The meaning of Ben Pazzi’s statement is clear: all the high ideals in the world – the human person as God’s image, belief in God’s unity, and the love of neighbors – count for little until they are turned into habits of action that become habits of the heart. We can all recall moments of insight or epiphany when we suddenly understood what life is about, what greatness is, and how we would like to live. A day, a week, or at most a year later the inspiration fades and becomes a distant memory and we are left as we were before: unchanged.
Judaism’s greatness is that it gave space to both prophet and priest, to inspirational figures on the one hand, and on the other, daily routines – the halacha – that take exalted visions and turn them into patterns of behavior that reconfigure the brain and change how we feel and who we are.
One of the most unusual passages I have ever read about Judaism written by a non-Jew occurs in William Rees-Mogg’s book on macroeconomics, The Reigning Error. Rees-Mogg (1928-2012) was a financial journalist who became editor of The Times, chairman of the Arts Council and vice chairman of the BBC. Religiously he was a committed Catholic.
He begins the book with a completely unexpected paean of praise for halachic Judaism. He explains his reason for doing so. Inflation, he says, is a disease of inordinacy, a failure of discipline, in this case in relation to money. What makes Judaism unique, he says, is its legal system. This has been wrongly criticized by Christians as drily legalistic. In fact, Jewish law was essential for Jewish survival because it “provided a standard by which action could be tested, a law for the regulation of conduct, a focus for loyalty and a boundary for the energy of human nature.”
All sources of energy, most notably nuclear energy, need some form of containment. Without that, they become dangerous. Jewish law has always acted as a container for the spiritual and intellectual energy of the Jewish people. That energy “has not merely exploded or been dispersed; it has been harnessed as a continuous power.” What Jews have, he argues, modern economies lack: a system of self-control that allows economies to flourish without booms and crashes, inflation and recession.
The same applies to leadership. In Good to Great, management theorist Jim Collins argues that what the great companies have in common is a culture of discipline. In Great By Choice he uses the phrase “the 20-mile march,” meaning that outstanding organizations plan for the marathon, not the sprint. Confidence, he says, “comes not from motivational speeches, charismatic inspiration, wild pep rallies, unfounded optimism, or blind hope.” It comes from doing the deed, day after day, year after year. Great companies use disciplines that are specific, methodical and consistent. They encourage their people to be self-disciplined and responsible. They do not overreact to change, be it for good or bad. They keep their eye on the far horizon. Above all, they do not depend on heroic, charismatic leaders who at best lift the company for a while but do not provide it with the strength-in-depth they need to flourish in the long run.
The classic instance of the principles articulated by Burns, Rees-Mogg and Collins is the transformation that occurred between Ki Tisa and Acharei Mot, between the first Yom Kippur and the second, between Moses’ heroic leadership and the quiet, understated priestly discipline of an annual day of repentance and atonement.
Turning ideals into codes of action that shape habits of the heart is what Judaism and leadership are about. Never lose the inspiration of the prophets, but never lose, either, the routines that turn ideals into acts and dreams into achieved reality.