One role of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis is to build strong leadership within our community. We have operated the Millstone Institute for the past five years to cultivate and strengthen our professional and volunteer leadership. As we head into Passover, I share my thoughts on some leadership lessons of the story we are set to celebrate this Friday night.
Happy Passover!
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Passover is the time we commemorate the Exodus of the ancient Israelites from Egypt. According to the story, soon after they gained their freedom, the Israelites accepted the law given to them by Moses at Mt. Sinai. Moses’ leadership is seen as one of the most important in human history, and one of the most important in the formation of any people.
Curiously, Moses is not depicted as a born leader, but someone who had to grow into the role. Famously, it was a role he resisted accepting.
So why was this leader chosen to lead the Jewish people, and why did it turn out so well?
I believe that Moses demonstrated three necessary qualities for leadership, but until they matured, he could not effectively lead.
First, Moses was clearly motivated by a sense of substantive justice. We can see this in his role as liberator of his people. But even his killing of the taskmaster who had “struck down” another Israelite was a good example of his motivations.
Moses … went out to his brethren and observed their burdens and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, of his brethren. He turned this way and that and saw there was no man, so he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2: 11-12)
The passage provides a good example that motivations are not enough to make a good leader. While Moses may have been motivated by justice, the killing depicted in the passage is not justice, it is retribution. Egyptian society did not need the violence of Moses as a vigilante; it needed institutional change, change that Moses would later deliver when he returned as liberator of his people. We can even recognize Moses’ ambivalence in the quote above. He looks “this way and that” before he acts, and then covers up the evidence. Animated by justice, Moses nevertheless recognized that what he was doing was not entirely “Kosher.”
Motivations are thus not enough. Great leadership requires a second quality: Moses needed to take responsibility for his actions. At the time Moses slew the taskmaster, he was not yet ready to accept the responsibility for his actions. Notice again what he does – he looks around to make sure no one was watching, he then hides the body in the sand, and finally he has to flee from his own people in order not to be caught. Prudent actions, perhaps. But not the responsibility we expect a leader to possess.
How different when Moses would later put his life on the line coming face-to-face with Pharaoh demanding that he let his people go!
Finally, Moses possessed humility and recognized the value of teamwork. When confronted by God’s command to lead his people to freedom, Moses resisted because he recognized he could not speak publicly. It was that humility and the humility to allow others to share in the work that led him to turn to his brother, Aaron, who became his public spokesperson. Recognizing our own limitations as leaders and counting on the talents of others are critical features of great leadership.
All three of these features are critical leadership lessons from Moses: a vision of justice, the willingness to take responsibility for one’s actions, and the recognition of our limits in order to build strong teams.
May your Seder and holiday be meaningful and liberating to you and your families!