There was recently a fairly bruising primary election here in Israel for leadership of the Labor Party, the main current opposition faction in the Israeli Knesset. As is always the case in electioneering, the two candidates made many solemn promises to their voters. “Vote for me and I promise you that I will do great things for you and for our party,” was their mantra.

 

Of course we all know that it is apparently impossible to be elected if one has not strewn the electoral landscape with promises. But by now any voter with a modicum of sense knows or should know not to believe in the promises of political candidates.

 

As the cynic so wisely noted, promises are made in order to be broken. Rabin was elected because he promised to smite the PLO “foot and thigh.” Instead, he brought them back from Tunisian exile and installed them in corrupt power until today. Peres promised us a new Middle East, a veritable Garden of Eden. But it is the old Sunni-Shiite Middle East that still confronts us and the rest of the Western world.

 

Sharon promised to defend Israel’s right to build anywhere in the Land of Israel and instead evacuated Gaza causing wars, deaths and untold privations to thousands of innocent hapless Israeli citizens. Obama promised Americans that under his health plan law they could keep their current health insurance policies. That has been proven to be blatantly untrue.

 

The elder George Bush promised not to raise taxes – “read my lips,” he famously said – but when in office he did raise taxes no matter what his lips said. The list of broken diplomatic, military, legislative and governmental promises made and broken is endless.

 

Our prime minister now promises us that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. I hope and pray that he is able somehow to keep that promise. But I am wary of any human promises. Humans are oftentimes unable to fulfill their promises, no matter how well intentioned they were when first proposed.

 

The Talmud warns against making a promise to a child and not fulfilling that promise - thereby teaching the child that it is acceptable to lie. So, great caution should be employed when making promises. The observant Jew always qualifies one’s stated commitment to others with the statement bli neder, (without a vow intended) which, in effect, softens the promise and weakens the commitment.

 

It at least allows for the entrance of unforeseen circumstances that may not allow the promise to be actualized. This is not meant as a cunning loophole to escape the fulfillment of one’s word. Rather it is an admittance of human frailty and impotence in the face of the unknown and ever changing future.

 

Who truly knows what tomorrow may bring. The Psalmist had it right when he wrote “There are many plans in the hearts of humans but only God’s plan will truly arise.” We are always thwarted by uncertainty and unpredictability.  

 

All of this should engender within every one of us, and especially in those that purport to be our leaders, a sense of humility and caution. That is one of the ideas that lies behind the words of the rabbis that “the words of the wise should be said softly.”

 

The wise have also too often been found to have been mistaken in their assessment of the future and even in their own capabilities to influence that future. I am always skeptical of those who claim that they can somehow read God’s mind, so to speak.

 

Caution in behavior and in speech always pays dividends. Promises easily made are a sign of arrogance and hubris. Great people who assume leadership roles must have some smattering of arrogance within them. The Talmud allotted to them one-sixty-fourth portion of arrogance in their personality makeup. But, that is a limitation that few in political leadership can confine themselves to.

 

It is arrogance that leads to scandal and criminal behavior amongst the high and mighty. One views one’s self as being above the law. And this is in the main due to the attempt to fulfill unattainable goals and foolishly made promises. In England’s darkest hour, Winston Churchill promised his people only blood, sweat and tears.

 

That promise was fulfilled but it was the promise that brought victory to the Allies in World War II. Hitler promised a thousand year Reich. Khrushchev promised that the Soviet Union would bury the Western democracies. As is true in most areas of human life less is more – as it is with promises as well.

 

Shabat shalom

 

Berel Wein