D’var Torah – Ha’azinu – The End of an Era

This week’s parasha, Ha’azinu is a lyrical farewell from Moses to the Children of Israel.  As a literary unit, is serves as a rhythmic bridge between the charge to Joshua and the Levites at the end of last week’s portion, VaYelech “Be strong and resolute (hazak v’ematz): for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them on oath, and I will be with you” (Deuteronomy 31:23) and the blessings Moses gives to each of the tribes in the closing portion, V’zot HaBrachah which we read on Simchat Torah.

In an unusual, maybe even unique event, the retirement of Moses is timed to coincide with the death of Moses.  People have died in office, and people have died on the job.  Most of our biblical protagonists continue to live for a time after their period of action or leadership has ended (notably Abraham, Jacob and Joseph) but the Torah is relatively silent (in the way my teacher, Prof. Nehama Leibovitz taught us to ask, “What isn’t the Torah telling us?”) about what their final years are like.  Not so with Moses.  He is working, teaching and preparing for the transition to Joshua right up to the day God has decided he will die.  His death is private, quiet, even secretive, tradition teaching us that God took care of the details of his burial.

As Moses reaches the end of the poetic discourse, the Torah attributes to Moses a strong message to those assembled:

               And when Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them: Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you [made you witness] this day.  Enjoin them upon your children, that they made observe faithfully all of terms of this Teaching.  For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is you very life; through it you shall long endure on the land you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan. (32:45-47)

The Hebrew phrase at the end of verse 46 provided a very strong echo for me, “lishmor, la’asot et kol divrei haTorah hazot” that they may observe faithfully all of terms of this Teaching (Hebrew, HaTorah hazot).  The echo comes from the daily [Ashkenazic] liturgy, the paragraph immediately preceding the morning Sh’ma, known as Ahavah Rabah (God’s Great Love for Us) (discussed in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate B’rachot 11b, i.e. it is an old prayer). 

In Or Hadash, his commentary on the Rabbinical Assembly Prayer Book, Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals (p. 111), Rabbi Reuven Hammer provides in his note the literal translation of that prayer, “Permit us to understand, to discern, to heed, to learn and teach, to observe, perform and fulfill all of the words of instruction of Your Torah in love.” Rabbi Hammer goes on to teach that this sentence gives us a step-by-step progression.  From “understanding” we proceed to greater depth, “discernment”. From these intellectual exercises we progress to “heed”, which expresses commitment.  Then comes “learning” i.e. true, in-depth understanding, which is both intellectual and emotional.  This leads to teaching others.  Learning that remains only inward is insufficient. Finally there is observance and total fulfillment of the Torah, both in letter and spirit.

Rabbi Hammer’s understanding of Ahavah Rabah enhances my understanding of the urgency of Moses’ message in Ha’azinu.  It’s not enough to have heard these words from me; future generations won’t have that opportunity.  You have to hear them, but also, work to understand them.  That, however, will not be enough.  You have to follow them, to set an example for your children and for others.  By following these rules and setting this example, you will be teaching others and preserving and completing those practices described in the Torah.  It is a strong prescription for parenting and teaching by example; it seems that Moses intends for Torah to be a How-To manual for our lives, and if so, God promises that the Children of Israel “will long endure on the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan”.

11.       Do you think Moses worried about the future without his being able to lead the people?  Do you think it was hard for him to let go?

22.      The Torah doesn’t record Joshua’s side of any conversations with Moses about taking over as leader.  If you were Joshua, what questions would you ask Moses before he died?

33.      Tradition teaches that the place of Moses’ burial was kept secret to prevent it from becoming a shrine, that we don’t worship people but rather that we worship God (compared to the Pyramids of Egypt as a burial place for their leaders).  How do our mourning practices today focus more on the spiritual existence and memory of people and de-emphasize their physical existence?

Steve Kerbel, an education consultant, is a past chair of the Education Director’s Council of Greater Washington and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

These are the Words

Past mid-summer, we get a bit of a new start, beginning to read a new book of the Torah. With the exception of the imminent observance of Tisha B’Av (The Ninth Day of the Hebrew month of Av, a day of mourning and sadness commemorating the Babylonian and Roman destructions of Jerusalem,   the dispersion of the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland and other tragedies of the Jewish people) a fairly quiet time on the Jewish calendar. In ancient agrarian society, it’s not yet time for the big summer harvest, we are nearly two months since Shavuot and two months away from the New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

This week we begin reading the book of D’varim, (Deuteronomy). In the book, Moses takes the
opportunity as outgoing leader to instruct the new generation born in the wilderness after the Exodus in their recent history, the laws of the society they are on the threshold of creating and the borders of their tribal holdings that they are on verge of inheriting. Our portion for this week, of the same name, begins the first of three major discourses by Moses to prepare the Children of Israel to enter the land.

