Parshat Chukat begins with the laws of the red heifer and ritual purity, but subsequently provides important lessons about leadership. At the center of the narrative stand the dramatic narrative of “the Waters of Meriva”.
The story takes place in three parts:
In part one, Moshe’s sister Miriam dies and the people complain about the absence of water.
In part two, God gives Moshe and Aaron instructions about how to bring water to the community:
Take the staff, you and your brother Aaron, and assemble [hakhel] the community [edah]. Speak to the rock before their eyes and it will give forth water. You shall bring forth water for them from the rock, giving the community [edah] and their animals to drink.” Moshe took the staff from before the Lord, as He had commanded him. And Moshe and Aaron gathered [vayakhilu] the assembly [kehal] together before the rock. He said to them, “Listen now, rebels! Shall we produce water for you from this rock?” Then Moshe raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their animals drank.
Bamidbar 20:7-12
A happy ending, we might think. But in part three, God tells Moshe and Aaron that they will not enter the Promised Land, “because you did not put your trust in Me to demonstrate My holiness in the Israelites’ eyes, you shall not bring this assembly [kehal] into the land that I am giving them.” (20:12).
But what did Moshe do wrong? The commentators provide a myriad of suggestions: that he lost his temper; that he termed the congregation “rebels”; that he hit the rock twice rather than once; that he hit it rather than spoke to it; that he diluted God’s power by using the word “we” for producing water.
The difference between an Edah and a Kehal
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin brings a beautiful explanation based on the difference between two words that appear several times—edah and kehal.[1] A Kehal consists of many individuals who gather together, the disparate persons who comprise a crowd. By contrast, an Edah is guided by a specific unifying purpose: individuals form a community united by a commitment to generational continuity. At its root, writes Riskin, an edah is a witness-community.
According to this interpretation, God wants Moshe to see the Children of Israel through the prism of a community that bears witness to God’s presence. Yet Moshe—still mourning the loss of his sister, and fed up with their constant complaints now spanning close to forty years—is no longer capable of that. God’s conclusion: Moshe cannot continue to lead them. He will not enter the promised land.
Punishment or natural consequence?
Despite being described in Bamidbar as “very humble, more so than any other man” (12:3), it is curious that Moshe never apologizes. He requests to be allowed into the land, but never expresses remorse for his actions at the Waters of Meriva.
Is it possible that Moshe does not actually think he sinned? Is it possible that there was, in fact, nothing wrong with what he did?
But then, why is Moshe not allowed to enter the land?
The reason is that a change was needed. After the men of the generation of the Exodus had all died, a generational change at the top was also required. God’s decision to prevent Moshe and Aaron from entering the land reflects the fact they were no longer suitable to lead the community into the new reality.
The Essence of Leadership
Later, as he prays to God to appoint a successor, we get a glimpse of what Moshe thinks about required characteristics of leadership.
Moshe spoke to the Lord: “Let the Lord, God of the spirit of all flesh, appoint a man over the community who will go out before them and come in before them, who will lead them out and bring them home. Let not the Lord’s community be like sheep without a shepherd.” (Bamidbar 27:16-17)
Rashi explains that Moshe uses this specific phrase for God—the spirit of all flesh—because he wants a leader who understands each person’s unique mind.
But the rest of Moshe’s short prayer also tells us something about a leader’s role, and the tension between meeting the people where they are and pushing them towards where they need to be.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes of how the phrase “who will go out before them and come in before them” means that “a leader must lead from the front—they cannot be like the apocryphal British politician who said: ‘Of course I follow the party. After all, I am their leader.’”[2] For Rabbi Sacks, the second phrase—“who will lead them out and bring them home”—means “a leader must lead from the front, but must not be so far out in front that when they turn around, they find that no one is following.”
A balancing act
Leadership is like walking a tightrope. Moshe prays for balance.
Several years ago, I interviewed Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Arab Joint List in the Knesset.[3] Odeh was no stranger to controversy. Within the Joint List were Members of Knesset (MKs) who had made statements anathema to the vast majority of the country’s Jewish citizens. At the same time, in a historic first, Odeh had expressed interest in political cooperation with center-left Zionist parties.
I was intrigued as to how he understood his role as head of an Arab party in which there were many views. “A leader should lead rather than be led,” Odeh told me. “But there is a difference between a politician who thinks about the next election cycle and a leader who thinks of future generations. I don’t want to be right but irrelevant. The wisdom in leadership is not to stay in the middle and let people pass you. But one also can’t be so far out in front that people don’t even see your back. The latter role is for the intellectual, who believes that in fifty years people will understand him and think he was right. A leader has to maintain the connection with his people.”
On the razor’s edge
In his book, Leadership on the Line, Harvard lecturer Ronald Heifetz explains that leadership requires that people be shaken out of their comfort zone in order to facilitate change, but at a rate they can absorb.[4] Heifetz describes leadership as a razor’s edge—a delicate balance between causing people to feel the need for change on the one hand, while preventing them from feeling overwhelmed on the other.
Having stood on the razor’s edge for decades, this is the core of Moshe’s prayer to God. Perhaps deep down, especially after the Waters of Meriva, Moshe realizes that he can no longer strike that balance. It is time for someone new to guide the Edah into the Promised Land.
Notes
[1] Riskin, Shlomo. “Strike Two and He’s Out.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 27, 2017. https://www.jta.org/2017/06/27/ny/strike-two-and-hes-out
[2] Sacks, Jonathan. “The Pace of Change.” Covenant & Conversation, Pinchas, 2010. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/pinchas/the-pace-of-change/
[3] Ben-Dor, Calev. “The Political Odyssey of Ayman Odeh.” Fathom, May 2022. https://fathomjournal.org/the-political-odyssey-of-ayman-odeh/
[4] Heifetz, Ronald A., and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
