Rishon Rishon

Rules that set you free

Two Jews, three opinions. This is one of the many Jewish stereotypes you hear in the US. In fact, a glance at a Jewish social function (if the participants haven’t been too Americanized, which is getting harder to find these days): a wedding, a synagogue service, etc. and you will see what looks like chaos. JST: Jewish Standard Time, means you never know when anything will start, or how long it will take. But there’s another stereotype that I hear a lot: Jews, they really know how to organize themselves! Can both stereotypes have some truth to them? If so, what does it mean?

Observant Jews are required to pray three times a day: morning, afternoon, and evening. When ten or more Jews are together, they are required to conduct their prayers communally. It is a remarkable thing to see the formation of a minyan (prayer group) among people who don’t know each other – in airports, hotels, etc. It’s a seemingly spontaneous crystallization of a previously amorphic structure – which breaks up as soon as the prayers are finished. I have seen teenagers do the same thing, demonstrating an impressive level of maturity for their age. How does it happen? It happens because there are specific rules which everyone knows, which determine the process. A shaliah sibur (public emissary) needs to be selected to lead the prayers. Usually there’s some jostling as people volunteer each other, but I’ve never seen people fight about it. Once that happens, his nusakh (version) of the prayers determines the version for the minyan as a whole. The rules are somewhat more detailed (for example, if a mourner is present, he is selected to be the shaliah sibur), but the specifics aren’t important for this discussion. My point is that since the rules are standardized, and everybody knows them, a randomly formed group becomes self-organizing.

In fact, this is the nature of Judaism in all aspects. As I have said before, Judaism is not a faith-based religion. What is it then? It’s a rule-based religion. An observant Jew follows 613 commandments (misvot). A very wide range of theological opinions is tolerated within Judaism – as long as you observe the commandments. (There are, however a few articles of faith, the most important being belief in one God. Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith represents a consensus, but not universal, view.)

Moreover, Judaism is one of the last traditional religions. By this I mean a couple of related things. First, it is traditional in the sense that we mean when we speak of traditional cultures – at one time, all of the world’s cultures were traditional. Traditional cultures view wisdom as being contained primarily in the tribe’s traditions, and maintain explicit institutions for preserving them. Second, Judaism is traditional in the sense that its roots go back to prehistoric times: It has no one founder who imparted a unified (synthetic) set of ideas through which to view the world. Instead, its principles are united in an organic sense – they work together to create a lifestyle that satisfies the individual and preserves the community. (Though, since they are based on something real – human nature, they are subject to logical analysis. The logic is just a bit more complex than that of synthetic religions.)

Taken together, these three characteristics lead to an organic worldview. Though Israelis in general, and Israelis in high-tech in specific, are for the most part not religiously observant, the historic Jewish worldview persists. Israelis tend to assume that random groups will organize themselves – not break up and scatter. Israeli culture is egalitarian in the extreme – Israelis tend to have little respect for authority, not because they are anti-authority, but more because they don’t tend to pay much attention to it. (In the high-tech world you hear complaints about making presentations to Israelis – they’re always debating and asking questions. Personally, I always found it much harder to present to Japanese, who give no feedback at all. But then, I’m used to Israelis.) In spite of this, Israelis are easy to manage, not by giving orders but by making rules and setting goals (goals are actually a kind of rule: achieve this goal). Goals define the task, while rules make sure that the parts system, and the people building it, can work together. This is the way to mange for innovation, for high-tech. It’s necessary, because you never know, when you start out, exactly what you need to do. You have to rely on the initiative and creativity of your employees, but they also have to be able to work together.