We love the flash of brilliant insight, the devastating quip, the broad permanent smile, the warm embrace and the hero worship that characterize the person who possesses that elusive quality of charisma. Charisma, unlike scholarship and moral values, cannot be taught. One either has it or one does not. Yet, like all other seeming blessings, charisma carries within it seeds of self-destruction.

 

The charismatic personality is likely to succumb to the temptation of believing all of the adulation showered upon him or her. In the triumphant parades of the Roman emperors, a servant rode along in the emperor’s chariot and whispered to him amidst the din of the cheering throngs a reminder of his past failings and future mortality.

 

Alas, judging by Roman history this seems to have had little effect on most of the Roman emperors. Believing in one’s own charismatic qualities builds one’s ego to ferocious heights. And an inflated ego always leads to downfall and personal defeat. It allows the guilty to eventually believe in their own perfect innocence and to expect others to do so as well. Prideful haughtiness goes before a fall, opined King Solomon long ago. Prideful haughtiness is very often a byproduct of the charismatic personality. 

 

My grandfather was a student at the great Yeshiva in Volozhin, in the years of its greatness, before it was closed by the Czar’s police at the instigation of certain Jewish maskilim – “enlightened ones” – of the time. He told me that the student body was divided between devotees of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the Rosh Yeshiva of the school and scholars who followed the innovative Talmudic methodology of his grandson-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik.

 

Rabbi Chaim’s methodology and personality was far more attractive and charismatic than was that of Rabbi Berlin. Rabbi Berlin’s educational philosophy relied far more on diligent study and wide knowledge than on brilliant insight and analytical distinctions. However, in fact, Rabbi Chaim’s analytic approach in Talmudic scholarship became the mainstay of the educational process of the Lithuanian-style yeshivot even till our day.

 

Nevertheless my grandfather told me that Rabbi Berlin and Rabbi Chaim both warned their students against being overzealous or over loyal to either of them or to their different approaches to Talmudic study and analysis. Both realized the dangers that lurk with charismatic people and new study methods, and attempted to ameliorate any of its negative effects.

 

Charismatic people are hard to imitate and those who do so run the risk of misrepresenting the very hero that they attempt to adore. Realizing that all humans have clay feet, even charismatic and brilliant people, was always a tenet of the great teachers of Israel. We are taught in the Bible: “there is no righteous person in this world who is only good and does not fall into error or sin.” And so it is. 

 

We are always in search of the charismatic leader whether it is in politics, finance or religion. We want excitement and flash, the hare and not the tortoise. But it has been proven over and over again that it is the tortoise that wins the race. The hare for one reason or another usually disappoints and dismays us over time.

 

All of the false prophets and fake messiahs in Jewish history were tremendously charismatic people. Unfailingly, they all led to personal and societal disaster. The rabbis always emphasized the non-charismatic personality of our teacher Moshe. Modest beyond description, hampered by a speech defect, he emerges as the supreme teacher of Israel and of all of humankind.

 

They emphasized that the Torah was meant to stand on its own worthiness and not on the basis of Moshe’s personality and oratorical skills. And in spite of Moshe’s unequalled accomplishments and spiritual greatness he is always portrayed for us in the Torah as a human being with all that this phrase entails.

 

Bilaam had flash and charisma. Moshe had morals and little ego. Bilaam is remembered in shame and guilt. Moshe is remembered in eternity and grateful awe. I am all in favor of having charismatic people in the Jewish world. But caution is always the watchword in dealing with charisma lest it leads to later disillusion and disappointment.

 

Shabat shalom