"No Kings" misses the point. Trump doesn't think he's king - he thinks he's God.
On June 14, we should call them "No Kings - and No Messiah" rallies. For Trump is not a messiah. He is the worst form of idolator.
This is a companion piece to my prior Substack: What June 14 will mean for America. That one focused on how a military parade in Washington D.C. will desecrate our nation’s most sacred spaces. This one speaks to the theme of the rallies nationwide that day: No Kings.
I look forward to seeing some old friends next Friday night, June 13 (the eve of the rallies), when I’ll be speaking at Temple Beth El in Stamford.
On June 14, while the president is basking in the glow of huge rolling birthday cakes with turrets on the streets of Washington D.C., it is expected that millions of Americans will be rallying all over the country in over a thousand protests to proclaim “No Kings!” It will be a powerful response to the authoritarian excesses of the first half year of the Trump presidency, as well as his constant reference to wanting the divine rights of a sovereign, which does not include term limits.
But as Politico proclaimed in a longform feature last week, Trump’s delusions have gone way beyond the monarchical. He doesn’t just think he’s king. Trump thinks he’s God.
The piece explained why this matters:
For a while now, a roster of religious believers and leaders, grateful for the political victories Trump has bestowed in exchange for their votes, have suggested and sometimes outright said that Trump is “chosen,” or “anointed,”or a “savior,” or “the second coming” or “the Christ for this age.” Now, though, Trump does it, too.
And that matters. It matters, some say, because it highlights how his well-documented narcissism and grandiosity has metastasized into notions of omnipotence, invincibility and infallibility. And it matters maybe most immediately because it offers a window into how he is approaching his second term — even more emboldened, even more unilaterally oriented, even more apparently uncheckable and untouchable than the first. “I run the country and the world,” he said last month. “I’d like to be pope,” he said — kind of joking, but … kind of not? — before he and the White House posted on social media an AI image of himself adorned in archetypal papal attire.
See also: In his second inaugural address, Donald Trump spoke as a dictator, not as a president (Jennifer Mercieca): 1
It is bad enough when leaders become delusional and believe they are kings. It is infinitely more dangerous when they think they’ve been sent here as divine saviors. Trump has developed a messiah complex.
Monarchy was not the preferred form of government in ancient Judaism. But in that world kings were a given, so the Bible developed ways to rein in kings (pun intended), so that, at least in theory, things wouldn’t get out of hand.
In Deuteronomy, the instructions get quite specific.
Not “too many” wives, lest his heart go astray.
Not excessive silver and gold.
It’s not known whether this verse refers to porn stars and bitcoin. Or Qatari planes. But clearly Deuteronomy has it’s own version of the Emoluments Clause in mind.
As Jewish law developed over the centuries, the restrictions on monarchs expanded. Maimonides devoted an entire section of his Code of Jewish Law (Mishna Torah) to Laws of Kings. Maimonides elaborates on the potential for corruption in that book:
You can see other relevant verses from Deuteronomy in the notes below. 2
Basing his rulings on Deuteronomy, Maimonides states that the king is not allowed to act “haughtily toward his fellows.” He must be “compassionate,” “unpretentious” and “extremely modest.” OK, that’s not happening….
And he must rule by the book - literally. The Torah needs to be by his side at all times. In fact, he is required to write a copy of his own.3 Maimonides adds that if the monarch’s predecessor didn’t leave him a Torah scroll or if it was lost, he has to write two Torah scrolls.
The prophet Samuel begged the people to go in a different direction when they asked for a king. But he eventually relented, and King David, for all his faults, is one of the most beloved figures in Jewish history. So it’s not that all kings are bad, or, as in the case of David, that a sinning king can’t seek forgiveness and find redemption. Still, the ancient sages had mixed feelings at best about the governments they had to endure, understanding what Edmund Burke would later articulate, that that the greater the power, the greater the potential for abuse.
Two more restrictions from Deut. 17 are pertinent to June 14. The king can’t have an obsession with ostentatious displays of modern weaponry, which then meant horses but now means tanks on Constitution Ave. And he can’t send the people back to Egypt - with or without valid student visas and due process.
King to Pope to Messiah to God.
Kings have come and kings have gone. But as I indicated up top, for Trump. the monarchy is just a way-station on the path to immortality. He has laid his path clearly before us: King to Pope to Messiah to God. He believes he is a god. He has a messiah complex. And that makes him uniquely dangerous.
