Are You A Leader? - Devarim -The Parshah On Fire

[Music] For what was one of the greatest speeches in all of human history exactly 37 days before his death, Moshe got up to address the Jewish people. Camped right on the border of Aritzel, the Jews were as close they had ever been to finally entering the land they had waited 40 years for. Misha in his final opportunity to teach and inspire the nation he so masterfully nurtured the last four decades. He gathered them all together, cleared his throat, and addressed the entire people. The people leaned in, eager to hear what his parting words would be. Now, what's strange is what Moshe chose to talk about first. The very first thing he spoke about was seemingly only applicable to less than 1% of the population. discussing laws regarding judges and leaders being fair and honest. Leaders wise and discerning should lead you with impartiality and righteousness. Moshe beckoned us. Now granted, proper leadership is an important topic, but is it more important than, I don't know, reminding us of the dangers of assimilating into the Cananani culture? Is it more important than a reminder to focus on spiritual pursuits like building a mammikt or to prevent the material aspects of the land from taking dominance? Is it more important than reminding us not to forget about Hashem as we settle into the land? Why was the reiteration of the importance of balanced and fair leadership and judgment? The absolute first thing that Moshe imparted in his farewell speech. We we find a similar occurrence in the beginning of Peravas. Peravas, the authoritative guide book to the morals and ideals of a Tory life does not begin with concepts like loving Hashem or kindness or the importance of prayer. Topics you would think it would begin with. The very first thing it begins with is the importance of judges to be patient while adjudicating judgment. The very first mission all the begins. It calls for leaders to think through their decisions before making them. Why is that of all things what the official book of our morals and ideals begins with? Aren't there other ideas that would seem far more foundational? Let's take a step back for a second. Ever wonder why the Jewish people often refer to their leaders by the books they wrote and not by their actual names? If you were to go visit the grebba back in the day, Rahuda Arur, one would have told the wagon driver to take him to the house of the ms for that's what he was called. He wouldn't know what you were talking about if you asked him where's Yehuda. Or when we talk about Reb Abram Carellites or Misha Sofur, we call them theam. We say stories about the Yehuda. We read about the passion of the Noyama and the Kushas Ley. Isn't that a little strange? Why don't we refer to them by their real names? No other group in society does this. We don't refer to Leo Toltoy as War and Peace. If you would meet JK Rowling on the street, you wouldn't run home and tell your friends that you saw Mrs. Harry Potter. So why do we do that with our leaders? I was once giving a class to a group of college kids in Highland Park and I asked them the following question. If you were to walk into a bar and see your chemistry teacher completely drunk and engaged in a fist fight with someone, would you have any less respect for the material he teaches you the next day in class? They all said no. So then I asked him, if they were to walk into that same bar and see their rabbi drunk and engaged in a fist fight, would they respect the rabbi's toyra class less? They all answered yes. What's the difference between the two scenarios? The answer is that Toryra is like any other is unlike any other subject in the world. Tory is transformative knowledge. It is knowledge and wisdom that is supposed to transform and uplift its learners and teachers. Even parts of Tyra that are technical and procedural and seemingly unholy, like the laws of farming or the makeup of a cow's esophagus have spiritual sparks embedded in them which should elevate the learner to moral and ethical heights. So, it stands to reason that a teacher of Tory that did not become elevated by what he is teaching is likely an unqualified teacher. The Tyra's intrinsic holiness buried deep within it is supposed to utterly transform and elevate those that allow their souls to tap into it. Hence, therefore, our Tory leaders who have devoted their entire lives to the holy books of Tyra they authored have become elevated by the very books they wrote. It's transformative knowledge. It transformed them. Therefore, the very name of their book becomes synonymous with the name of the author. report. It is to some degree the name of their soul. It is who he is. It is who he became. So a Jewish leader does far more than merely ensure that the general populace maintains peace and that no riots break out. A Jewish Tyra leader elevates the entire Jewish nation by elevating himself. He creates new definitions of normal. We look to our leaders as our connectors to Hashem's Tory and ideals. If they are not balanced and righteous, they do not they not only render the Tyra into