Who will save Israel? Lessons from its greatest leaders - opinion

We have an amazing, vibrant, fascinating, marvelous – better, miraculous – country, but we also have lots and lots of problems (which reminds me of a favorite book title, “Not Very Well, Baruch Hashem [bless God]!).

Everyone but everyone has an opinion on every subject and is not afraid to voice it on cue. As Golda Meir famously told US President Richard Nixon, “You are the president of 150 million Americans; I am the prime minister of six million prime ministers.”

This is not a new phenomenon; political, military, and communal leaders have been a lightning rod for criticism since time immemorial.

Just look at the grief Moses endured during his tenure. Here is a person who could have lived out his life in the lap of Egyptian royal luxury, but he chose to cast his lot with his enslaved brothers and sisters, leading us to the Holy Land, only to be told he could not fulfill his deepest wish and enter Israel. He suffered endless slurs and slanders – once even begging God to kill him and end the suffering – but he stayed with us and epitomized the bottom line of true leadership, made famous by JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Virtually all of our great biblical leaders and heroes were neither superhuman nor infallible; they all had foibles and failures along the way. Just look at some of these storied careers:

Jacob led the 12 tribes and thus was the “father of our country,” and so he was given the eternal name Yisrael, which identifies us until this very day. But he had to resort to less than pristine practices in order to secure the mantle of leadership, masquerading as his older brother who, as firstborn, was the presumed candidate to head the family. Jacob would pay a heavy price for this. He was forced to flee from his family for 22 years, and then would be separated from his beloved son Joseph for the same exact amount of time.

Joseph, for his part, conducted himself in too haughty a fashion – alienating his brothers and even his father – and would need to undergo countless rings of fire, including a dozen years of slavery and incarceration in a dismal Egyptian pit, until he ultimately gained the virtue of humility. Even as viceroy of Egypt, he would be the first of the brothers to die.

And what of Judah, proclaimed by father Jacob (in this week’s Torah portion) to be the eternal sovereign of Israel (“the scepter shall not be removed from Judah” is his paternal blessing)? Not only did Judah fail to save Joseph from being spirited away to Egypt, but he would marry a Canaanite woman – a shonda (shame) for the family – and then seek a liaison with a prostitute and father a child with his daughter-in-law.

Then there is David, the ancestor of none other than the Messiah himself. David was blessed with an array of talents and blessings – he was a poet, a musician, a courageous soldier, and military tactician. But David, too, had his foibles, most notably his affair with Bathsheba after sending her husband Uriah to death on the battlefield. For this, he was sharply rebuked by God via the prophet Nathan. But David recognized the scope of his sin, admitted his guilt, and repented for his actions, and so Nathan conveyed God’s message that He had accepted his atonement.

All this suggests that our leaders throughout the ages have had their share of challenges and failings. That is neither unnatural nor inexcusable, for imperfection is a part of the human condition. Leaders make mistakes, as we all do, and sometimes we pay a heavy, hurtful price for their miscues and misjudgments.

But if their hearts are in the right place; if they are committed to serving the people rather than their own personal gain; if they embody the virtues of courage, compassion, and self-sacrifice, then they may indeed deserve to lead this holy nation of ours into glory and, ultimately, the final redemption.