Leadership: Moses and Me

By Alexandra Fleksher

Who is a leader? We often think of a leader as a person who is responsible for making big decisions, such as a president or a head of a company.  Other leaders that come to mind are camp directors, principals and rabbis.These leaders have the responsibility to oversee the work of others, and have a role in influencing others in how they think, work and the actions they might take. Did you ever think that you could be a leader? Did you ever realize that your actions and decisions might influence others?

There are various ways to be a leader.  Sometimes being a leader can mean being in the spotlight. A Student Council President has ideas of how she can improve school life and wants an opportunity to lead her fellow students. Miriam, the Student Council president at a Jewish day school, explains her motivation for being a student leader, “I love making things happen, whether it’s an ice cream party for the school or a fundraiser for a local tzedakah organization. I knew that being Student Council president would give me an opportunity to do these things for the school.”

An individual can even be a leader without realizing it; not in making decisions for others, but in making decisions for him or herself. When someone makes the right choice – to do something positive or to refrain from doing something negative – that person is leading by example. And the power of that person to inspire and influence others is amazing. 

Moses, our model of true leadership in the Torah, was a person who embodied both national and personal leadership. He led others and led by example. First, he was the leader of the Jewish people, representing the Israelites when he spoke through Aaron, demanding that Pharaoh let the Israelites leave Egypt. Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt and led them through the 40 years of wandering in the desert before reaching the Land of Israel.

Moses also guided others by example. His qualities included humility and compassion. He was kind to animals, tending his father-in-law’s sheep for 40 years in Midian. These traits demonstrated that Moses would be a worthy leader to guide the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. Not only did Moses teach the Torah to the Jewish people, he is also described as the only one to have ever known God “face to face,” which modeled a devotion to God and God’s will.

When we read the traditional Haggadah at the Passover  Seder, we read the story of the beginnings of the Jewish people. The Haggadah starts with Abraham, the son of idol worshippers, and ends with Moses receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. But the Haggadah is also about our place in the Jewish story. We too are links in the chain. What choices will you make? What kind of leader will you be?