a mere subject, they threaten to derail the entire Jewish people. They guide us and they prod us and they show us the right way of life. If they don't live a life of fairness and humility, then how can we? When Moshe looked at the Jews poised and ready to enter the land, he knew all too well that if the leaders they would follow would be morally corrupt and unholy, the very bedrock of the nation would crumble. In order for the nation to flourish spiritually in art, first and foremost, the most important thing was for the judges, the leaders, the teachers to be kind and patient and balanced and fair. No matter how concret how concretized a society seems, if the leaders at top are hotty, dishonest and corrupt, that society will crumble. A clear example of this is ancient Rome. ancient realm was far more sophisticated than virtually any society that preceded it and way more sophisticated than almost any society that came after it for close to a thousand years. They had a formal government with a congress. They had elections. They had complex aqueducts and running water and sewer systems. They had an army that conquered virtually the entire known world. So what went wrong? How did such a thing disintegrate? What caused the ruin of Rome? The answer is good oldfashioned greed. When Diocclesian died in 286 CE, a fragmenting fight broke out amongst his two successors, Maximus and Flavius Seis, and before long, the lack of peace drove the Roman Empire, perhaps the most complex and accomplished world empire in all of human history, to its end. If there's corruption and hottiness at the top, there is little hope for the bottom. That being said, there is still a puzzling point. If Misha was calling attention to the importance of quality leadership, why did he address the entire Jewish people as a whole? Why not just address the leaders and future leaders? Gather all the leaders into a conference center, serve a little coffee and give this talk to them. Why give it to the whole people? Perhaps the answer is that there is no one in the Jewish people who is not at at least on a small level a leader. Some people lead cities, some people lead communities, some people lead schools, while other lead sisterhoods, some people lead organizations, and others lead households. Whether we're a high ranking position or not, we lead we lead our own personal lives. And leading a Torah lifestyle is completely incompatible with hottiness, selfishness, and right unrighteousness. Leadership of any level requires humility and compassion and a heaping dose of selflessness. The moment we stepped foot into Erit Israel, we experienced a transformation from being sheep in Hashem's flock to leading leaders fighting battles, leaders building cities, leaders founding diverse communities, leaders building families. In his speech, Mosa pleaded with us to lead with balance and integrity, to be exemplary, to recognize that our congregants, our students, our children look up to us. If we are selfish and dishonest, what hope is there for them? Each and every one of us is tasked with leading our precious children and implanting in them the Tyra and what it stands for. The very first commandment in the Torah, Peru, Revu, be fruitful and multiply, is not merely a mitzvah to have children and then drop them off somewhere and hope they make it in life. There are two distinct commandments, Peru and Revu. The word peru comes from the word pre or fruit just like fruit are abundant and plentiful. So we're charged with being abundant and plentiful. But then there's also revu which means to increase explains we are commanded to multiply our child to expand him to inject his life with meaning and spirit. We are charged and commanded with raising him in the literal sense of the word from a life of mundane to a life of sanctity. If we are immoral and hotty, we are unqualified leaders of our own children. We are missing out on Revu. So Misha began his speech by charging us to be humble and balanced and patient. The entire Pieros begins with the need for our leaders to be patient for if we fail at the top we fail at the bottom. One need not look very far to find individuals who led the world be it politically or culturally who proved to be some of the lowest humans on earth. Some of the world's most famous philosophers and novelists and essaists and thinkers and writers and kings and emperors scraped the bottom of human society. Even religious institutions like the church and mosques were plagued for centuries with abuse, corruption, and even outright moral decay. The most popular people on Earth by far. The rock stars, the actors, the sports players who billions upon billions of people idolize and look up to are often extremely subpar humans at best and often outright disgusting people at worst. They are caught up in horrific scandals. They bounce in and out of jail. These are the decadent individuals who adorn the posters on the walls of kids around the world. We on the other hand, the Jewish people are lucky to look up to leaders who have morals and values. Leaders that virtually never think self selfishly. Leaders