Leadership 4 U

Follow the Leader: Insights into Jewish Leadership

In Last week's Torah portion of Ki Tisa we read how Moses already had his own tent of meeting and his "personal mishkan - tabernacle".

Considering that he wasn't going to benefit anything extra from constructing the communal tabernacle, why did God instruct Moses to get involved in the building of the Mishkan that was primarily for the Divine presence to dwell amongst the Jewish people?

We can learn an important lesson in leadership from here. One cannot simply worry about his own person spiritual growth.

One needs to concern himself with others' Torah study and spiritual development. This takes after Moses who wasn't just a leader in theory but also in practice.

At the moment I am situated in southern Israel, which is under a barrage of rocket attacks from terrorists in Gaza. This reminds me of the following story of Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel, the late Rosh Yeshiva (head of the Talmudical College) of Mir, one of the largest Yeshivot of pre-war Europe that to this day has several thousand people learning under its' roof. Despite R' Nosson Tzvi's Parkinson's disease, this did not stop him becoming one of the greatest leaders of our generation.

During the Gulf War, there was a scare that Saddam Hussein would use biological weapons. Therefore, every building had to have designated sealed rooms that would be isolated from all sources from air, and one had to use a gas mask to breath.

After one such siren, some students of the Mir Yeshiva ran to their designated sealed room. They had put on Gas masks and had already sealed off the door with special masking tape.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?", one of the students asked. "It is Nosson Tzvi" came the response from the other side of the door. The students in the room were clueless as to what to do. They were sure that there was a student who had been late in getting to his sealed room and therefore had to impersonate the Rosh Yeshiva, so they refused to open the door. After much persistence, they felt guilty and opened the door. Imagine their shock when they saw the Rosh Yeshiva standing there with his gas mask.

The Rosh Yeshiva lived a few minutes walk from the Yeshiva and was not supposed to be in or near the Yeshiva at the time. So what was he doing there, wondered the students in the sealed room?

"I had a pre-arrangement with my driver. Immediately upon the sound of the alarm he was to collect me and drive me straight to Mir. In times of crisis, I just wanted to be with my boys".

Thus should a leader act. For the people and with the people.