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Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas
Beshalach
Thinking Like a Leader
By:
Daniel Listhaus
וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל משֶׁה מַה תִּצְעַק
אֵלָי דַּבֵּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִסָּעוּ
"Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to
the B’nei Yisroel and let them journey!”
-Shemos 14:15
After B’nei
Yisroel left Mitzrazyim, the Torah[1] relates
that Pharaoh took 600 chariots of the Egyptian army and pursued them. When B’nei
Yisroel saw that the Egyptian army was camped not far from them, they
became very frightened and cried out to Hashem for help. They then turned to
Moshe and said, “Are there no graves in Egypt that you had to take us out to
the midbar(desert) to die? Did we not tell you it would be better
for us to stay in Egypt?”[2] Moshe immediately
responded that there was no reason to worry because Hashem will do battle for
them, and then turned to daven to Hashem. However, the next passuk (verse)
is very intriguing. Hashem tells Moshe, “Why do you cry out to me? Speak to
the Bnei Yisroel and let them journey!”[3] Rashi[4] writes
that we see from this passuk that Moshe stopped to daven to Hashem and was met with an unusual response: “Why are you crying out
to Me? Now is not the time to prolong prayer, for B’nei Yisroel is in
distress and immediate action must be taken.” Rashi offers an additional explanation
that Hashem was telling Moshe that there was nothing to worry about because
Hashem had guaranteed that He was taking care of everything.
The
S’forno[5] also explains that Moshe was davening to Hashem because he heard what the B’nei Yisroel were saying – their complaining
that because they left Mitzrayim they were all going to die – and concluded that they gave up and would
not be interested in entering the Yam Suf with him. To this, the S’forno explains, Hashem responded, “Why are you davening to Me? Why are you being chosheid b’keshairim
(falsely
accusing by assumption)?”
This
S’forno is very difficult to understand.
What did Hashem mean by giving mussar to Moshe that he was falsely assuming that B’nei Yisroel would not listen to him? Moshe
heard loud and clear the sarcasm in B’nei Yisroel’s cry, “Were there not enough graves in Mitzrayim for us that we had to come to
the wilderness to die?”And he plainly heard the B’nei Yisroel’s distress in their statement, “We
told you so!” Why did Hashem tell Moshe that he was being chosheid
b’kesheirm?
Were the B’nei
Yisroel really “k’sheirim” in the sense that they were
ready and waiting to obey whatever Moshe would tell them to do?
Perhaps
we could better understand this S’forno with the help of an anecdote
that supposedly occurred with a minister of parliament in England. The story
goes that Geoffrey Dickens, M.P. would often attend events arranged by his
constituents. After visiting a number of these events he began to notice that
he was constantly being closely followed by the same certain devoted smiling
woman of indescribable ugliness.[6]
As much as tried, he just could not manage to away from her. A few weeks later he
received a letter from this constituent saying how much she admired him, that
she was so happy to have been privileged to meet him at many of his political
gatherings, and went on asking for a signed photograph. After her name, written
in brackets were the words “Horse Face”. Mr. Dickens was quite impressed. He
thought to himself how brave and committed his admirer was not just to be
willing to admit her own physical repulsiveness, but even to use it to her
advantage.[7]
He decided he would do something special for this lady and so he went out and
bought a nice frame to put his photograph in and on the photograph he signed
his name and personally wrote in large script, “To Horse Face, with love from
Geoffrey Dickens, M.P.” After it had been sent off, his secretary said to him, “Did
you get that letter from the woman who attends so many of your events? I wrote “Horse
Face” after her name so you'd remember who she was.”
Often times we get
locked in our own “Horse face” mode as we hold onto an assumption without
stopping to re-thing and break down other possibilities. Sometimes these are
assumptions about ourselves, which prevent us from moving forward; other times
they are about others and we definitively lock in our own minds what must be
the perspective of the counterparty.
This is exactly the incredible lesson that the S’forno is teaching here. B’nei Yisroel never explicitly said to Moshe, “We
are not going to listen to you”. Granted, they were being annoyingly sarcastic
and pessimistic, but they never said that they were not going to follow Moshe’s
lead. Moshe mistakenly concluded, based on what he heard them saying, that B’nei Yisroel were not ready to follow him to
the Yam Suf. Moshe therefore turned to
Hashem to daven
that they
should listen to him. However, Moshe needed to be told that he skipped a step.
As leader of K’lal Yisroel he now had the responsibility of not just
listening carefully with emotional intelligence to what B’nei Yisroel was saying, but that he needed
to be on high alert at all times to be able to always look at K’lal Yisroel through a lens of unconditional
love and care and look for ways to interpret their actions in good ways instead
of taking them at face value and making assumptions. A true leader, which Moshe
rabbeinu
absolutely was,
who cares for his nation will look for ways to stand up for it, not for ways to
disparage them – even if their own words make it sound like they are heading
down the wrong path. Indeed, Moshe was perfect for the job and his love and
care for K’lal
Yisroel knew no
bounds as is evident from the parshiyos. However, it is precisely because of Moshe’s high level and the
standard expected of him that Hashem felt it necessary to teach him that there
is a difference between seeming to rebel and actually rebelling. As annoying
the sarcastic remarks may be, and as improper as it may be to reminisce the
“good old days” in Mitzrayim, a leader’s job is to never give up on its people.
Leaders
come in many forms. There are world leaders, leaders of nations, leaders of
countries, states, cities, communities, schools, families, and friendship
circles. One could view his or her following as disposable and take remarks at
face value and make false assumptions, or one can hold out and stick up for one’s
following even through the hard times, using the bit of light in the darkness
as a way to pull one’s following through.
Many
people do not recognize their own followings, and sometimes it is not obvious which
people look up to us that we put down with our assumptions of them. However, unarguably,
each individual has a following of at least one: oneself. Each person is responsible,
on their own level, to think deep and pay attention to the things we convince
ourselves of and the situations we find ourselves in and unset them from being
defaults and assumptions and instead treat them as variables. Imagine if
instead of saying, “I can’t because….” We would replace it with “I don’t because…but
really I could” or “I choose not to because…..but I could also choose to…despite
how difficult it may be”. If we stop to think about the things we tell
ourselves and modify them to unfetter us from circular entrapment we could
unlock our full potential and give ourselves the ability to move in the right
direction. It is empowering and encouraging to come to the realization that we
could be in control of our own decisions if we just want to.
We
have the responsibility along with not being choshed b’k’sheirim of others, to also not be chosheid b’keshairim
of ourselves. Sometimes
it is difficult to find the gray line of where the pasul ends and the kosher starts but it exists. Once we could pin point that
through being honest with ourselves we have the ability to take control and separate
fact from fiction.
May
Hashem help each and every one of us to be proper leaders of those who
follow us, and especially proper leaders of our own selves.
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