Rabbi Sacks zt’’l had prepared a full year of Covenant & Conversation for 5781, based on his book “Lessons in Leadership.” The parsha of Shoftim is the classic source of the three types of leadership in Judaism, called by the Sages the “three crowns”: of priesthood, kingship and Torah.[1] This is the first statement in history of the principle, set out in the 18th-century by Montesquieu in “L’Esprit des Lois” (The Spirit of Laws) and later made fundamental to the American Constitution, of “the separation of powers.”[2] Power, in the human arena, is to be divided and distributed, not concentrated in a single person or office.
Maimonides holds that the appointment of a king is an obligation, Ibn Ezra that it is a permission, Abarbanel that it is a concession, and Rabbenu Bachya that it is a punishment.