A Leader’s Empathy

This week it is Moses’ turn. His frustration reaches a boiling point. The people are complaining again. This time it is about the lack of water. God offers a miracle and instructs Moses to stand before the people and command the rock to bring forth water. Instead, Moses hits the rock and shouts, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20)

Because of this Moses is punished. He will now not be allowed to enter the promised land. He will only take the people to the edge of the land. It will be up to Joshua to lead them across the border. There is great debate among Jewish commentators about Moses’ sin. They argue about what he did to deserve such a punishment.

Some suggest it was because he hit the rock. Others say it was because he did not listen to God’s command. A few believe it was because he castigated the people and distanced himself from them when calling them rebels. The Torah remains indecisive. It is clear that Moses will not lead the people into the land. The why remains a mystery.

And that mystery leads me to wonder. Perhaps Moses’ actions were not about anger but instead about guilt. Korah and his band of rebels were Levites. They were from Moses’ tribe and in essence were family. And now they are dead. Does Moses feel guilty that his leadership has cost people their lives? Is he distraught that the promises he made to the Israelites will not come to pass? Is he frustrated with the God who chose him?

Of course, he can blame the Israelites who are deserving of blame. They never stop complaining! They lose faith in God. They question Moses at what must seem like every turn. But Moses is no ordinary leader. He is a prophet and not the typical person.

Their failures become his own. Moses blames himself. He is overcome by guilt. He is filled with empathy for the people he leads. It is as if he says to God, “If they cannot go into the land, then I do not deserve to go into the land as well. Let their fate be mine.”

Janus Korczak was a well-known physician and educator living in Poland when Nazi Germany invaded. Eventually he, and his colleague, Stefa Wilczyńska, were forced to move their children’s school to the Warsaw Ghetto. Before the ghetto was liquidated, friends offered to help save Janus and Stefa, but they and their staff decided to stay with the children and not save themselves. They and the children were murdered at Treblinka in the summer of 1942.

The children’s fate became the teachers’ destiny.

The leader, and most especially the prophet, shares, and feels, the pain of the people. Moses hits the rock because he is so aggrieved about his people’s pain. (This is the is the same man who years earlier killed a taskmaster when he was beating an Israelite slave.) He is once again pained by their sufferings. His heart is overwhelmed by their lamentations.

His sin is not an act of anger. It is not even a sin. It is instead an expression of pain.

Empathy for others overwhelms him.

Janus Korczak teaches: “I exist not to be loved and admired, but to love and act. It is not the duty of those around me to love me. Rather, it is my duty to be concerned about the world, about man.”

Empathy for others is all consuming.

The people’s fate becomes the leader’s destiny.