DECEMBER 2 • 2021 | 45

“IN DREAMS WE DISCOVER OUR 
PASSION, AND FOLLOWING OUR 
PASSION IS THE BEST WAY TO 
LIVE A REWARDING LIFE.”

what would have happened 
had they met? Herzl would 
have said: ‘I have a dream of 
a Jewish state.
’ Freud would 
have replied: ‘Tell me, Herr 
Herzl, how long have you been 
having this dream? Lie down 
on my couch, and I will psy-
choanalyze you.
’ Herzl would 
have been cured of his dreams 
and today there would be no 
Jewish state.
” Thankfully, the 
Jewish people have never been 
cured of their dreams.
The second principle is that 
leaders interpret other people’s 
dreams. They articulate the 
inchoate. They find a way of 
expressing the hopes and fears 
of a generation. Martin Luther 
King Jr.
’s “I Have a Dream” 
speech was about taking the 
hopes of Black Americans and 
giving them wings. It was not 
Joseph’s dreams that made him 
a leader; it was Pharaoh’s. Our 
own dreams give us direction; 
it is other people’s dreams that 
give us opportunity.
The third principle: Find 
a way to implement dreams. 
First see the problem, then 
find a way of solving it. The 
Kotzker Rebbe once drew 
attention to a difficulty in 
Rashi’s writing. Rashi (Ex. 
18:1) says that Yitro was given 
the name Yeter (meaning, 
“he added”) because “he 
added a passage to the Torah 
beginning [with the words], 
“Choose from among the 
people …
” (Ex. 18:21). This 
occurred when Yitro saw 
Moses leading alone and told 
him that what he was doing 
was not good: He would 

wear himself and the people 
to exhaustion. Therefore, he 
should choose good people 
and delegate much of the bur-
den of leadership to them.
The Kotzker pointed out 
that the passage that Yitro 
added to the Torah did not 
actually begin, “Choose from 
among the people.
” It began 
several verses earlier when 
he said, “What you are doing 
is not good.
” (Ex. 18:17) The 
answer the Kotzker gave was 
simple. Saying “What you are 
doing is not good” is not an 
addition to the Torah — it is 
merely stating a problem. The 
addition consisted in the solu-
tion: delegating.
Good leaders either are, or 
surround themselves with, 
problem-solvers. It is easy to 
see when things are going 
wrong. What makes a leader 
is the ability to find a way of 
putting them right. Joseph’s 
genius lay not in predicting 
seven years of plenty followed 
by seven years of famine, but 
in devising a system of storage 
that would ensure food sup-
plies in the lean and hungry 
years.
Dream dreams; understand 
and articulate the dreams of 
others; and find ways of turn-
ing a dream into a reality — 
these three gifts are leadership, 
the Joseph way. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

served as the chief rabbi of the 

United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all 

at rabbisacks.org. This essay was writ-

ten in December 2020.

ANTONE, CASAGRANDE & ADWERS, P.C.

www.antone.com or email at law@antone.com

Representation in 

all areas of family 

and business 

immigration law.

JUSTIN D.
CASAGRANDE

N. PETER
ANTONE

31555 W. 14 Mile Rd., Ste 100 • Farmington Hills, MI 48334
Ph: 248-406-4100 Fax: 248-406-4101

IMMIGRATION LAW FIRM

 

1516 S. Cranbrook Rd. Birmingham MI 48009 
248.644.0866 BBArtCenter.org 

 

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