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By Rabbi Pablo Berman,
Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador

Translated by Inés Baum - Proofreading by Ellen Zindler

Some people think that leaders are born, while others believe that they are made. Perhaps everyone is partly right, but the truth is that, at the base of leadership, lay a series of special attitudes and behaviors. Such is what God observed when He chose Moses as leader of the people of Israel; his attitudes and behavior.

The sages tell us about Moses. One day, Moses was tending to his flock when one of the kids escaped. It ran and ran and Moses ran after him, until the kid stopped at a small oasis in the desert, where there was shade and water. The kid drank avidly while Moses watched it. When he finished drinking, Moses said: “I didn’t know you were running like that because you were thirsty. You’re tired, I’ll carry you on my shoulders.” Moses picked up the kid and carried it all the way to the site where the rest of the herd stood grazing. It was then that God said to him: “You have the pity required to guide a flock of men, women, and children. You will be the one who will lead my flock, the people of Israel.”

Honesty, loyalty, humility, such are Moses’ characteristics, who would be catalogued today as a great leader within the main organizations of Management, leadership, and business administration.

But there are two more elements in this Parashah, which closes the book of Bemidbar: Ele Massei B’nei Yisrael asher yatzu meeretz mitzrayim letzibotam, beyad Moshe ve Aaron, “These are the stages of the children of Israel, by which they went forth out of the land of Egypt by their hosts under the hand of Moses and Aaron.” As a father who accompanies his children. It is no longer necessary to carry them in his shoulders, but as with the kid, it is still necessary to hold their hand, and not just Moses but also Aaron.

The list of places where they traveled together is long. In those years, there was trouble, arguments, mistakes, revolts, and also many unique times of revelation and mystery. And here is Moses, holding hands with his people, guiding, advising, leading them to the threshold of the Promised Land, which he himself would not cross. What does Moses do then? He leaves testimony; he begins to write about each spot of the journey, each station, each moment: Vaichtov Moshe et motzaeyem lemasseyem, “Moses wrote their goings forth, stage by stage” and, in each of those stations, Moses summarized an event that occurred in the journey, throughout forty years of wandering through the wilderness.

In the book of Divre Hayamim (Chronicles) we find a very interesting pasuk (verse):

Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I took you from the pasture and from following the flock, to be ruler over my people Israel.’”

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Forwarded by Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, from Kol Shearith Israel Congregation, Panama.
Translated by Inés Baum and proofread by Ellen Zindler, from B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica.

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