True Leadership
A Message for Parashat Ki Tissa 2017
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A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. (Thomas
Carruthers)
In his recent book, The Myth of the Strong
Leader, Archie Brown noted the mistaken tendency to equate “strong
leadership” with “good leadership.” He argued that it is wrong to believe that
the more power one individual wields, the more impressive a leader he is.
Drawing from examples on each end of the historical spectrum, Brown illustrated
the dangers inherent in a system governed by a single individual and the
potential success latent in one that includes the voices of many.[1]
This perspective on leadership has shed light for me upon Moshe’s several
actions in the immediate aftermath of het ha-egel.
The episode began with the nation’s
nervousness at that time:
And the people saw that Moshe lagged in coming down from the
mountain, and the people assembled against Aharon and said to him, “Rise up,
make us gods that will go before us, for this man Moshe who brought us up
from the land of Egypt, we do not
know what has happened to him”. (32:1)
Am Yisrael’s description of Moshe in
the moments prior to their sin portrayed their mistaken conception of the
nature of his role as their leader. Overlooking God’s part in the exodus from
Egypt, they declared Moshe their singular leader and panicked in his absence.
God hinted at their seriously mistaken understanding when he then commanded
Moshe: “Quick, go down, for your people that you brought up from Egypt
has acted ruinously” (7). Moshe’s descent from the mountain was thus charged
with the mission of fixing the nation’s broken conception of leadership.
And Moshe stood at the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is
for God, to me!” And the Levi’im gathered round him. And he said to them, “Thus
said Hashem, God of Israel, ‘Put every man his sword on his thigh, and cross
over and back from gate to gate in the camp and each man kill his brother and
each man his fellow and each man his kin.’” And the Levi’im did according to
the word of Moshe, and about three thousand men of the people fell on that day.
(26-8)
Michael Walzer highlighted the political
significance of this episode. He noted that whereas many of the other
murmurings in the desert ended with the wrongdoers’ death by God – at his
word, the idol worshippers in this instance were killed by the people
– at Moshe’s command. Walzer detected in Moshe’s cry of “Whoever
is for God, to me!” an expression of true leadership, seeing in it an immediate
creation of a subgroup of leaders whose vision was focused on the future. Moshe
drew to his side the “new-modeled men” who were committed to the covenant of a
“chosen people,” and thereby created the magistrates of the future – the
priests and the bureaucrats.[2]
In stark contrast to his previous acts of
justice individually performed in Egypt – when he killed the Egyptian
and separated the quarreling Israelites, Moshe now widened the nation’s circle
of leadership and emboldened the appropriate people of caliber.
Moshe’s most memorable action at that time,
however, was the smashing of the tablets (19). I believe that the true
significance of that decision lay in the people’s understanding of the tablets
as a body of knowledge necessarily taught by to them by Moshe.[3]
Bill Gates wrote that “good leaders will challenge themselves, bring fresh
thinking and expert advice, and not only invite but seriously consider opposing
viewpoints.”[4]
Understanding the unhealthy dependency of the people upon him at that time,
that is exactly what Moshe did. He smashed the tablets and beckoned the people
to think independent of himself. He forced them to seek knowledge and to
discover parts of the Torah on their own.
It is in this light that I understand, as
well, several midrashim that describe a fundamental difference between
the two sets of tablets. The Hakhamim envisioned the first tablets as
miraculously encompassing all the Written and Oral Torah, while the second set taught
only the Written Torah.[5]
By smashing the first tablets, then, Moshe was necessitating the people’s
self-engagement and individual efforts in studying and explaining the Torah.
R. Mosheh Lichtenstein detected a similar
initiative in Moshe’s subsequent actions:
And Moshe would take the Tent and pitch it for himself outside
the camp, far from the camp, and he called it Ohel
Mo’ed (the Tent of Meeting). And so, whoever sought God would go out to Ohel
Mo’ed which was outside the camp. (33:7)
R. Lichtenstein noted that Moshe was no
longer in the camp – teaching the people in their own homes, walking among
them, bringing the Torah to their door, and instead required anyone who desired
the Word of God to make an active effort to go outside the camp and seek God.
He thereby created a new echelon of active spiritual leadership and shifted the
people from a leadership model based on passive acceptance to one that demanded
initiative and effort.[6]
Het ha-egel taught
Moshe the vital lesson of the “myth of the strong leader.” He learned that the
people’s dependency upon him as their sole leader had led to their swift
downfall and he quickly sought to change that conception. His string of
successive actions – demanding that the God-fearers murder the idol
worshippers, smashing the tablets, and moving the Tent outside of the camp –
were all aimed at broadening the leadership of the nation. It was in those
hectic moments of crisis that Moshe emerged as a true leader.
I’ve seen firsthand how ineffective and even dangerous it can
be when leaders make decisions alone – and how much good we can do when we work
together. (Bill Gates)
[1] Archie Brown, The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (New York,
2014).
[2] Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York, 1985), pg. 60-1.
[3] Consider, for example,
the nation’s request of Moshe at Har Sinai: “Speak you with us that we may
hear, and let not God speak with us lest we die” (20:19). See, as well, Devarim
5:20-4.
[4] Bill Gates, “What Makes a Great Leader.”
[5] See Beit ha-Levi, derush
no. 18 (printed at the end of Responsa Beit ha-Levi) and HaAmek
Davar to Shemot 34:1 and Devarim 9:10.
[6] R. Mosheh Lichtenstein, Moses: Envoy of God, Envoy of His People (Jersey City, NJ, 2008), pg. 72-6. Cf. the
introduction to Harerei Kedem vol. 2 (Jerusalem. IS, 2004).