The Making of a Leader

Ever so often, in the Bible, you get a glimpse of what leadership means. Often the Bible portrays it by creating a contradistinction between two different characters (in the Prophets, the most readily apparent one is Saul v. David, and the latter's willingness to admit mistakes), and in this light I'd like to spend a minute talking about what makes the difference between Reuven's failed attempt at leadership, and Judah's successful ascent that ultimately leads him to grandeur. 

Joseph's ten brothers who have come down to Egypt are accused by Joseph of being spies. There is great acrimony between the brothers, accusations fly, and they find themselves face-to-face with Joseph's interpreter. As one, Reuven's brothers admit that they were remiss in not having heard Joseph's protestations, as he begged for mercy; they deafened their ears, turning a blind eye. 

Reuven, hearing this remorse, says in plain English, "I told you so." 

"I told you not to lay a finger on him, and you ignored my pleas, and now his blood is being sought."

As can be expected, nobody answers Reuven, yet Joseph, with the interpreter there for subterfuge, has heard every single word. 

Reuven is 100% right. At the end of the day, he had saved Joseph's life, the brothers as one having wanted to kill him, Reuven interceding to have him thrown into a pit prior to his sale. 

At the same time, Reuven is ignored entirely.

The same script happens when Jacob refuses to send Benjamin down to Egypt; Reuven, to convince Jacob of his trustworthiness offers to kill his own two sons were he to fail to bring Benjamin back. 

This time, Jacob is adamant: "My son will not go down with you."

Something about Reuven fails to help him garner support. For all of his positive attributes, he is a "leader without followers," and no one heeds his beck and call.

Why is that?

It seems that Reuven isn't optimistic enough. He has a defeatist attitude. He thinks that things have to be a certain way, which closes him off from other possibilities. The Torah is very miserly when it comes to personal anecdotes, and yet shares four stories about Reuven, each of which seems to end worse than the former. First, he picks special aphrodisiac flowers believed to have fertility properties, giving them to his mother Leah, who trades them with Rachel for the right to sleep with Jacob; then, after Rachel dies he either sleeps with Rachel's maidservant cum Jacob's concubine (Ramban) or at minimum, moves Jacob's bed out of the tent of Rachel's maidservant and into that of his mother, Leah. Then, the story with eliciting his brothers' anger when they are most vulnerable with his "I told you so," and then, to boot, offers to kill Jacob's grandkids were his mission to fail, adding further misery.

What's the common thread between these four vignettes? I'd like to leave it as food for thought, but holistically, the way the Talmud teaches, "A person should always be engaged with his fellow man," seems to have been something that Reuven failed to integrate into his interpersonal interactions. 

One strike after the next. A man with a heart of gold, every effort turned lead. Gold's malleability, traded for lead's rigidity. 

It would seem that the take-home message from Reuven is that to lead, you ABSOLUTELY need to be open-minded, because life doesn't fit into any prescribed, priorly known form. You have to be ready for anything and everything, and by speaking to others, and understanding their wants and desires, limits and inclinations, you can best foresee how they will respond in different circumstances and situations. 

For one, the Medrashim are split, but the reason Reuven left Joseph in the pit was either he was mourning his rashness after moving Jacob's bed without permission, or, the fact that it was his turn to serve and tend to his father's needs. Wouldn't Jacob, and God for that matter, have been much happier had Reuven stayed put? Jacob would have been tended by his daughters, or daughter-in-laws, and Hashem Almighty would have been far happier had Reuven been able to suck in his gut, stop licking his wounds, and live in the here and now, and protect Joseph rather than bemoaning his previous failures. 

It would seem to me that the point of the Torah here is to present a case study in what qualities to avoid if you aspire to be a Jewish leader, a horribly reckless task, bound to lead to endless difficulty and challenge, which is why Joshua said to Moses regarding the two renegade prophets, Eldad and Meidad, "Just burden them with the yoke of the leadership, and they'll surely stumbly under its sheer burden in the blink of an eye." 

May we merit, as a people, true leaders who can guide us at this very difficult time.