100 Days in Office

Dear Erica,

Today marks President Obama’s first 100 days in office. Do you think that 100 days is a measure of anything significant? Do we have any such concept within the Jewish world?
On the Hill

Dear On the Hill (at least you’re not Over the Hill),

That’s a fascinating question and one that deserves an introspective answer. This demarcation emerged during FDR’s presidency at a time when the pundits and the public first felt entitled to weigh in on whether or not the president was moving in the direction of his party and his goals. But is a 100 days enough time or the right amount of time to gauge a person’s leadership? Obama himself said in a Times interview in January that this mark of time is artificial:"The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference." On the one hand, it would be easy to say that’s just creating protective cover. You can tell in the first months a lot about the way that a leader communicates, his or her level of transparency and the way in which they use advisors and outside resources of wisdom and advice. But what you can’t tell is the long-term impact of new laws or how complex change is or how much history is wrapped in any decision that generates obstacles to future changes. There is no concept of a hundred days within Jewish tradition. Arguably, we take the long view on everything. After all, what’s a hundred years in the Jewish calendar? Small change. And that brings me to my last point. President Obama’s first hundred days coincides with Israel’s 61st Independence Day. We may be fewer than a hundred years old from a statehood perspective but we’re thousands of years old as a central project of the Jewish people. Now that’s a lot of time, and the country’s accomplishments required and require a lot of leadership. But that’s for another conversation.