It is the 39th this new generation his perspective on how they have ended up where they are, what they are about to encounter as they enter the Promised Land and what God is expecting from them, as his holy nation, once they are in the land. This portion is part travelogue describing their stops and encampments along the way, part history lecture of major events that occurred and part morality lesson about why a journey that could have taken weeks has taken forty years.

For me, one of linguistic gems of the text appears about midway through the portion, in Chapter 2, verse 14: The time we spent in travel from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until that whole generation of warriors (Hebrew anshei milchamah) had perished from the camp to the last man. This term anshei milchamah, translated as warriors, is actually a bit of sarcastic irony on the part of Moses. The members of the generation of the Exodus were anything but warriors. They were fearful, insecure, largely ungrateful to God and to Moses for their leadership and uncooperative.

They complained at every opportunity, saw every challenge as a crisis and considered returning to Egypt on numerous occasions to return to what they knew, instead of constantly having to engage with the unknown. I’m fairly certain that what Moses means here, by calling that generation anshei milchamah is that they were constantly at war with him. If anything, Moses’ current audience, the generation about to conquer the land with Joshua as their leader, were going to have to be the anshei milchamah that their parents’ generation was incapable of being. It is an artful turn of phrase and a great example of biblical irony.

The journey is coming to an end. Over the coming weeks the people will get a variety of instructions and reviews. Moses will refresh them on the laws of kashrut, the rules of warfare and even some lessons on politics (about the eventual selection of a king and what goes into it). The children of Israel  year following the Exodus from Egypt. Moses is in part nostalgic, and in part patient, giving will get directions on how to eat, dress, resolve their conflicts and conduct their communities. What we have here are great lessons on nation building at the edge of the wilderness, on the verge of a return to their ancestral land.

Questions for thought:

1. If you were Moses, how would you decide what the people need to know?

2. Why do you think it might be important to teach a new generation about the things that happened when they were small or before they were born? They weren’t there; why does it
matter to them?

3. What questions might you have before moving to a new place? What kinds of things would you want to know?

Steve Kerbel, an education consultant, is a past chair of the Education Director’s Council of Greater Washington and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

D'var Torah - Parshat Hukat – Waters of Strife – Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

This week’s portion, Hukat, contains a lot of variety of ritual and narrative action.  It is part of a larger recurring theme in the book of B’midbar (Numbers), what I like to think of as the roller coaster of behaviors that the children of Israel are faced with a hardship, they complain to Moses, Moses gets angry or embarrassed, God gets angry, threatens or carries out some kinds of punishment, the people apologize and the “ride” starts over again.

Chapter 19, which stands alone for its obscure and difficult to understand ritual of the purification rite involving the ashes of the Red Heifer (which Michael Chabon acknowledged and made a central plot point several years ago in his novel the Yiddish Policemen’s Union) underscores the point made several times in the Torah that no matter the method for reaching a state of ritual impurity, there is always a path back to rejoin the congregation.

The main action takes place in Chapter 20.  In the first verse the Children of Israel arrive at Kadesh, and without warning, Miriam dies.  This is immediately followed by a return trip on the above-mentioned roller coaster, where the people immediately begin to complain about the lack of water.  The literary language of the complaint, which continues for four verses (20:2-5), a very vocal expression for a terse Torah (Miriam’s death and burial gets a total of five words) is very pointed.  It echoes language from 2 recent portions which is meant to draw the attention of weekly followers of the Torah reading, namely:  in verse 2, “if only we had perished when our brothers perished at the insistence of the Lord”, a reference to the punishment suffered by followers of Korach just last week; and in verse 5, an echo of the description of the report of the scouts in Shelach Lecha, mentioning that here in the wilderness we are without the figs, grapes and pomegranates they are promised to find when they reach the promised land.

So once again Moses and Aaron fall on their faces (v.6), and once again they call out to God for guidance (v.7), and once again God provides a solution (v.8).  This time God doesn’t show anger or frustration, but Moses does.  His tone with the people is angry (“Listen, you rebels”) and he asks a rhetorical question about getting water from the rock, which God has already told him will happen when he speaks to the rock, and yet Moses strikes it twice.  By asking the question, “shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (v.10) as if he doesn’t already know the answer, Moses makes the miracle of the water pouring forth from the rock look like his miracle, and not God’s.  For this breach in the following of God’s instruction Moses (and Aaron) meets with a very serious consequence – he loses the right to lead the Children of Israel into the land they were promised.

