by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD

Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue Beverly Hills, CA

In the previous parasha, Hashem decreed that the entire generation which had provoked him repeatedly and finally with their rebellion at Kadesh Barnea would not enter the Land of Promise.  It seems the Torah is therefore at pains to help us understand that this disbarring from the Land of Promise is justified.  After all, some might say that Hashem was failing to keep his promise.  Instead of bringing the people he redeemed from Egypt into the Promised Land, he is letting them die in the wilderness.  This is precisely the line of argument Moses used in last week's parsha" [Num 14:11-16].  Moses said that if the people perished in the wilderness, people would say that he had been unable to complete the task of bringing into the Promised Land the people he had brought out of Egypt.  And we saw last week how excluding this generation from inheriting the Promised Land was justified by the Torah in view of the people's repeated rebellion including the incident of the spies on the very edge of going into the Land.

This week we see that Hashem's denying them the Land is being defended in view of the corrupt and decadent nature many of the leaders.

In this week's parsha, it is 250 of the Levites, the leadership class of the sons of Israel who are in the spotlight.  They do something that leaders must never do: they publicly break with the leadership above them in order to highlight their own status.  Let's explore this thought for a moment.

Recently, I have been benefiting from reading two excellent books on Leadership by Rick Pitino, who is now the Head Coach of the Boston Celtics.  Formerly he was at Boston College and Providence College, where he led each team to victory and restructuring in amazingly short time.

In one of his books on leadership, Basketball Coach Rich Pitino comments about how a leader is surely going to face crises, and how a leader demonstrates his leadership by how he handles those crises.  Similarly, a leader must discuss these crises with his staff.  Moses was the Head Coach of Israel, and one could call the priests and Levites his "staff."  Bearing that in mind, listen to what Pitino says about coaching in crisis, and see if his words don't have a direct bearing upon the situation in today's parsha.

(A) Every leader is eventually going to face a crisis at some point in their career.  It is an inevitable as death and taxes How do you deal with that crisis? You must face the crisis.  You must address it and deal with it, before it can be placed in the past.  And you must tell the truth. Again, the more you tell the truth the more you put it into the past.  That doesn't mean you have to put it on a billboard, Nor does it mean you have to hit people over the head with it, but you must tell the truth.

(B) The first thing to do is to gather your lieutenants together.  Everyone must be informed, made aware of the entire situation.  This is essential.  There can be no secrets, no partial explanations, no spinning of the facts.  This is you and your key staff, and within the room you want input from everyone.  For that to be meaningful they must have all the facts, too.

(C) Everyone must understand one thing though: it's all right to differ within the room.  In fact, it's good. Within the room you want differences of opinion, people who will articulate their ideas and convictions.  These people are your management team and the worst thing they can do is goose-step to you simply because you're the boss.  But once you leave the room you must have a shared plan, a shared voice.  At some point you are all going to walk out of the room and at that point you all have to be on the same page.

Of course we can see that this is exactly what the Levites failed to do.  At a time of crisis, after the judgment that fell on the Israelites after the evil report of the ten spies, these leaders, these members of Moses' management team did the worst possible thing: they not only publicly critiqued Moses' leadership; they also sought to set themselves up in the priesthood business without any reference at all to Moses' or Aaron's authority.

There is a dual danger in today's readings: first, the danger that people in a leadership team will seek to gather power for themselves even if this means undermining those in authority over them and detouring from Hashem's agenda.  We see this in Korah's rebellion.  The second danger is evident in the Haftarah reading where the people seek to accumulate for themselves leaders after their own liking—leaders in their own image, so to speak, rather than the leaders Hashem has chosen.

What is the message for our Union congregations today?  First there is a message for leaders, second is a message for everyone in the congregation.

For leaders, Hashem requires of all of us faithfulness to what Hashem has called us to do and loyalty to each other.  Beware of the temptation to use your leadership position as a platform for building your very own kingdom.  There are few things more destructive in a congregation or a Union than leaders fighting over turf and influence.  If we do not learn to work together, we will go nowhere but down some hole in the wilderness.  On the other hand, "hiney ma tov u-ma-nayim shevet achim gam yachad—How good and how pleasant it is when Hashem's leaders dwell together in unity."

And for the people of our congregations, beware of two related errors both of which can result in inhabiting a hole in the wilderness instead entering the Holy Land.  The first error is to look around you and to want to have a congregation just like the others, just as the children of Israel in our haftarah wanted a king just like the other peoples around them, forgetting that they themselves were unique in that the L-rd Himself was their king.

There are many congregations in our Union, and many other congregations in the Messianic Jewish Alliance, and many impressive mega-churches out there or synagogue experiments that impress most of us at one time r another: but Hashem has not called us to be them.  He has called us to be ourselves and is calling each congregation at this time to take the Land he has given us, the Land he promised to our particular fathers--our historic leaders, and our current leaders and other thinkers and doers among us He is calling us to fulfil our particular destiny.  But this destiny can get derailed whenever we forget to fulfil our own particular destiny and seek instead to copy others around us. Hashem has not raised us up in order for us to be a copy: he wants an original.  .

The second error the people of a congregation can make as revealed in these readings is seeking leadership compatible with our own feel-good-just-like-the-others kind of vision.  No, Hashem has a habit of choosing leaders who stretch His people, taking us our of our comfort zone.  And I would suggest that in any of our congregations, if we are not being stretched out of our comfort zones, we are probably not being "led" at all.

For of our congregations, and for our Union as a whole,

• It is time for us to get our act together.
• It is time for us to work together.
• It is time for us to accept, embrace, and pursue our own particular calling and destiny.
• It is time for us to rejoice in the hard work that must be done if we are to fulfill that calling and destiny.

We have two choices before us: to take the Holy Land Hashem has given us, or to die in some hole in the wilderness. Which will it be?  The choice is ours.