D’var Torah: Yitro (Adam Overlander-Kaye)
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 13 February 2023
This weeks parasha, Yitro, is super interesting. Firstly, it is one of only 6 named after people. Anyone know the others?
Noah; Chayei Sarah; Korach, Balak and Pinchas.
Its also filled with advice as to how to keep a happy family.
וַיִּשְׁמַ֥ע מֹשֶׁ֖ה לְק֣וֹל חֹתְנ֑וֹ וַיַּ֕עַשׂ כֹּ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר אָמָֽר׃
Moshe listened to his father in law’s advice and did just as he said
Had my in-laws been here I would have had some pithy joke but I’ll move on…
The portion is also an incredible lesson in leadership; of doing what the community or the team needs even when it feels counterintuitive.
A little earlier in the parasha Moshe is shown being in charge of the people. Standing from morning to evening deciding law and giving opinion to everyone. He’s exhausted. It is then that his father in law suggests to him an alternative way of exercising power. To allow the expertise and experience of others to benefit the people.
However, one might have thought that Moses would have struggled to adapt to change given the examples of leadership he has been exposed to.
Pharoah – stubborn. Never changing his mind. Extreme to the point of rather having his people die rather than demonstrate adaptive leadership.
God – Demanding. Also stubborn. Prone to extreme bouts of anger. Floods. Plagues. Not known for subtlety or contemplation.
But yet Moshe is able to reflect on his behaviour and adapt despite being relatively early on in his leadership career. He allows himself to be exposed – what if Yitro’s advice of appointing a range of advisor doesn’t work. What will he do? Is it wise to risk his reputation?
In a 2019 article written for Medium.com, Senanee Abeyawickram writes, “Conventional wisdom has suggested that good leaders are those who have solutions and make no mistakes — a kind of ‘superhero’. Masking our own imperfections, we embrace this definition, despite knowing that such a person cannot exist. Perhaps these expectations are what create the toxic environments that foster unapproachable, inauthentic, and sometimes discriminatory leaders.”
Some of may have heard of Dr Brene Brown. She is a research professor at the University of Houston and has spent the past wo decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. An author of many books and possibly made famous by her 2010 Ted talk that has had more than 40 million views.
Brown introduces us to a more realistic and honest approach to leadership. In her TED talk, she talks about vulnerability, its power, and its importance in leadership. At first glance, leadership and vulnerability may seem counterintuitive. Over many decades we have been taught that vulnerability is an inherent weakness — and Brown’s definition of vulnerability, “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure”, tends to reinforce that idea. Yet, her research posits that vulnerability is, in fact, a sign of strong leadership. In thinking about the intersection of vulnerability and leadership, Brown asks us to ponder how the definition of vulnerability is similar to that of leadership: “the ability to be in uncertainty, take risks, and manage exposure.”
Key to her quest in realizing the power of vulnerability was a speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910. He said:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Failing and daring greatly don’t at first glance seem to be obvious bedfellows. It seems to be a contradiction. But perhaps this is what the human experience is. After all, only a few weeks ago when we read the portion of Bereishit, when God creates the 2nd human being they are called (in Hebrew) an Ezer k’Negdo.
Ezer – to help.
K’negdo – to be in opposition to
As humans in relation to one another, it suggests that we are there to simultaneously help and challenge one another. To love and to care and to constructively critique and push.
This duality carries on later in the parasha when God explains that the Israelites purpose is to be both a Mamlechet Kohanim and a Goy Kadosh. A kingdom of priests and a holy nation. What is the difference between the two?
The late Rabbi Sacks explains that in ancient times – indeed in Europe until the invention of printing – the only class that was literate was the priesthood. “A kingdom of priests” therefore meant, among other things, “a society of universal literacy”.
Sacks then goes on to explain what holiness might mean for a goy kadosh, a holy nation. He says that holiness is the way that humans make space for God with shabbat being holiness par excellence.
Shabbat is supposed to allow us to focus on rest, on not doing. A particularist day focussed on being more Godlike. As God rested , so do we. As it says in the torah, our holy book, we try and be jewish as best we can. A goy kadosh, a holy nation is a particularist understanding of our place in the world.
A memlechet kohanim, a kingdom of Priests is a universal one.
Living with this dissonace is perhaps the essence of what it means to be jewish. To live with the push and pull of life – to always be an ezer k’negdo.
Moshe was the leader of the people and also a listener to individuals. He was someone who was prepared to fail but who was highly successful. The leader who had a stutter was also the person who speaks most in torah. The leader who was given the task of leading the people into the promised land was also the person who had to allow Joshua to finish the task. The most famous, some might say, leader of the Jewish people, is the one with no known grave or memorial.
Simon Sinek, the writer and leadership optimist says that,
“The great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don’t know. The great leaders can’t do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don’t see themselves as great; they see themselves as human.”
And being human I believe is being like god. Humanity is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. If we are created in the image of God, then the reverse must also be true, that God must be a reflection of human beings.
Perhaps that is Yitro’s ultimate message to Moshe. To lead people, you need to remember that the people are created in the image of God and therefore their potential to be creative is only limited by what we tell them (and indeed ourselves). And that to be successful we need to be surrounded by people we can rely on and trust and allow them to do what they do best – whether it be your community, your team, your friends and your family. As one of my colleagues often says to me, focus on what you need to be doing, that’s why you have a team. Or as it says earlier on in the torah portion, when Yitro is talking about Moshe’s workload and the need to delegate,
כִּֽי־כָבֵ֤ד מִמְּךָ֙ הַדָּבָ֔ר לֹא־תוּכַ֥ל עֲשֹׂ֖הוּ לְבַדֶּֽךָ׃
“you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.”
Shabbat shalom.