Jews know from our history that false messiahs, from Bar Kochba to Shabbtai Zvi to Jacob Frank, always turn out disastrously (I’ll leave Jesus out of it for now).4 The Talmudic rabbis also understood this and, when given the choice, almost always opted for “Apocalypse Later.”
The Talmud states, “If you are planting a tree and the Messiah comes to the gates of the city, finish planting the tree, then go out to greet him.” It makes sense to finish planting the tree, for two reasons. 1) If the Messiah turns out to be Al Gore you’ll get some real environmentalist brownie points. And 2), because in rabbinic Judaism, the Messiah’s actual coming is beside the point.
For the rabbis, the key to waiting for the Messiah was the waiting itself.
They understood how dangerous it is when messianism gets out of hand. That’s why it’s called messianism: because things get so messy - and the Judaism that they created was expressly designed to prevent that from happening. The early rabbis following the destruction of the second temple had seen the dangers of messianism run amok at least twice in their lifetimes, with the rise of early Christianity and with the Bar Kochba rebellion of the year 132, when hundreds of thousands died in the hopes that Bar Kochba, true to the name Rabbi Akiva gave him, would indeed turn out to be the son of a star. Things did not end well.
But the rabbis didn’t dare eliminate the messianic strain entirely from Jewish tradition. The belief in some sort of end of days, the ultimate goal of a perfect world, a Nirvana - is essential to all spiritual quests. So while we dare not eliminate speculation about the Messiah, nonetheless, authentic traditional Judaism falls squarely on the side of caution. There is no urgent compulsion to reach the end of days.
Elie Wiesel pointed out that there is no word in ancient Hebrew for “history,” no such concept in the Bible. “For us,” he said, “end of times is not an apocalyptic event, it’s a redemptive event.” When redemption is removed from history, it becomes ever-present. The renewal that we should experience each morning is itself redemptive. And in our prayers, Jews praise God as “the One who renews each day the work of Creation.”
Apocalypse later. Plant a tree now. Feed the hungry now. Kiss your child now. Smile now. Be filled with wonder and gratitude at the reborn world, now.
That is how we can help redeem the world.
Mainstream Jews (as opposed to religious zealots) tend to downplay the idea of Apocalypse, focusing less on one grand redemption than in a series of small redemptive events – each and every day. The way we can help redeem the world is to make it a little less fanatic. The way we can help bring the messiah, ironically, is to make the world a little less messiah-crazed, to see the kingdom of heaven in the here and now. Right here, right now.
The way we can bring about redemption is to make sure that our leaders don’t raise themselves above the realm of the human. When our leaders (God forbid) believe they are God’s chosen - or even just pretend to believe it - they are engaging in the most dangerous and blasphemous form of idolatry imaginable, the worship of self.
Trump is not a messiah. He is the worst form of idolator.
That is where Trump is at right now, and that is waaay beyond thinking he’s a king.
Ani Ma’amin be’munah shlayma – I believe with a fullness of faith, that there will be redemption and that it will be sweet – it will just not be now.
Rabbi Meir of Premishlan said, “If the Messiah wants to come quietly and politely, then we shall wait for him. If he wants to come in fits and throes, then let him wait and bide his time.”
And if anyone who presumes to lead this country, or any country, assumes the mantle of divine authority and blessing, that notion must be emphatically rejected by the people. No American president has so coldly identified himself with messianic salvation since the founding of this nation. People of faith need to band together to proclaim, “No Kings - and No Messiahs too!”
I believe with a complete faith, that WHATEVER TRUMP IS TRYING TO PULL, GOD DOES NOT WANT THIS.
See the words of Proverbs 8, traditionally ascribed to a King Solomon. The speaker here is Wisdom, which is often anthropomorphized in that book.
I’m casting my vote for Wisdom over Trump. And, if three thousand years of biblical wisdom is to be believed, so is God.
Here’s a pdf packet of source materials on Messiah and Messianism in Judaism, which I compiled for an Intro to Judaism class. And below that is a video of the class session itself, on God and Messiah.
From the article: “Trump didn’t place the nation under God’s care to limit his power—as previous presidents have done—but to enlarge it. No previous president in American history has claimed that he was saved by God to enact his political agenda. Invoking the power of the unified people and God gives Trump an awesome and unquestionable power—whoever defies Trump is at risk of defying the people and God. It’s impossible to argue against Trump when he claims the power of God is behind his policies.”
Deut 17:
Here’s a partial list of false messiahs. See also: Wikipedia - False Messiah Claimants. See also my Substack piece about Jacob Frank: The Worst Jew Ever is Having a Moment
I really like your essays, Rabbi! Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
I treasure your teaching here. Thank you.