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November 11, 2001

Jewish Leadership in Times of Crisis: Duties and Dilemmas (2001)

Yitro Behaalotcha Biographical Material
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Speech

Communal Leadership - Its Problems and Prospects (2000)

The theme of leadership has long intrigued me both because of its innate character and because I personally wrestle with its problems – often more than I care to. I have spoken and written about it in different forums several times, and I am certain that the subject is far from exhausted. I therefore offer these ruminations in honor of my distinguished colleague and dear friend, Rabbi J.J. Schacter, as he prepares to bid us farewell this coming month in order to accept a challenging leadership position in Boston.I make no pretense to presenting a scientific study of the subject. I leave that to the professionals who have begun to treat leadership as a separate sub-specialty and have written large tomes about it. My remarks are subjective, and they issue from my own experience and mostly from what I think I have found in the traditional sources of Judaism. Hence, let me begin by stressing that I am talking about Jewish leadership, especially but not exclusively rabbinic leadership, and that my point of departure is the wisdom of the Jewish tradition. I therefore preface my remarks by one necessary comment on the distinguishing character of authentic Jewish leadership. Let me illustrate this from the life of Moses.Moses is bogged down in his work as a judge as the people come to him, in his desert tent, to adjudicate their conflicts and answer their questions. Yitro, his pagan father-in-law, warns him, נבל תבל גם אתה ג□ העם הזה אשר עמך כי כבד ממך הדבר לא תוכל עשהו לבדך. "You will wear yourself and your people out; the task is too great, the burden too heavy for you to bear all by yourself." He tells Moses how to organize the judiciary effectively and systematically—appoint others, a hierarchy of judges, and you attend to the most difficult cases, a one-man supreme court. Moses accepts and implements the advice. Yet later (in בהעלותך), Moses complains to God--in almost the identical language that Yitro used—that it's not working: לא אוכל אנכי לבדי !לשאת את כל העם הזה …
Yitro Behaalotcha Principles of Leadership

Outline

Leadership - Jewish Insights (2002)

Leadership — Jewish Insights – Gruss Inst., Jerusalem, Dec. 30, 2002 – Chose theme LP bee: theme intrigues me; Isr going into elections; Mostly: RJ. I: talking re J LP – nt poltcl, mostly spl / insttl; thrfr will illustrt fr If Moses. While I’ll tlk mostly USA, leave it t y to apply t ISR; סדנא דארעא חד הוא. J LP is distinguished by 1 phenomnn: what it is NOT, Lt m explain. M = boggddwn רלאת... יתרו: (בל תבל גם אתה גם ו) Yitro – hw t orgnz. M acccpts / implcments – YET (בהעלותך), M complains – identical lang – לא אוכל אנכי לבדי לשאת את כל העם הזה כי כבד ממני. God: אספה לי שבעים איש... HUT wasn’t that same advice Yitro gave? Ans: No – Yitro = mgt advc, Gd = LP. Yitro: MBA – MIT / Hrvrd – Bt Gd: SP’L LP – ואצלתי מן הרוח אשר עליך עליהם. Dn’t need jst gopher / execs; need men of sprt. Ths = charctrzs gennly J, esp rel, LP. Mgt = imp skill – bt not possess quality of commitment t רוח, beynd slf / constituency. W-o that spl comm’t LP nt J. So, we talkg LP; proceed t adumbrate salient features LP ~ our commy. But rmmbr: diffnt kinds Leadership – not all = M (radcal...) vs Aaron... 1st charctrstc = simple yet enormsly diffict: Courage – morl / psychic courage t walk by self / alone among disagree / deprecate / defame, & defy publ opinion & do wht = polity incorrect, guided only by committ t wht y considr right / true. LP, esp our commy / times, esp media... nt effectv w-o healthy diet courage. “ויהי בנסוע” (בהעלותך), מוקף בשני נונין הפוכין מדה״נ: הם כבודו של הקב״ה ממש, והם עיקרו של עולם, ובאלו נונין עתיד הקב״ה לפרוק להו לישראל ע״י משיח ובגינם ברך יעקב לנכדיו "וידגו לרוב בקרב הארץ" [“נון”־דג, ואונקלוס תירגם, "וכנוני ימא ישגון"]. W-o readiness to swim upstream when you are convinced it is the only right way to go, you will never get to the other side. Founders YU – TuM / mv Uptown. Assimilated: ridiculed Orthx upstarts nerve in encroachg on Enlghtnd ones. Frum: treasn vs “real” Js. Lttle hs changd snee Founders. St-Isr: evn greatr demonstrtn Courage. ST: B-G / Peres …
Yitro Behaalotcha Devarim

Synagogue Sermon

Judaism as an Alternative (1965)

In a well-known passage, the Mekhilta relates that the Holy One offered the Torah to the various nations of antiquity, but that all of them rejected it because of various objections they raised to certain of its precepts. Then He offered the Torah to Israel, and Israel accepted it with alacrity. Now this is more than an interesting legend, spiced with a dash of Jewish pride. It is the Rabbis’ way of emphasizing the revolutionary character of Torah, and especially the Decalogue. The Torah, they meant to say, was given not to confirm standard ideas and prevailing prejudices, but to challenge and change them. The Ten Commandments were meant to teach a religion with a difference, to offer the world an alternative to the colorful but lifeless paganism in which it was immersed, and that alternative was seized by Israel.To us, in our age, the Decalogue often seems to be commonplace. Yet consider how radically new it was in its own day. To a society that practiced paganism and fetishism, the Torah declared “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.” To a world which accepted slavery as normal and in which even the free man was doomed to a life of drudgery, the Bible proclaimed the law of the Sabbath, and commanded rest even for the man-servant and woman-servant. And to a civilization which entertained the conception of man as a thing, to be used and exploited, and in which, therefore, old parents who could no longer be gainfully employed were abandoned and discarded as excess baggage, the Decalogue declared, “Honor thy father and thy mother” – even if you can no longer obtain any benefit from them.Maimonides considers this differentness of Judaism a fundamental of Torah. Part III of his Guide for the Perplexed teaches the proposition that whereas Torah did not attempt to diverge from the world so radically that it could not be followed by ordinary men, still the mitzvot take exception to the mores of the masses and to popular platitudes, and emphasize those ideals and …
Yitro