Parashat Chukat 5784 -Close, But No Cigar
The phrase ‘Close, but No Cigar’ is used to indicate that you have fallen just short of a successful outcome and have received no reward for your efforts. How does that apply to today’s parshah?
No one has been as influential over the history of the Jewish people than Moses – the man who confronted Pharaoh, announced the plagues, brought the people out of Egypt, led them through the sea and desert and suffered their multiple ingratitudes for forty years. He brought the word of God to the people and prayed for the people to God. Moses was the man whose passion for justice and receptivity to the voice of God made him the greatest leader of all time.
According to today’s parshah, the Israelites were complaining about the lack of water in the wilderness after Miriam died. God instructed Moses to speak to a rock and command it to yield water for the people. However, Moses, in his frustration with the Israelites and while grieving for Miriam, struck the rock twice with his staff instead of speaking to it as commanded.
This act of disobedience was seen as a lack of faith and a failure to uphold God’s holiness before the people. As a consequence, God told Moses and his brother Aaron that they would not lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Aaron died shortly afterward, and Moses, though he could see the land from Mount Nebo, was not allowed to cross over into it himself. Instead, God appointed Joshua to lead the Israelites into Canaan
Few passages have generated so much controversy among the commentators. Each offers his own interpretation for what Moses’ main offence was and challenges the other explanations. There were so many hypotheses that a nineteenth century Italian interpreter R. Shmuel David Luzzatto wrote, “Moses committed one sin, yet the commentators have accused him of thirteen or more – each inventing some new iniquity!”
Moses’ inability to understand the distinction between striking vs. speaking was not a failing or a sin. It was an inescapable consequence of the fact that he was mortal. What he failed to understand was that time had changed in one essential detail. He was facing a new generation. The people he confronted the first time he struck a rock years ago were those who had spent much of their lives as slaves in Egypt. Those he now faced were born into freedom in the wilderness. A figure capable of leading slaves to freedom is not the same as one able to lead free human beings from a nomadic existence in the wilderness to the conquest and settlement of a land. There are different challenges, and they need different types of leadership. Indeed, the whole biblical story of how a short journey took forty years teaches us this truth. Great change does not take place overnight. It takes more than one generation – and therefore more than one type of leader The fact that at a moment of crisis Moses reverted to an act that had been appropriate forty years before showed that time had come for new leadership for this new generation
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that each age produces its leaders, and each leader is a function of an age. There are certain timeless truths about leadership. A leader must have courage and integrity. He must be able to relate to each individual according to his or her distinctive needs. Above all, a leader must be able to constantly learn and adjust to change. These are necessary, not sufficient, conditions. A leader must be sensitive to the call of the hour – this hour, this generation, this chapter in the long story of a people. And because he or she is of a specific generation, even the greatest leader cannot meet the challenges of a different generation. That is not a failing. It is the existential condition of humanity.
There is one critical difference between slaves and free human beings. Slaves respond to orders. Free people do not. They must be educated, informed, instructed, and taught. If not, they will not learn to take responsibility. Slaves understand that a stick is used for striking. That is how slave-masters compel obedience. But free human beings must not be struck. They respond, not to power but persuasion. They need to be spoken to. What Moses failed to hear and understand was that the difference between God’s command then and now, i.e. “strike the rock” and “speak to the rock” was of the essence. The symbolism in each case related to the mentalities of two different generations. You strike a slave but speak to a free person.
As a leader of the people for 40 years, Moses failed to educate a new generation that was ready for a relationship with God. This generation of Israelites speaks the same scripts as their fathers and mothers. But Moses has not transformed their destructive attitudes or values. He has not successfully refashioned the Israelites’ loyalty and the incident at the rock emphasizes his failure of leadership. This event at the rock showed it was time for new leadership that might be successful in inspiring new loyalties to the God who had taken the people out of Egypt.
Great leadership is about successfully orienting change. Leadership involves developing a vision of the future and implementing strategies to achieve that vision. Leadership means motivating and inspiring people to change habits, attitudes and values that might have prevented them from achieving their goals. When a leaders’ style and approach are outdated, their teams and colleagues stop responding.
Letting go is one of the hardest parts of effective leadership. An effective leader sets a clear vision to help their teams see what matters most. It is to clearly communicate their vision and establish shared, explicit expectations. Effective leaders identify who, what, when, where, and why. Responsibility entails the strategic and purposeful passing of the baton from one person to the next at the right time. Effective leaders provide support and praise. Effective leaders follow up on met and unmet expectations.
Sometimes being a good leader means knowing when it is time to step down and let others lead. How do you know when it’s time to step down? There are some areas to consider: Is the organization in a strong position? Do you have good potential replacements on board? If you have good succession planning, then you should have individuals ready to move forward into the leadership position. This allows you to step down with confidence. Is there a different skill set needed? Can someone else do it better? Being a good leader means recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses and letting someone else lead when it is best for the organization. Every organization needs to evolve and grow. If you can’t allow that, then you need to go. New leadership brings innovative ideas, experiences, and energy to an organization that can increase its impact.
Many leaders today don’t belong in leadership positions anymore. The success factors for leadership have changed drastically because of the demands of a new global marketplace. Leadership is what defines a company’s success and long-term sustainability. Just ask Blockbuster, Blackberry and MySpace. Their leadership obviously didn’t think, act and innovate enough to anticipate and keep up with the leadership activities that were taking place at Netflix, Apple, and Facebook.
Leadership is about seamlessly being able to reinvent yourself, your organization and the people who serve it – all at the same time. If you or your organization’s leaders lack this ability – it’s time for a refresh. People and organizations deserve the best leadership and it is your responsibility to change it when it no longer works.
Moses was a great leader. The nobility of his character and his capacity for restraining himself from reacting to insults and his desire to unite people and see to their welfare all comprise the unique nature of his leadership. Yes, Moses is a hero of legendary proportions who can calm an angry God yet chastise and redirect his people when they panic. But his ability to be the leader of the Israelites crumbled with the incident at the rock.
He was the ideal leader for the desert, the only one who could give direction and purpose to the wanderings. But he is not the leader for the new free generation, the one to build a covenantal community in Eretz Israel.
Close, but no cigar.