Reuven, the Leader Who Wasn't

 Reuven is a cryptic figure in his own right. It's hard to really put your finger on who exactly he was. What was his temperament? His strengths? Did he ever bring his strengths to fruition?

It seems like everything he did, he botched up. I can't think of any character in the Torah who is given so much space to describe his repeated failures over time. 

Firstly, after Rachel's death, he totally misread the situation, either sleeping with his father's concubine, Bilhah (Ramban) or playing musical chairs with his father and mother's beds in a way that was more fitting with his worldview. 

Then, with Joseph's sale, it was apparent from the get-go that he wasn't a leader, that he wasn't given the credence or respect he seemingly deserved. A leader needs somebody to listen to him. The brothers said, "We're going to kill him." Reuven's entreaties fell on deaf ears; the only concession that he got out of Yehudah was that Joseph would be thrown into a particular pit, one that was especially deep so that Joseph couldn't escape from it, in the hopes that he himself, Reuven, would surreptitously come later to save him. 

Then, Reuven disappears from the scene. He doesn't stay there, even in the distant vicinity, to watch over Joseph, failing to intuit that that was what was most becoming even in the face of the other responsibilities Reuven may have had, i.e. serving his father, or atoning for his past sins. 

Reuven comes back, sees, "There's no Joseph in the pit," and again deplores his own fate, saying, "With the child not here, what will become of me."

Then, finally, when his brothers engage in an act of soul-searching on the highest level, asking why it was they ignored Joseph's pleas for mercy, Reuven pipes up again and says, "I told you so!"

To cap things off, he then offers to kill his own firstborn if he can't successfully bring back Binyamin from Egypt, and at the end of Yaakov's days, is clopped on the head once again, being told that he had lost the birthright because he was flighty - "impetuous like water."

The question, I would like to ask, is "What does Reuven resembe within us?" The Gaon of Vilna taught that each and every Jew corresponds to a different biblical character, and even moreso, we have a little of each biblical character within us. 

When is it that we fail to step up to the plate (to take an analogy from baseball)? And if we do, do we ever fail so miserably, repeatedly, without any glimmer of hope or redemption? Though chastised, Shimon and Levi are praised for their unity, their brotherliness. What redemptive quality can we find in Reuven?