OCTOBER 14 • 2021 | 37

nor destroy on all My holy
mountain, for the earth will
be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters
cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)
Abraham is without
doubt the most influential
person who ever lived.
Today he is claimed as the
spiritual ancestor of 2.3
billion Christians, 1.8 billion
Muslims and 14 million Jews,
more than half the people
alive today. Yet, he ruled no
empire, commanded no great
army, performed no miracles
and proclaimed no prophecy.
He is the supreme example
in all of history of influence
without power.
Why? Because he was
prepared to be different.
As the sages say, he was
called ha-ivri, “the Hebrew,”
because “all the world was on
one side (be-ever echad) and
he was on the other.”
Leadership, as every leader
knows, can be lonely. Yet you
continue to do what you have
to do because you know that
the majority is not always
right and conventional
wisdom is not always wise.
Dead fish go with the
flow. Live fish swim against
the current. So it is with
conscience and courage. So it is
with the children of Abraham.
They are prepared to challenge
the idols of the age.

EVIL OF CONFORMITY
After the Holocaust, some
social scientists were
haunted by the question of
why so many people were
prepared, whether by active
participation or silent consent,
to go along with a regime that
was committing one of the
great crimes against humanity.
One key experiment was
conducted by Solomon

Asch. He assembled a group
of people, asking them to
perform a series of simple
cognitive tasks. They were
shown two cards, one with a
line on it, the other with three
lines of different lengths, and
asked which was the same size
as the line on the first.
Unbeknown to one
participant, all the others had
been briefed by Asch to give
the correct answer for the
first few cards, and then to
answer incorrectly for most
of the rest. On a significant
number of occasions, the
experimental subject gave
an answer he could see was
wrong because everyone
else had done so. Such is
the power of the pressure to
conform: It can lead us to say
what we know is untrue.
More frightening still was
the Stanford experiment
carried out in the early 1970s
by Philip Zimbardo. The
participants were randomly
assigned roles as guards or
prisoners in a mock prison.
Within days the students
cast as guards were behaving
abusively, some of them
subjecting the “prisoners” to
psychological torture. The
students cast as prisoners
put up with this passively,
even siding with the guards
against those who resisted.
The experiment was called
off after six days, by which
time even Zimbardo had
found himself drawn into

the artificial reality he had
created. The pressure to
conform to assigned roles is
strong enough to lead people
into doing what they know is
wrong.
That is why Abraham, at
the start of his mission, was
told to leave “his land, his
birthplace and his father’s
house,” to free himself from
the pressure to conform.
Leaders must be prepared not
to follow the consensus.
One of the great writers on
leadership, Warren Bennis,
writes in On Becoming a
Leader: “By the time we
reach puberty, the world has
shaped us to a greater extent
than we realize. Our family,
friends and society in general
have told us — by word and
example — how to be. But
people begin to become
leaders at that moment when
they decide for themselves
how to be.”

JEWS AS LEADERS
One reason why Jews have
become, out of all proportion
to their numbers, leaders
in almost every sphere of
human endeavor, is precisely
this willingness to be
different. Throughout the
centuries, Jews have been
the most striking example
of a group that refused to
assimilate to the dominant
culture or convert to the
dominant faith.
One other finding of

Solomon Asch is worth
noting. He noted that when
just one other person was
willing to support the
individual who could see
that the others were giving
the wrong answer, it gave
him the strength to stand
up against the consensus.
That is why, however small
their numbers, Jews created
communities. It is hard to
lead alone, far less hard to
lead in the company of others
even if you are a minority.
Judaism is the counter-
voice in the conversation of
humankind. As Jews, we do
not follow the majority merely
because it is the majority. In
age after age, century after
century, Jews were prepared
to do what Robert Frost
immortalized in his poem The
Road Not Taken:
Two roads diverged in a
wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the
difference.
This is what makes a
nation of leaders.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
served as the chief rabbi of the
United Hebrew Congregations of
the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His
teachings have been made available
to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay
was written in 2014.

DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS

• When Abraham began
his journey, what was he
following, and how was he
leading?

• When is it a good idea to
take the road less traveled
by?

• Does Abraham’s story
inspire you to challenge the
idols of today? If so, what
do you see as today’s idols?

“ABRAHAM IS THE MOST
INFLUENCIAL PERSON WHO EVER
LIVED. YET, HE RULED NO EMPIRE,
PERFORMED NO MIRACLES,
PROCLAIMED NO PROPHECY.”