By Sanford Goodkin

It's good to be Catholic these days. They have a Pope and when one dies, another is voted in by a hundred or so Cardinals, who have the written duty to vote in another one as their leader. How comfortable that must be. But we Jews do not have a pope or even a king. We are a leaderless society. Why is that?

Think of it; is it the prime minister or president of Israel? Is it a head Rabbi somewhere? No, see our problem? We, the oldest continuous religion from which most others are derived, have no leader. God warned us that we shouldn't have a king, for He was our only King, but we wouldn't listen.

Abraham, Moses , and Isaac were not kings. Saul became the first one and must be deemed a failure for he drank too much and was jealous of a harp-player, David, who later became Israel's King, who was followed by King Solomon, a truly wise leader. Following him were a succession of failures who went back to idols and vanity and were replaced by God and we were back
to ground zero. In fact, Christians believe that their King of Kings, Jesus Christ, comes directly from King David. Talk about confusing, for that kingship has lasted more than 2000 years and they control more land than any chosen place,

That's our problem, we look for leaders who are of flesh and forget that the text of leadership is our Torah, which instructs our ethics and reports our history, warts and all.

We are a breed, apart from all others, and can go for centuries without land or leader. We are punished by our God until we are a tiny remnant; we wonder as we wander; we search for clues to our God of mystery which remains as unsatisfactory as trying to figure out Mother Nature. Hmm, do we need a Pope, a King, or a text that instructs on how to be happy by following a
written code, or something?