This is Russia

(center: the richest Jew of Russia, Roman Abramovich)

Back in the day, I commented on a post by TRS on the Basement Blogging. Somebody asked where the phrase “I am the law” comes from, and I answered:

Re: “I am the law” — It’s the motto of absolutist monarchy.

L’État c’est Moi (“I am the State”), attributed to Louis XIV. It means that he is France. Not he is the servant of French society (American model). Not French people serve him, and he rules over French society (more tempered monarchist model). He IS France, and France is he. They are one and the same. And, as a result, he is the law, the first and the last.

An extremely powerful idea. I don’t know if this is how Judaism views the Jewish king (seems not), but this is a great moshul for, lehavdil, relationship between Hashem and the Universe (and Torah). It’s not that Hashem is separate from the Universe and rules over it (and provides us instructions in Torah). The Universe is an aspect of Hashem, and Torah is Hashem. V’dal.

In reality, Louis XIV probably said: Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours (“I depart, but the State shall always remain”). Which is not to say he didn’t believe the above — but he probably believed it in the sense that he was bottul to the State, and as a result, he became the State, and the State became him — his whole definition of himself was that of France, French society, French state and its ruler (and vice versa, at least ideally, the direction in which the France was going was the exact direction in which the King saw fit.)

In this sense, the definition of the monarch still exists even today. Queen Elizabeth II sees herself as the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom and Blah-blah-blah. That is her essence, the identity and everyday reality. She puts on shoes, because it fits her role as the sovereign of the Commonwealth. She goes to vacation in Belmoral, because she physically needs vacation in order to function as a human sovereign of the Commonwealth.

Now, since she is a bit more modest than the Louis, and British are smarter than French (not just British of today relative to French of Louis’s time, but in general), the Queen delegates her powers and aspects of her “statehood” to her ministers, to the arch-bishop, she (officially) takes the laws passed by the Parliament under advisement (although nowadays, she just signs them). All of this has become part of tradition to preserve the state of monarchy and at the same time allow UK function as a modern state, but at least in principle, the queen very much is the State.

Whether politically or socially the two systems of monarchy make sense (I personally think they both are ridiculous, and despite the cuteness of the British system, it still costs tremendous amount of people’s money), the last second is a great moshol for a chossid.

In short, because everything Louis XIV said was the law, he could say about himself that he was France.

Well, friends, this is Russia:



In particular:



In particular:



The pictures are from the photo-reportáge by Norvezhsky-Lesnoi of the graduation ceremony at Moscow School of Oligar… I mean, Management.