Does the punishment fit the crime?  This question has been bothering biblical commentators for nearly two thousand years.  Moses starts out as an obedient, if unwilling public servant.  He sacrifices his family life, puts up will all kinds of difficult problems to solve (scarcity of food and water, dispute resolution, judicial decrees, travel issues), deals with all of the customer service issues of the venture as well as being the primary creator or a new life style and culture.  That’s a lot of work for one person.  Then he justifiably grows impatient and loses his temper, and for that he gets punished by not being able to see the end goal he’s been working towards; it seems pretty harsh.

There are a lot of explanations for God’s punishment here.  Moses didn’t follow instructions – maybe his intimacy with God made him feel he had license to ad lib, and that lack of humility is what was being punished (Moses shows great humility in most instances).  Maybe Moses and Aaron had burned out, or more gently, and reached the extent of their talents – the human experience is dynamic, and the right leaders for the Exodus and the community building experience of the wilderness were not the same people who might be best suited to leading a younger generation in conquest and settlement of the land.  This may mean that the hitting of the rock was only a pretense for the punishment, and that seems plausible, in light of the reasons why corporate human relationships departments act today, not always providing the replaced employee with all of the reasons for a dismissal.  Its possible God was looking for a reason to let Moses know his time was coming to an end, or that there would come a time when his leadership was over, and this was the best way to break that difficult news.

Questions for discussion:

1   

  Can we blame the Children of Israel for complaining about a lack of water?  Is it possible there was a better way for them to bring their concerns to Moses?  Are there more constructive ways to make a leader aware of a problem?

2

.      Moses decides in this situation to act differently from the way God instructed him.  Do you think this is why he was punished?

3

     How does a leader know when it’s time to step aside and hand the job off to someone else?

Steve Kerbel, an education consultant, is a past chair of the Education Director’s Council of Greater Washington and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

Aharei Mot (Lev 16-18) – It may be time for Passover, but we’re reading about Yom Kippur

Here it is, the 10^th of Nisan, we all have Passover preparation on our minds and in this week’s Torah portion, we’re completely engrossed with the rituals of Yom Kippur, exactly 6 months away on the Hebrew calendar.  While some schools Bible curricula avoid dealing with VaYikra (Leviticus) and some movements have removed or modified the description of the first Yom Kippur from their liturgy, I love the descriptions of Yom Kippur in the Torah, in part as a prime example of  how much Judaism has been able to adapt and change.

I am also a bit of an Aaron apologist.  Our portion describes Aaron’s first Yom Kippur, and I can only imagine, as someone with 20 years of leading High Holiday services for a congregation, how literally awesome (in the sense of fear and trembling) that first Yom Kippur was for Aaron, brother of Moses and Kohain Gadol (High Priest).

Aaron was dressed to impress, an aspect of the priesthood well-described in these pages several weeks ago by my friend and colleague, Rabbi Rachel Ackerman.  Frequently (5 times) throughout the day, between offerings and rituals, Aaron has to change his clothing, bathing or immersing himself between each event.  Aaron alone enters the Holy of Holies; Aaron alone places his hands on the head of the scapegoat, transferring to it all the transgressions of the People of Israel.

For me, the most significant verse and the most important lesson of this portion is contained in Chapter 16, verse 17:  “When he goes in to make expiation in the Shrine, noblod else shall be in the Tent of Meeting until he comes out.  When he has made expiation for himself and his household, and for the whole congregation of Israel. . . . “Aaron, and the Children of Israel have had a rough 6 months since the Exodus.  There have been challenges to their physical well-being, they were brought to Sinai, and they miss the comforts of home (even such as they were in a condition of slavery).  Aaron, in kind has also had a rough year.  The requirement for Aaron, to atone first for himself, then for his household and then for the rest of the People of Israel is an amazing, sensitive and realistic requirement, given the state of ritual in the ancient world at that time.

