Question for Pesach 2015: What makes a leader?

There are moments in life when there are simply no words, when one is meant only to listen. Such moments may occur when sitting in a shiva home, but nowhere as often as when that family is mourning the loss of a son killed tragically in the course of his service in the Israeli army.

In the winter of 2006, in the midst of preparations for our son Yonatan’s Bar Mitzvah, I received a call one dreads receiving: the Goodman family’s son Yosef had been killed in a tragic training accident when his parachute failed to open properly. Incredibly, having become entangled with his officer’s chute, Yosef z”l bravely chose to cut himself loose rather than cost his officer’s life.

A few days later, sitting in the Goodman home, I learned just how special Yosef Goodman really was.

A young fellow, with long curls and a certain boyish charm, was about to leave when Yosef’s dad spotted him and asked for just one more story. With a sigh and a smile began to speak. He had been Yosef’s first commander in an elite paratrooper unit. It is very hard to get in to this particular unit, and recruits in must go through a grueling week known as a gibush, during which they endure physical and psychological tests and obstacles to ascertain whether they have the “stuff” necessary to join the family of Israel’s elite commandoes.

Near the end of that week, the soldiers were each given a shovel and told to dig a pit deep enough to get inside, with a time limit to get the job done. Ben recalled that when he had been given this test as a raw recruit, there was a natural inclination to keep an eye on the other guys, because their failure (or slower progress) meant you had a better chance of succeeding. After all, they were competing with you for the very few open spots in these elite units.

During this test Yosef (by then known as “Goodman”) did something so unique that officers were still talking about it weeks later, as no-one could recall anything remotely similar ever having happened during a gibush.

Halfway through digging his ditch, Yosef noticed one of the other fellows had broken his shovel and was working without a handle. So, without thinking, he jumped out of his ditch, ran over to this fellow, gave him his shovel, and then ran back to his own hole to finish digging his ditch by hand. Then, just before the time ran out, Yosef ran back to this other soldier and grabbed back his shovel, so no one would know he had broken the regulations. No one had ever heard of a recruit doing such a selfless thing and all without even thinking about it — it’s the stuff heroes are made of. This was the same thing a man, much later, who without having much time to think about choosing to save himself or the life of his officer…

What makes a Jewish leader? Can anyone become a leader? Or do some have more of a proclivity for such roles than others?

Can you train someone to lead? Or is it a G-d given talent he must be born with? Most of all, what character traits are essential for Jewish leadership? 

Few men in history have ever been confronted with such great leadership challenges as was Moshe. After over 200 years of Egyptian servitude, he had to confront the might of the greatest empire on earth and lead a stiff-necked people out of Egyptian bondage into a barren wilderness without any long term plan or the proper supplies for a trek with hundreds of thousands of people.

Hashem sends him to Pharaoh and has him tell Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go, but Pharaoh not only refuses, Pharaoh makes things worse for the Jewish people (Shemot 5), forcing them to gather their own straw, and the people bend under the strain. So what keeps Moshe going? Simply put: Moshe has faith. 

A true leader believes in a mission, and he believes not only in G-d, but in himself. That said, Moshe was the humblest of men (Bamidbar 12:3), which means a true leader has to believe in himself but has to know it is not about himself; it is always about Hashem, about the bigger picture and larger mission.  

And even though the Jewish people stop believing in Moshe, complaining many times and even verbally attacking Moshe as soon as things go south (Shemot 5:21), Moshe still believes in them. (A true leader has to believe in his people.)

A leader often begins without followers. But eventually, if a leader is true to his mission and if his mission is not about himself, the measure of a leader is that they will follow. 

Who was the first Jewish leader? Avraham brought the idea of Judaism into the world, and certainly believed in a mission that was not about himself. But when he died there was not yet a Jewish people.

All the followers he amassed who even followed him into battle eventually went their separate ways, and even his son Yishmael did not fully believe in his mission. 

Yitzchak, who carried on the faith, left behind only one son to carry on the mission; the Jewish people were yet to be born. Even Yaakov, whose 12 sons would be the family that would finally bring forth the Jewish nation, divided, rather than united, his sons.

One might make a case that first true Jewish leader was actually Yehudah, who would eventually be the bearer of the royal lineage; the Davidic line is of the tribe of Judah. 

When does Yehuda step into his role as leader? There are two moments in which Jewish destiny hangs in the balance, and in both instances it is Yehudah who seizes the moment.

First, when famine ravages Canaan, and the sons of Yaakov must travel to Egypt to barter for food and save the family, the Viceroy of Egypt (Joseph, unbeknownst to the brothers) forbids them to return without their youngest brother Binyamin. But father Yaakov refuses to let Binyamin go. Binyamin is sole remaining son of his beloved Rachel, since passed on. If Binyamin cannot go, the family will starve; it will not be the first time people die because they cannot brave the unknown; preferring the present calamity to unknown dangers. 

Reuven, the eldest son, entreats his father to let him take Binyamin, but Yaakov will have none of it (Bereishit 42:37-38). And so Yehuda waits, until the famine worsens, and only then, knowing the time is ripe, does he ask Yaakov to let him take Binyamin under his care. This time, Yaakov relents and lets Binyamin go, saving the family, and ultimately the Jewish people. What is it about Yehuda’s request that changes the outcome?

First, Yehuda waits until the timing is right, until Yaakov is ready to listen. (A true leader knows how to seize the moment.) And second, Yehuda’s argument is a different argument — 

“Anochi e’ervenu” (Bereishit 43:9): Yehuda promises he will be an areiv; he will take responsibility. (A true leader takes responsibility.)

On a deeper level, however, areivut is more than responsibility; in modern Hebrew an areiv is a guarantor who signs on a loan. That does not mean the guarantor is helping to cover his friend’s loan, it means he is agreeing to make that loan his own. In an areivut situation I am not responsible for you; I am you. And it is this exact argument and this exact word Yehuda uses when later confronting Joseph to release Binyamin, caught with the royal goblet and threatened with a life in Egyptian servitude:

“Avdecha arav” — I am not asking you to take me instead of Binyamin; rather, “I am Binyamin,” so you can take me instead. (A true leader feels the pain and struggles of his people because he is one with his people.)

And this is what made Moshe great. Brought up as an Egyptian Prince, he still goes out and sees the suffering of his people; they are still his brothers. He sees an Egyptian beating a lowly Jewish slave, but he cannot walk away; because when the slave is crying out, Moshe feels the pain (Shemot 2:11-12). And ultimately, hearing the voice of G-d within himself (Shemot 3), he will know he cannot continue his life of safety and bliss in Midian. He will return to the land of his birth and take on the mightiest empire the world had ever known, because a true leader cannot sit when his brethren suffer.

Within each of us lies the spark of leadership, and the opportunity to stoke that fire and change the world. This year, on Pesach, may we all be blessed to discover that strength within ourselves, and may we be blessed with true Jewish leadership, to change the world. 

Yosef Goodman simply could not continue digging while his fellow soldier struggled on, and that is the stuff true leadership is all about.