ABSTRACT
Charismatic authority-authority by reason of the gifts of the spirit —takes many forms. But for any Judaism, charisma attests to one basis for demanding conformity: God’s will expressed in the word of a holy person, and holiness would be validated by supernatural attestation. Hence, for a Judaism, the model of charismatic authority coincided with the model of political authority, namely, the person of Moses, ruler and prophet at once. And what made Moses charismatic was his supernatural gifts, on the one side, and the repeated allegation that the laws that he set forth in the Torah were dictated to him at Mount Sinai by God: “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them…” forming the definitive statement of matters. Not only so, but a long line of prophets from Moses forward likewise spoke in God’s name and on that basis demanded that people obey their instructions.