that almost never put themselves first. Our children put up posters and pictures on their walls of people who are balanced and kind, who encourage us to be caring and honest and humble and righteous. Moshe was not picked to lead the Jewish people because of his charisma and flare. He had a speech impediment. It hindered every word he uttered. He was picked because he was a kind shepherd. He was picked because he was labeled by Hashem to be the humblest man on the face of the earth. Yoshu was not picked to lead the Jewish people because of his good looks or his orary skills. The medisha. It says Yoshu was picked because he got up early to set up the benches of the room in which Misha gave his Tory classes. It was his humility and his care that propelled him to the role of leadership. The entire world follows the opinion of Basil over Bashi. Why is that? Not because they were smarter, not because they displayed more intellectual prowess. We followed their lead because according to the gar and they were kinder and more patient than their counterparts. The entire Ashkanazi Tyra world follows the leadership of a 16th century Polish scholar from the city of Krakow name is Israelis the Rama. Why is that? He realized that Jewish law was way too vast for the typical person to learn in its entirety. So he began writing a book organizing and condensing it. Unbeknownst to him, at the exact same time, a Spanish scholar living in SAS named Ysef Caro, the base Ysef was working on a similar book. And instead of publishing his own safer and competing as would have been the case in almost any other arena in society with no compunctions, the Ramad decided to allow the basis to publish his book and condensed his own safer to mere annotations of the basis. He displayed immense humility by giving up publishing his own safer and accordingly. The name he chose to call his annotations summed up his tremendous me the best. While car's book was called the set table is called his annotations the mappa the tablecloth. Our leaders are the ones who give us direction in our lives nurturing us encouraging us. We look up to them from our youth as the ultimate role models in life and we should be proud to claim such tremendous people as our leaders. My family had a neighbor in Rochester named Gordon Letterman. He tragically died young of cancer. He was a brilliant fellow and he excelled in his studies and eventually got into Harvard University. He was one of the only Orthodox Jews on campus and he knew he was different but he didn't bother. He was proud of it. Now, Harvard has a custom that every freshman delivers a short speech at the beginning of the year about an individual who inspires them. With the room filled to capacity, each freshman got up and talked about a figure they look up to. One student talked about how he idolized John F. Kennedy. Another talked about Michael Jordan. And after the crowd heard all about Bill Gates and Walt Disney and Martin Luther King Jr. and Marlon Monroe and Edgar J. Hoover and Fidel Castro and Henry Ford. It was finally Gordon's turn. He got up and he scanned the room. Being the only religious Jew present in a room filled with the world's future politicians and CEOs and Supreme Court judges, he was acutely conscious of the attention on him as he began to speak. So Gordon cleared his throat and began. I would like to talk about a man who no one in this room has heard of. He lived in utter poverty in a little town in Europe that no one here has ever been to. And yet he led millions upon millions of people throughout his lifetime. His writings have been taught in every corner of the globe and have sold more copies than some of the world's best novelists. He had some of the smartest people on earth clamoring to get even a few words with him. His opinion was sought in virtually every area of life from the deepest most esoteric spiritual concepts to global political strategies. He was known by millions of people throughout the world as the greatest sage on the face of the earth. He had a steady stream of people waiting to talk to him for the duration of the day for the greater part of the over 100 years of his life. He would give as much attention to a foreign diplomat or governor as he would to the crying widow who had nothing to eat. He was enormously scrupulous never to speak even one word of gossip. And he even started a campaign to eradicate gossip on a global scale. He humbly led millions of people in the proper path of life and led by example. He was the very definition of kindness, loving and caring. Despite having millions of people looking up to him as their leader, he lived in a one room house with a dirt floor. Despite advising and guiding some of the wealthiest people on Earth, he could almost count his worldly possessions on both hands. This man was quite possibly the most selfless and humble man on the planet. This man you've never heard of was referred to as the the global leader of the Jewish people. and he is my inspiration. With that, Gordon looked at the stunned audience, frozen in silence, and returned to a seat. [Music]