I write this Dvar Torah at
Kibbutz Ketura, a pluralistic kibbutz in the Arava Region of Israel. As our seniors begin the final
days of their Israel experience, it remains fascinating to observe the ways the emotions of individuals within the group affect the ability of the
group to function. In Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman,
Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee write about how a leader’s emotional
intelligence can shape the overall functionality of a larger group. They write:
“…groups
are smarter than individuals only when they exhibit the qualities of emotional
intelligence. Everyone in the group contributes to the overall level of
emotional intelligence, but the leader holds special sway in this regard.
Emotions are contagious, and it’s natural for people to pay extra attention to
the leader’s feelings and behavior.
So, very often it is the group leader who sets the tone and helps to
create the group’s emotional reality—how it feels to be part of the team”
(Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence,
Kindle Edition).
While most of us are aware that
emotions are contagious between individuals, the authors of Primal Leadership recognize that a
leader’s emotional awareness within a group has a disproportionate affect on
the overall group’s emotional intelligence, a lesson that we will learn within
a sampling of commentaries on Moses leadership and the famous episode of
striking the rock at Meriva.
Parshat Hukkat describes the
second time in the Torah when Moses drew water from a rock, only this second
instance leads to harsh punishment, for after Moses strikes the water that
provides the Israelites much-needed water, our parasha contains an admonishment
God to Moses and Aaron:
“And
the Lord spoke to Moshe and Aaron, Because you did not believe in Me, to sanctify
Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this congregation in to the
land which I have given them. It is the water of Meriva; because the children
of Israel strove
with the Lord, and He was sanctified by them” (Bamidbar 20:12-13).
Since these verses were first
read, our biblical commentators struggled to understand why Moses’ conduct
warranted exclusion from entering the land of Israel. In truth, our commentators never agree on a single
answer, yet a strand of commentaries argue that Moses’ inability to control his
emotions ultimately lies at the root of his sin at the rock.
Comparing the two episodes in
which Moses drew water from a rock, the Yalkut
Shimoni, a compilation of midrashim on the Torah, writes that one can
compare Moses’ approach to how a teacher ought to instruct students:
“Order the rock” (Num.
20:8) – it does not say “strike,” rather, “order.” He
said to him: When a lad is young,
his Rabbi strikes him to teach him, but once he grows up, he reproves him with
words. Thus,
the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: When
this rock was young, you struck it, “Strike the rock” (Ex. 17:6), but now
“order the rock”; teach it one lesson and it will give out water. (Yalkut
Shimoni, par. 763- Text and translation from Bar-Ilan University).
In this midrash, just as one must change their
teaching methods as students progress in maturity and understanding, Moses
needed to change his approach to drawing rock from the water as he progressed
in his role as a leader.
Because Moses did not show the leadership growth necessary to shepherd
the Israelites at the next stage in their journey, Moses was prohibited from
joining the Israelites when they enter the land of Canaan.
Focusing on Moses’ personal qualities, Moses
Maimonides writes in his Shemonah Perakim
that the episode at the rock in Parshat Hukkat was paradigmatic of a leader’s
inability to show patience in the face of adversity. Maimonides states:
“…the sin of Moses lay in that he
departed from the moral mean of patience to the extreme of wrath in so far as
he exclaimed, "Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this God found fault
with him that such a man as he should show anger in the presence of the entire
community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming. This was a profanation of God's name…” (The Eight
Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics, Trans. Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Columbia
University Press, 1912, p. 67- Text and translation from Bar-Ilan University).
According to Maimonides, while it was not
unreasonable for Moses to show impatience in a time of acute stress, the fact
that Moses spoke harshly the Israelites, and struck the rock with his staff,
revealed that Moses showed excessive impatience to both God and the Jewish
people. As such,
Moses’ inability to control his emotions sowed the seeds of God’s punishment.
Finally, the Kedushat
Levi, the Torah commentary of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, interprets
this episode typologically, and argues that the words that Moses used in
Parshat Hukkat are similar to the kind of destructive speech that draws a
person away from God. He
writes:
“For there are two
aspects of one who reproaches Israel that they should do the will of the
Creator, blessed be He. The one who reproaches with positive words, that is to
say, one who tells every man of Israel about his elevated level and the place
of the source of his soul, that the soul of Israel is truly hewn from above the
Throne of Glory, and the great pleasure that the Creator, blessed be He,
derives, as it were, from the mitzvot of
each man of Israel, and the great joy in all the worlds when a man of Israel
performs the bidding of the Creator in this world. With this reproach, he
inclines the heart of the people of Israel to do the will of the Creator, blessed
be He, each man of Israel accepting upon himself the yoke of the
heavenly kingdom. There is also one who reproaches Israel with harsh and humiliating words, to
the point that they are compelled to do the will of the Creator. The difference
between them is that the one who reproaches Israel with positive [words] raises the soul
of Israel higher and higher, relating at all
times the righteousness and greatness of Israel,
how great is their power above. He is fit to be a leader of Israel. And the one who reproaches Israel with harsh words is not of this aspect”
(Kedushat Levi, Parshat Hukkat- Text and translation from Yeshivat Har Etzion).
The Kedushat Levi argues that positive speech
draws the Jewish people closer to the service of God, by stirring people’s
hearts to do mitzvot.
However, Moses’ harsh words to the Israelites could only have the
opposite effect, making the people feel as though they were worthless and
ungrateful. Therefore,
even if Moses’ statement was technically accurate, the way in which the words
were delivered contradicted everything that God desired for Israel.
Although our rabbinic commentators never reach
consensus on the single action that led to God’s punishment of Moses and Aaron,
the above commentators provide us a window into the rabbis’ recognition of how
a leader’s emotions can shape a group both positively and negatively. While we teach our children
about the relationship between emotions and shaping individual success, Parshat
Hukkat reminds us about the equally important challenge of understanding the
relationship between emotions and furthering group success. Our task is to help our children
learn how Moses’ mistake can provide us a roadmap to become patient,
compassionate leaders, for leaders with those qualities will help create
communities in that image, leading to a more patient, compassionate world.
Shabbat
Shalom!
No comments:
Post a Comment