JULY 4 • 2024 | 37
time he challenged Him to
perform a miracle. God does
as Moses asks.
Naturally we expect
that this will end the
rebellion: God had sent
an unmistakable sign that
Moses was right, the rebels
wrong. But it doesn’t. Far
from ending the rebellion, it
made it worse:
The next day the whole
Israelite community
grumbled against Moses and
Aaron. “You have killed the
Lord’s people,” they said.
(Num. 17:6)
The people gather around
Moses and Aaron as if about
to attack them. God starts
smiting the people with a
plague. Moses tells Aaron
to make atonement, and
eventually the plague stops.
But some 14,700 people
have died. Not until a quite
different demonstration
takes place — Moses takes
12 rods representing the 12
tribes, and Aaron’s buds and
blossoms and bears fruit —
does the rebellion finally end.
DON’T TAKE IT
PERSONALLY
It is hard to avoid the
conclusion that Moses’
intervention, challenging
God to make the earth
swallow his opponents, was
a tragic mistake. If so, what
kind of mistake was it?
The Harvard leadership
expert, Ronald Heifetz,
makes the point that it is
essential for a leader to
distinguish between role
and self. A role is a position
we hold. The self is who we
are. Leadership is a role. It is
not an identity. It is not who
we are. Therefore, a leader
should never take an attack
on his leadership personally:
“It’s a common ploy to
personalize the debate over
issues as a strategy for taking
you out of action … You want
to respond when you are
attacked … You want to leap
into the fray when you are
mischaracterized … When
people attack you personally,
the reflexive reaction is to
take it personally … But
being criticized by people
you care about is almost
always a part of exercising
leadership … When you take
personal attacks personally,
you unwittingly conspire in
one of the common ways you
can be taken out of action
— you make yourself the
issue.” (Ronald Heifetz and
Marty Linsky, Leadership on
the Line, Harvard Business
School Press, 2002.)
Moses twice takes the
rebellion personally. First, he
defends himself to God after
being insulted by Datan and
Aviram. Second, he asks God
miraculously and decisively
to show that he — Moses —
is God’s chosen leader. But
Moses was not the issue. He
had already taken the right
course of action in proposing
the test of the incense
offering. That would have
resolved the question. As for
the underlying reason that
the rebellion was possible
at all — the fact that the
people were devastated by the
knowledge that they would
not live to enter the Promised
Land — there was nothing
Moses could do.
Moses allowed himself
to be provoked by Korach’s
claim, “Why do you set
yourselves above the Lord’s
assembly” and by Datan and
Aviram’s offensive remark,
“And now you want to lord
it over us!” These were
deeply personal attacks,
but by taking them as such,
Moses allowed his opponents
to define the terms of
engagement. As a result,
the conflict was intensified
instead of being defused.
It is hard not to see this as
the first sign of the failing
that would eventually cost
Moses his chance of leading
the people into the land.
When, almost 40 years later,
he says to the people who
complain about the lack of
drink, “Listen, you rebels,
must we bring you water out
of this rock?” (Num. 20:10),
he shows the same tendency
to personalize the issue
(“Must we bring you water?”)
— but it never was about
“we” but about God.
The Torah is devastatingly
honest about Moses, as it is
about all its heroes. Humans
are only human. Even the
greatest makes mistakes.
In the case of Moses, his
greatest strength was also his
greatest weakness. His anger
at injustice singled him out
as a leader in the first place.
But he allowed himself to
be provoked to anger by the
people he led, and it was this,
according to Maimonides
(Eight Chapters, ch. 4), that
eventually caused him to
forfeit his chance of entering
the Land of Israel.
Heifetz writes: “Receiving
anger … is a sacred task …
Taking the heat with grace
communicates respect for the
pains of change.”
After the episode of the
spies, Moses faced an almost
impossible task. How do
you lead a people when they
know they will not reach
their destination in their
lifetime?
In the end, what stilled
the rebellion was the sight
of Aaron’s rod, a piece of
dry wood, coming to life
again, bearing flowers and
fruit. Perhaps this was not
just about Aaron but about
the Israelites themselves.
Having thought of themselves
as condemned to die in the
desert, perhaps they now
realized that they, too, had
borne fruit — their children
— and it would be they
who completed the journey
their parents had begun.
That, in the end, was their
consolation.
Of all the challenges
of leadership, not taking
criticism personally and
staying calm when the people
you lead are angry with you,
may be the hardest of all.
That may be why the Torah
says what it does about
Moses, the greatest leader
who ever lived. It is a way of
warning future generations:
If at times you are pained by
people’s anger, take comfort.
So did Moses. But remember
the price Moses paid and stay
calm.
Though it may seem
otherwise, the anger you
face has nothing to do
with you as a person and
everything to do with
what you stand for and
represent. Depersonalizing
attacks is the best way to
deal with them. People get
angry when leaders cannot
magically make harsh reality
disappear. Leaders in such
circumstances are called on
to accept that anger with
grace. That truly is a sacred
task.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
was chief rabbi of the United Hebrew
Congregations of the Commonwealth,
1991-2013. Find more at rabbisacks.org.