Menachem Mirski
Thoughts on Parashat Pinchas
Moses spoke to יהוה, saying, “Let יהוה, Source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that יהוה’s community may not be like sheep that have no shepherd.” (Num 27:15-17)
A midrash comments on these verses as follows:
When Moses realized that he would die soon, he began praying for mercy over Israelites and that God would give them a shepherd strengthened by the spirit of patience, saying “Master of the Universe, you know the spirit of every human, who is patient (savlan) and who is bad-tempered (ragzan), appoint therefore a man who would walk before them in the desert, who would take care of all their needs and lead them in alertness and prayer. (Midrash Aggadah on Numbers 27:16, translated by M.Mirski)
The rest of this paragraph, like the following verses of the Torah, contains the divine response: God responded to Moses’ prayer by appointing Joshua. But let’s focus on the human qualities this midrash mentions: a good leader should be patient, caring, vigilant and spiritual. Sounds very correct. We can derive from these qualities many related characteristics: a leader should be rational, thoughtful, goal oriented and never distracted. A good leader should be in full control of himself, listening to the voice of his people, and knowing all their needs; a person on whom the people can absolutely rely on. Alertness here should be seen not only as an ability to spot potential dangers but also to be able to predict consequences of one’s own actions. This requires self-criticism and the ability to learn from one’s own experience, especially if the task is to lead people to the Promised Land, which means – to something wonderful.
This leader should be able to lead the people with all their faults, knowing both their good and bad qualities, moral and intellectual, their wisdom and stupidity, their virtues and their defects and flaws. A good leader is able to make use of both, or at least predict what the people’s flaws may bring and deal with that. Our Midrash defines therefore universal features of a good leader. Obviously there are some other features leaders need to be endowed with – they should be moral, intelligent, sincere, honest etc. But all of that, in my opinion, doesn’t mean that good leaders cannot have their own faults and weaknesses. They can have them but they should be aware of their flaws and be willing to overcome them. We can go on and on enumerating these qualities, but what is the most important is that we need leaders like that (or at least honestly aspiring to embody these qualities) on every level of our society. Every family, every community, every state and nation can only benefit from leaders like that. Perhaps more than ever.
Shabbat shalom!
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