Percy Shelly’s 1818 poem “Ozymandias” conveys a timeless message, as important today as it was the day it was published.
The poet tells of a man who saw the ruined statue of a once-powerful king in “an antique land.” The poet employs terms like “trunkless legs” and “shattered visage” to convey the fact that even the statue, which is all that is left of his empire, is a “colossal wreck.”
The inscription reveals a ruler of “cold command” and great vanity: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings/Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” The poem concludes with a great irony:” Nothing beside remains …The lone and level sands stretch far away.” The fact that Ozymandias was based on a real person, an Egyptian pharaoh named Ramesses II who ruled Egypt for 67 years in the 1200s BCE, grounds the story in the real world as well as the world of the imagination. The history is information, but the poetry conveys more than the facts: It emphasizes the contrast between the powerful, vain king and his pitiful end. It transforms the historical event into an experience that is personal, visceral and relevant.
If Ozymandias and his kind are pathetic in the eyes of history, if even the most powerful end up powerless and the greatest empires collapse, what matters? What is of lasting value? The Torah proposes another vision of leadership and life. The Torah is the archetype of the ideal society and moral order—universal values implemented by a humble leader dedicated to the welfare of all, who recognizes the ultimate Sovereign, the Source of all true power.
I never understood the repeated emphasis on the glory of God throughout the Jewish prayer service until I reread “Ozymandias.” The variations and repetitions in the prayer service are striking. Much of the service is dedicated to the acknowledgement and the praise of the sovereignty of God, for example Psalm 118:8 (“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust mortals”) and Psalm 146:3 (“Put not your trust in the great, in mortals who cannot save”). Reading Ozymandias again in the context of world history made me understand the goal and wisdom of the sages who compiled the service. Glory-seeking kings of ancient times and power-hungry politicians of today, with no probity, honor, integrity or compassion, have always been a danger to society.
The rabbis who compiled the service, davening, opposed the vicious and destructive cycle of tyrants with the idea of one God of the Torah, a loving God with universal laws focused on the dignity of the individual and the intrinsic worth of the ordinary person. To acknowledge the sovereignty of the Divine source of all time and space, biblical law stands as a rebuke to the earthly kings whose ego and disdain for others diminishes instead of enhances their kingdom of pretensions.
Many individuals can and do conduct themselves with decency, kindness and generosity without religion, but society as a whole needs more than the hope that all will behave righteously. Religion creates community, common ideals and goals. At its best, it is inspiring and affords an opportunity to pass values on to the next generations. The Bible has inspired people for thousands of years and, unlike Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy that “life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” it lays out principles and specific guidelines that give purpose and meaning to life.
Respect, reverence and worship of God, then, are more than a celebration of the Divine. They stand in contrast to the worship of earthly leaders in the past and the present. It is a warning against our own selfish self-centredness and worship of unworthy causes and leaders.
Prayer is a reminder and a warning: a reminder that, except for one trifling exception, the world is made up of others. Each of us is part of a community, and the whole is greater than the part. That is one reason why a quorum is required in order to have a complete prayer service—to reinforce the message that we belong to one another and need one another. We have traditions we share and a history that connects us to our past and our future.
Prayer is a reminder and a warning: a reminder that, except for one trifling exception, the world is made up of others.
The Jewish way, according to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is “the force that makes us look up beyond the physical world, beyond mere survival, in search of meaning, purpose, goal.” Together we pray, together we study, together we seek knowledge and understanding of ourselves and our purpose.
It is important to note that Ozymandias thinks of himself as “the king of kings,” a term the Torah uses to refer to God. Religion asks us to make a choice: the moral framework based on the eternal values that spawned Western civilization or the worship of the vain, the shallow, the mendacious—the Ozymandias in us.
Dr. Paul Socken is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and founder of the Jewish Studies program at The University of Waterloo.
