Venue: Cong. Ahavat Achim (Fair Lawn, NJ) Cong. Ahavat Achim (Fair Lawn, NJ)

Machshava:

Leadership 

Description

On President's Day, we examined the notion of separation of powers as it appears in Federalist 51 (written by James Madison), and compared it to a couple of Jewish precedents from the period of the Rishonim. In so doing, we tentatively suggest a distinction between the two notions: for Madison, separation of powers is about putting a check on human ambition, while for Torah sources, separation is about maintaining the independence of different roles, with the true check on human power coming from adherence to Torah laws.