As Kohain Gadol, High Priest, Aaron was still far from perfect, as the Torah has related to us earlier.  Aaron has to atone for himself; he was complicit in the sin of the Golden Calf.  He has to ask forgiveness for his household; his sons Nadav and Avihu were killed after bringing an unauthorized offering upon the dedication of the Tent of Meeting.  Only then, after making sure his has taken care of his personal business with God and his family’s business with God, can Aaron intervene on our behalf and do the job he was selected to do, to seek forgiveness for us, the People of Israel.

For me, this is the primary directive of our whole system of prayer, our entire theology of belief.  Each of us has direct access to God and each of us has personal accountability. We have to take care of righting our own affairs, a metaphorical putting on of our own oxygen masks, before doing so for our children traveling with us.  Then, once we have made things right for ourselves and at home, then we can address the issues of our communal responsibility and our resolve to work together to make things better.  Don’t skip VaYikra – there is a lot of good stuff here.  Hang on for more in the coming weeks about the Holiness Code.

Questions to Think and Talk About.

1.      Would you want Aaron’s job?  Great wardrobe but awesome responsibility?

2.      Can you think about a time when you needed to fix something for yourself before you could help someone else fix something?

3.      Even a job that comes with perks, a great dining plan and a snappy uniform may also come with really hard personal responsibilities.  What are the pros and cons of taking on such a position?

Steve Kerbel is the Director of Education at Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Maryland and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

Import Your Four Cups from Israel

Passover is very much a holiday of freedom and individual choice; within the framework of avoiding Chametz in all its forms, people develop traditions and loyalties to certain recipes, Matzah (the only Manischewitz  vs. Yehuda or Aviv) and desserts. For me, it is about Israeli wine.

We like to offer different wines for each cup, but the unifying factor in our house is that all of our Passover wines are from Israel. There are some outstanding Israeli wines available locally, and it’s possible to find some really notable wines for less than $25 a bottle.

There is a custom that the wine for Kiddush should be red wine, but there is always someone at our table who prefers white, so it’s always available.  While Israel doesn’t have a long history of making white wines, there are some outstanding wines available.  Among my favorites:

·         Dalton Unoaked Chardonnay – I’m a big fan of this wine, which showcases the delicate citrusy nature of the Chardonnay grape, without the influence oak barrels have on this wine.  It’s very refreshing and great with a fish course.

·         Galil Mountain Viognier – Galil Mountain, a beautiful winery on Kibbutz Yiron in the Upper Galilee makes a very nice Viognier with a very earthy, almost smokey flavor.

·         Carmel Ridge White – a white blend of Colombard, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, that is light and has a lot of fruit character.

·         Tishbi Chenin Blanc – this budget-priced, semi-dry wine is a nice introduction for young or new wine drinkers.  It is lightly sweet, has a lot of fruit flavor and goes well with a lot of different foods.

Israeli wine has moved past its early years of featuring primarily Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (and blends of the two).  While these varieties are prominent, but there are now more Bordeaux-style blends incorporating other Mediterranean grapes.  Some lesser-known but worthwhile wines to look for:

·         Agur Kessem – The Agur winery, Kosher since the 2007 vintage makes outstanding wines.  Shuki Yashuv, the winemaker, blends Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, all grown the the Mateh Yehudah region of the Judean Hills to make this exceptional wine.

·         Odem Mountain Volcanic Shiraz – The Har (Mount) Odem winery, located in the northern region of the Golan Heights is a family run winery making exceptional wines.  I visited this past summer, and have quickly become a big fan of their Shiraz, which pairs well with beef or roasted poultry.

·         Carmel Appellation Series Cabernet Franc – The oldest and largest of Israel’s wineries, Carmel completely retooled about 15 years ago to focus on making fine wines.  This 100% Cabernet Franc is a great example of how even large winemakers can change direction and make some really outstanding wines.

·         Teperberg Meritage – This wine, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, and made at their winery on land leased from Kibbutz Tzora, across Route 30 from the entrance to Beit Shemesh, is a nice, slightly tannic, full bodied wine.  It pairs well with roasted meats and cuts through the texture of carbohydrates for a really nice mealtime experience.

·         Tzuba Syrah – The Tzuba Estate Winery is located just west of Jerusalem, in the Judean Hills, near Mevasseret Tzion. The local topography and climate provide ideal conditions to cultivate the vineyards and produce a variety of prize winning boutique wines. This wine is made from Syrah grapes, aged in French oak barrels for 16 months. The wine has a deep purple color revealing cherry and plum fruits in harmony with delicate spices.

