Leadership

This week's section is called Pinchas (a proper name). Among the various matters the Torah recounts is the story of how Moses passed his leadership to Joshua son of Nun.

When God told Moses to ascend a mountain from where He would show him the Land of Israel, Moses thought he would lead the Jewish people into the Land himself. But God confirmed that he would not (because he had not sanctified His Name before the congregation when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it) and, furthermore, informed him that he would die there. At that moment, Moses asked God to appoint another leader for the people, so that they would not be (Numbers 27:17) “like a flock of sheep without a shepherd.” God agreed and told him to appoint Joshua as his successor.

The appointment ceremony is as follows: Moshe stands Joshua before Eleazar, the High Priest, before the chief judge and before all the people, “lays his hands” on his head, gives him of his own glory (that is, passes on to him part of the brightness of his face that he had from the delivery of the Second Tablets, on Yom Kippur) and “commands him”.

The commentators dwell on these expressions of "laying his hands" and "commanding him." Of course, each one, according to his own approach, explains what they mean. Because not all commentators say the same thing, nor do they all explain it within the same framework. Some explain the verses according to their simple meaning, like Rashi; some explain the "between the lines," like the Baal haTurim; and some explain much deeper aspects of the text, like the Or haChaim and the Kli Yakar.

In this last aspect, El Or haChaim brings the mystical explanation of the command that Moshe gives to Joshua before the people. In Bamidbar 27:23: vaitzavéhu lit. “he sent it”, means “he joined it”, since in Aramaic the word tzavta (from the same root as vaitzavéhu and? mitzvah) signifies union. Moreover, he continues explaining, “he (Moshe) made his soul shine in him (Joshua).”.

Now, the soul of Moses is the soul that encompasses all the souls of his generation. Moses was the leader of the Jewish people, and the Jewish concept of leadership is not limited to guiding, but has a very strong spiritual implication: the leader is the soul of the people. That is why, when Moses appoints Joshua as the next leader, he gives him part of his soul, so to speak, so that he may be a true leader.

But this goes even further. The Kli Yakar explains why Moses laid his hands on Joshua, comparing it to an animal offering in the Temple, upon which hands were also laid. The (general) idea of an offering was to atone for a sin. The person laid their hands and confessed, so that the offering would atone for their transgression. In turn, our sages explain that the sins of the people are attributable to their leaders, because they should have taught, warned, and so on. Therefore, when Moses laid his hands on Joshua, he was "passing on" the sins of that entire generation to Joshua and making him responsible from then on as the soul and leader of the people.

This entire ceremony holds great significance for our times. Today, we see leaders of nations unable to pass on their leadership to the next generation. The world is full of "old leaders," extremely powerful figures, each in their own region, who are unwilling to relinquish their positions of power to their successors. In many cases, the situation is so dire that it seems impossible for anyone to succeed them because part of their power-building strategy was to ensure that no one "emerges" as a potential successor, lest that person usurp their power. We see the opposite of this in Moses. He himself asks God to appoint the next leader, even while he is still alive and his leadership is at its peak (since he still had the entire fifth book of the Torah to recite!).

Furthermore, leaders should adopt an attitude like Moses', taking responsibility for the mistakes of others and striving to correct them. Today, leaders of different nations always find excuses to shirk responsibility for their own mistakes, let alone those of others.

This parashah It is an eternal lesson for leaders (and everyone is a leader in their own world, even within their own home as a father or mother), about how their attitude should be towards the present and the future.