Mobs have been around since time immemorial. The difference is that today, it’s so much easier to activate them and keep feeding their fire.

It used to be that you needed someone uniquely charismatic to stand on a soapbox in the town square, surrounded by enough agitated people holding torches and pitchforks to get the “party” started.
Today, a well-timed meme or incendiary TikTok video can do the trick. Bored social-media users are constantly on the lookout for a potentially viral story to re-share. Once enough people have viewed it and liked it, and it reaches the threshold of “it must be true,” it takes on a life of its own.
The “mob mentality” is also aptly known as the “herd mentality” because it is an animal behavior, since the hallmark of being human is a person thinking for himself, using his judgment and listening to his own conscience.
The Torah encapsulates this deep truth in the narrative of Creation: all hills, oceans, plants and creatures were created en masse, but Adam was created as an individual.
Groupthink — when people stop thinking like people and start behaving like cattle — is a reality that the true leader needs to deal with in the short term, and strive to eliminate over the long term. True leadership needs to lead with integrity those who follow blindly, but ultimately should inspire people to lead their own lives as thinking-individuals. Demagoguery is not a form of leadership. It is a form of abuse of other people’s temporary stupidity.
This is one of Moshe's final pleas to God before his death — that He should find for the Jewish nation a fitting leader to succeed him.
Apparently, then, as now, there wasn’t a long line of truly qualified candidates to lead us. This acute need drew out of Moshe a poignant prayer from a place of sincere concern. Succession was not an issue he was going to leave to chance.
In the best case scenario, we should all be leaders. Our calling is to be “a kingdom of leaders.” In the worst-case scenario, though, when we act like sheep, we should at least have a shepherd looking out for where we’re going.
Why sheep exactly?
In the wide world of nature, sheep are the prime example of a prey animal. Even the placement of their eyes on the sides of their heads is there to allow them a peripheral vision of up to 306° (depending on the amount of wool around their eyes).
This wide scope is useful for sheep to avoid predators wherever they may be, but as you can imagine, it makes it hard to focus on what's in front of their noses. The herd mentality is the result. A sheep has to trust that if Dolly and Molly are on the move to her left and right, she should probably get going herself.
"Where are we going? Who knows, but let's keep moving!"
This was the cause, in 2005, of 450 sheep plummeting to their deaths in Turkey after the sheep "leading" the herd thought it could walk across a 15-meter deep ravine. About 1500 others followed afterwards, but thankfully their fall was cushioned by the first batch.
The fear of being preyed upon has cultivated in sheep a total concern for what others are doing, and a result, an inability to see for themselves.
If you cannot see for yourself what is ahead of you, you have to rely on what those around you are doing.
Conversely, if you are only focused on those around you, you will never be able to develop the ability to see for yourself.
This is problem that plagues us at the national level as much as it does on the individual level. What will others say? What will others think?
Once upon a time, people dreamed of their "15-minutes of fame." Today, everyone is "famous" amongst their thousands of closest friends. Every person’s every move is broadcast to everyone, and everyone’s eyes are focused not forward, but sidewise towards the herd.
Our peripheral vision blurs our ability to see for ourselves.
Hashem hould answer Moshe's prayer for us in 2023 as well. He should send us leaders whose clarity of vision can guide us above the telecommunication static of what everyone is tweeting about — towards what is timelessly good and true.
We should also develop our own vision, with real depth perception, of what is ethical and right, allowing us to lead ourselves and ultimately those around who are still developing their ability to see for themselves.