·         Tulip Just Merlot - The Tulip winery itself is unique, located in Kfar Tikvah in the Lower Galilee, a village for adults with developmental disabilities, some of whom are employed at the winery.  They make several outstanding wines. This wine is aged for 8 months in French oak barrels and has a dense maroon red color with shades of purple. It contains aromas of ripe black and red fruit with prominent wood flavors and has a pleasant rich texture on the palate. This wine pairs well with roasted or grilled meat and poultry.

I’m not a big dessert wine drinker, but I know Moscato is a very popular variety, and Carmel makes a very pleasant Moscato, only 5% alcohol, that’s carried in many of the Montgomery County Liquor and Wine stores, Carmel Moscato di Carmel.  It’s been a fan favorite at several of the tastings I’ve recently conducted.

Enjoy your 4 (or more) cups, support Israel and have a Happy Passover.

Steve Kerbel is a local Jewish educator and wine enthusiast who visits and maintains close connections with dozens of vintners and winemakers in Israel.

Ki Tisa – Exodus 30:11-34 – Relationships, Substitutes and Gold

In Ki Tisa, as we near the end of the Book of Sh’mot (Exodus) the narrative picks up where it left off in Chapter 20, with the giving of the Ten Proclamations (I know they’re usually called Commandments, but they’re not all commandments, technically speaking).  After a multi-chapter detour through the construction of portable sanctuary and the outfitting of the kohanim (priests), the story-telling resumes in Chapter 32, with the infamous narrative of the Golden calf.

Sometimes we get distracted when the Torah is talking about stuff, instead of people, and in our desire to make sense of the details, and the reasons for the details, we forget, if only temporarily, that the Torah is really about relationships, and that often the details are meant to help us clarify or repair or establish relationships.  Since the publication of Rabbi Ron Wolfson’s book, Relational Judaism last year, it has been the subject of scores of Jewish organizations’ staff meetings and leadership retreats, but I think Torah has always been about relationships.  When the wilderness sanctuary is described, or the priestly garments or the sacrifices are described in detail, the Torah is really talking about our relationship with God, how that communication will take place, and where, who will facilitate it and how those facilitators will appear to us. It’s always been about relationships.

When we look at the incident of the Golden Calf, I think it also fascinating to analyze it through the lens of relationship.  It is a complicated drama, with lots of actors and lots of preexisting relationships:  God and the People, the People and Moses, Moses and God, Moses and Aaron and the People and Aaron. Each of these relationships affects and is affected by the drama of the narrative.

The People have been out of Egypt for only a few months; they are insecure, they are unused to freedom, they are afraid and they need a lot of handholding.  Up to this point, they have looked to Moses to provide those things, even though Moses himself is a bit insecure and needs some handholding, and that role has been played by God, with moral support from Aaron, but that dynamic has mostly played out in the background and the people seem to be unaware (or unimpressed) by God’s role in their care and feeding.

Now Moses has been absent for over 6 weeks, and God, occupied with tutoring Moses, seems to the people to also be unavailable.  The people go to Aaron, Moses’ substitute, to get some sense of security, in the form of the Golden calf, which they intend to have as God’s [representation] substitute.  In violation of one of the proclamations the people had heard from God only several weeks earlier, they offered sacrifices to the God-substitute and bowed down before it.

God (who, at least in the literary narrative also appears to be a bit insecure) tells Moses, “They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them.  They have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it. . . . Now, let me be, that my anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy then, and make of you a great nation (Sh’mot (Exodus) 32:8, 10).” God trusts the relationship between him and Moses.  God is not pleased with his relationship with the People or how they relate to him (this is an ongoing concern, which, for the most part is unresolved in the Tanach (Hebrew Bible), though it admittedly cycles between a loving and angry relationship).

Then Moses takes a turn to play both conciliator and press agent; he intervenes between God and the people, reminds God of his relationship with the patriarchs and says something to the effect of “How will it look to the Egyptians that you did all these things to rescue the Children of Israel from Egypt only to kill them all in the wilderness (32:11-13)”?  God relents.  Moments later, in verse 19 Moses sees the goings-on and gets so angry himself “that he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.  He burns the idol, grinds the remains into a powder and makes the people drink.

Then Moses turns to Aaron, whose response to the questioning of the angry Moses is both flippant and knowing of what Moses has suffered with them, “You know that this people is bent on evil (v. 22)”.  You weren’t here and I did what they told me to do.  I took their gold and threw it into the fire and out came this calf (v.24).

