Beth Shalom
Oceanside Jewish Center

Moses and Me: Reflections on Being a Rabbi
Parshat Behaalotecha

June 21, 2003 - 21 Sivan 5763

Each year as the summer months approach, I find myself growing self-reflective as I think about my role as a congregational Rabbi. The summer affords me a much needed opportunity to think back over the past year and to reassess what I have and haven't accomplished.

The second half of the book of Numbers which we read at this time of year also allows me to re-consider the challenges and difficulties of being a Rabbi. In this section of the Torah, more than any other, we encounter Moshe as a leader. As the first person to be called "Rabbaynu," "our Rabbi," its only natural to ask how I've live up to his example and to what extent I've failed to do so.

You know, despite all the bad jokes we tell about being a Rabbi, ("What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy or girl?"), I love what I do. More important, I believe in what I do. There are very few careers in this world that allow a person to combine one's conviction, passion and profession. The Rabbinate is both my vocation and my avocation. I'd like to think that I would still be doing the same things I do as a Rabbi even if I were a plumber or an accountant! But that doesn't mean that I don't have moments of self-doubt and frustration.

Then again I'm not alone. In the second half of Behaalotecha, Moshe encounters several challenges to his position as a leader. In these chapters we see Moses at his best and his worse. Moshe is a humble and self-effacing man who bears the brunt of communal anger. He is also a frustrated and angry man who has taken more than enough abuse from his stiffed necked community. Moshe is ready to throw in the towel and abandon his people. Looking at these different images we ask, "Will the real Moshe Rabbaynu please stand up?"

We also find Moshe, the leader, described in different ways. When Eldad and Medad, two members of the community who have not been appointed as elders, begin to prophesy in the midst of the community Joshua, Moshe's faithful intern, rushes to his teacher's side and demands that they be locked up. "How dare they act like prophets without a license?" he says. It's interesting to note that in this passage, Joshua refers to Moshe as 'Adonee,' my lord. This is one of the few places in the Torah where Moses is referred to by this term. When Moshe's authority is challenged by rouge prophets, Joshua feels the need to stand up for his teacher.

Later, Moses is referred to in a different way. When Miriam and Aaron question their brother's leadership because of his marriage to a Kushite woman, God comes to Moshe's defense. The Holy One refers to Moshe as 'Avdee' as "my servant." God makes it clear that Moshe's position is unqualified and unparalleled in Jewish life. "I speak to other prophets through riddles," God says. "Not so my servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household…"

So here we find two images of spiritual leadership in the Torah that are very different from one another. Is Moshe 'Adonee,' my master, the powerful and unquestioned leader of the community, or is he 'Avdee,' my servant, the humble and self-effacing servant of God?

What should a rabbi be today? Should the spiritual leader of the community be an "Adon," the lord and master of his congregation and the final decisor of all things great and small, or should he be and "Eved Hashem," a humble servant of God (and the congregational board.) Where does the Rabbi's authority begin and where does it end? What should his relationship to the community be?

It seems to me that we place too much emphasis on the rabbi as a communal leader. We turn to the Rabbi assuming that he/she has some type of super natural power; that the Rabbi has the inside line to God. Whenever people feel that things are not going the way they should and they ask me to put in a good word with God, I like to remind them that my influence is limited. After all, I'm in sales not management.

But we do have high hopes of our Rabbis. I've yet to meet a congregation that hasn't hired its Rabbi without the expectation that he or she is the Mashiach, the Messiah; that this is the Rabbi who will have all the answers and change the character of the community. Of course, people quickly figure out that their rabbi puts on his pants one leg at a time; that he has strengths and weaknesses just like the rest of us. But in the end we often expect far more than we should. And the truth is the more we expect the more disappointed we often are.

Rabbis aren't all knowing. Yet, we treat them a little like the person who came to his dentist with a terrible tooth ache. When the dentist asked the person which tooth hurt, the patient answered, "You're the doctor -figure it out for yourself." Only a dentist has a better chance of figuring out what his patient's problem is than a Rabbi does in solving his congregation's woes.

It takes more than a Rabbi to build a community. It takes a congregation that is committed to working and building a community together. More than that, it takes people who are committed to the basic values and ideals that the congregation represents. Rabbis don't make Jews; they simply offer people the opportunity to learn what they need to know to live better Jewish lives.

Michael Katz, one of my colleagues, wrote that Rabbis are a little like encyclopedia salesmen. They go from door to door offering people this grand source of wisdom and insight from the ages. They offer people inspiration and illumination. But most people slam the door in their faces or just express disinterest. It is really quite disheartening for the salesperson. If people would only open the book and take a look at what it contains they would realize how much they have to gain. Like the salesmen, Rabbis sometimes get discouraged. Then they sit down, however, open the encyclopedia themselves once again and remember why they decided to become salesmen in the first place, and they start all over again.

So we Rabbis find ourselves vacillating back and forth between our role as "Adon," communal leader, and our desire to be a simple "Eved," a humble servant of God. Anyone who approaches the Rabbinate searching for Kavod, for honor, is a fool. And anyone who assumes that there isn't a certain amount of ego involved in being a communal leader is blind. We must balance leadership with service, authority with humility.

Maybe we need to find new models of congregational leadership. Traditionally a Rabbi was considered the Mara D'atra, the local authority who makes all decisions involving Jewish law. People come to us to ask question and it was our job to answer them. Only today people rarely ask rabbis questions of Halachah and when they do ask us questions, they are of a different nature all together. Some people have suggested that a rabbi's role in Jewish life in the twenty first century is to be a facilitator. His job is not to stand above others but to be first among equals, offering people opportunities to embrace and enrich Jewish living; not to give people answers but to help them find the answers for themselves. The community, then, makes the rabbi by taking advantage of what the rabbi has to offer; the Rabbi does not make the community through his towering personality or intellect.

When Eldad and Medad, the two rouge prophets, began to prophecy in the community without Moshe's authorization, Joshua responds defensively. Moshe, on the other hand, responded with joy. He tells Joshua, "Are you angry on my account? Would that all God's people were prophets and that God put His spirit upon them." What began as a crisis, ended with reconciliation. Moses realized that he did not have to carry the entire community by himself. Only then did he and the elders reenter the Israelite camp. At that moment Moshe realized that leadership does not have to be exclusionary. It can be shared.

So maybe this is our real goal as rabbis: to make our position superfluous. "Would that all God's people were rabbis." What we need are not leaders who stand apart from the congregations but congregations which give each person an opportunity to be their best and to live Judaism more fully.

Shabbat Shalom