europe.

The irony is that the Baal Shem Tov himself seems to have had no interest in becoming a leader. His teachings emphasize the holiness of ordinary life and the spiritual capacity of every individual. He believed that divine understanding was accessible not only through sacred texts but through the simple act of living with a full, open heart. If anything, he preached the opposite of perfection: humility, commonness, the sacred everyday.

And yet stories proliferated—of miracles, healing, mysticism. Over time, the pedestal formed. In several Hasidic groups, the elevation of rabbis to quasi-messianic figures took on a life of its own. Lubavitch, for instance, met the challenges of modernity by embracing a vigorous, outward-facing messianism centered on Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson.

Historically, we find messianism in Judaism ascendant in times of political crisis and spiritual upheaval. The original form of messianism in Judaism evolved into Christianity at the time of the Roman conquest of Judea and the destruction of the Second Temple. There were other moments of messianic fervor such as the so-called false messiah Sabbatai Tzvi who developed a personal following in response to the Khmelnytsky Massacres, which reportedly killed tens of thousands of Jews, and devastated the Jewish world. 

When messianism is on the rise, you know we're in deep trouble. 

The core message of Judaism, though, is that no one is coming to save us. Responsibility rests with each of us individually, and all of us collectively. If Judaism has a hero, it isn’t a king or a prophet; it’s the people themselves, the ragged, imperfect multitude that stood at Sinai and has been wrestling with what it all means ever since.

Whenever we place our faith in a single leader—even a charismatic or comforting one—it signals desperation and a retreat from personal responsibility. And whenever a leader tries to convince us that someone else is to blame for our problems, we should remember this: Living life is a profoundly lonely and mysterious individual experience, but we’re all in the same boat. So at the very least, we have each other.