Following this, chapter 33 contains an intimate encounter between God and Moses, following which, in Chapter 34, Moses is instructed to carve two new tablets (God had carved the first), and God, as if s/he had not Godself gotten angry with the People says to Moses that this was necessary because Moses [in his anger] had shattered the first set (34:1).  It amazes me that God adds this detail; he was ready to destroy the people, before Moses intervenes; now he is saying a second set of tablet is necessary because Moses couldn’t hold his temper.  The God/Moses relationship is complex indeed.  The portion ends with a reiteration of the basics of Passover observance and includes the injunction about boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.

The people settle in; their relationships with Moses and God continue to be contentious.  Moses continues to struggle as a leader, and God is often disappointed by the lack of faith the people exhibit.

For discussion:

1.         The people were afraid in Moses’ absence; have you ever done something you regret when the person you normally ask for advice isn’t available?

2.         Do you think Moses used a good strategy to save the people from God’s anger?  Could you role play that conversation differently?

3.         If Moses retired, would you apply for his job?

4.         Why is it so hard for people to learn from their mistakes?

Steve Kerbel, Director of Education of Congregation B’nai Tzedek, is Chair Emeritus of the Education Directors’ Council of Greater Washington and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.

Leadership vs. Management and the Paradigm of the Shepherd

D’var Torah – Parashat Yitro –

Steve Kerbel

In the narrative of this week’s parasha, the Children of Israel are out of Egypt, on their own and in the wilderness of Sinai.  The father-in-law of Moses, Yitro (our portion’s namesake), having heard the news of the Exodus brings his daughter and grandsons to reunite with Moses (curious in itself, because they had all set out from Midian together with Moses’ return to Egypt in Shmot (Exodus) 4:24-26 – the cryptic “Bridegroom of Blood” episode).

Yitro is a wise and experienced leader; Moses is a new and untested leader. Yitro wisely watches his son-in-law at work (Shmot (Exodus) 18:13-14) and like an effective mentor, offers Moses some management tips about division of labor and delegation

You shall also seek out from among all the people capable men who fear God, trustworthy men who spurn ill-gotten gain.  Set these over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, and let them judge the people at all times (ibid 17-23).

Moses was trying to do it all, lead the people, handle the logistics of travel, supervise their care and feeding, resolve interpersonal disputes, and Yitro identified the burnout factor and offered practical advice to preserve Moses for the long haul (though no one yet knew it would be a 40 year commitment/ordeal).  Yitro is helpful and Moses gratefully accepts his mentor’s advice.

I think this also calls into question a biblical training ground for leadership, the role of the shepherd.  Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David all share the common resume-building job as herdsman/shepherd.  Each displays expertise in elements necessary to be successful shepherds:  Abraham shows the ability to find and negotiate the use of scarce water resources; Jacob excels in animal husbandry, Moses shows courage in confronting the shepherds of Midian (and according to Midrash, concern for each sheep by chasing after a stray, leading to his encounter with the burning bush) and David shows bravery in defeating a lion and a bear.  Some qualities of the shepherd: solitude, problem solving on the fly, care for a large group, showing empathy for God’s creatures may be good qualities for a leader.  But many skills required for leadership: delegation, working with people, conflict resolution and interpersonal skills are not qualities most shepherds have the opportunity to develop.

Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David all have serious deficits in their parenting skills. Abraham and Moses have communication issues, Jacob and David are sneaky and conniving.  All of them have problems with the next generation following them, and all of them have a hard time transferring the mantle of leadership (Moses being the best of the four, in my opinion).

So what are the lessons learned from Yitro?  Delegation is good; sharing the burden is smart.  Listen to your father-in-law – he has experience you don’t have and that can be helpful in a variety of ways, personal and professional.  Leadership is hard and you can’t govern alone.  Only after Moses enacts the advice of Yitro does he receive the blessing on our behalf that “if we obey [God] faithfully and keep [His] covenant, [we] shall be [His] treasured possession among all the peoples (ibid 19:5).”

For further discussion:

1.    Can a great leader “do it all”?  Can you think of successful leaders who have?

2.    What’s hard about working together with other people?  What if they don’t do it the way you would?  Is that ok?

3.    What would you do if you were Moses – would to try to do it all?

4.    Why can it be good to involve more people in doing a task together?

5.    Yitro leaves after seeing that Moses implemented his suggestion.  Do you think he could have continued to be helpful if he had stayed with Moses?

Steve Kerbel is the Director of Education of Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, MD.  He is the chair emeritus of the Education Directors Council of Greater Washington and a national vice president of the Jewish Educators Assembly.