Redeeming Our Ideals: Yehudah and the Making of a Jewish Leader
Leadership can be defined as the art of getting people to do what they don’t want to do. The truth is that we all find ourselves in situations where we want and even need to get others to do what we think is correct.
A very common experience of leadership, usually taken for granted, is parenthood. When we think of leadership, we often forget that parents serve as the most basic model of benign leadership.1See in this regard Sforno on Bemidbar 11:12. After all, parents guide their children to do what their offspring don’t yet realize is in their own best interest. In this role, they perform one of the most important leadership functions in any society.
Beyond our families, we are often expected to show leadership within our peer groups and our communities, even if we are not given a formal leadership position. Any responsible grouping of people expects all of its members to show leadership when needed. Thus, leadership is not at all limited to individuals who take on directorial positions in government, community or commerce. It is rather a life situation relevant to almost everyone.
Effective leadership is not just a practical matter, it is rooted in morality. The long-term success of a regime is based on the trust the constituents place in it. That trust is frequently engendered by the leader’s respect for those whom he is leading, which in turn is often rooted in the appreciation that all people are made in the image of God. When a leader respects his followers, it also shows the central virtue of humility, which, though appropriate for all, is often lost by those who hold power. Leadership characteristics are of universal interest. Nevertheless, because proper leadership touches on morality, the Torah has a particular interest in developing paradigms that will aid in the development of such leadership.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Torah addresses the issue of leadership early on, even before the Jewish nation enters its formative exile in Egypt. With the birth of Yaakov’s twelve sons, we have the first serious contest of succession for Jewish leadership. While Yishmael and Esav both bitterly contested their respective brothers’ succession, from a Jewish point of view it was really no contest. With the sons of Yaakov, however, each one was enough of a leader to be the progenitor of a semi-autonomous tribe. Yet only three of the twelve actually attempted to take on the national leadership: Reuven, Yehudah and Yosef. Reuven and Yosef ’s being firstborn sons notwithstanding, it is the fourth son, Yehudah, who emerges victorious. In analyzing the Torah’s paradigms of proper leadership, it is worthwhile to examine the qualities that kept Yosef and Reuven back as well as those that brought Yehudah to the fore.
Effective Leadership: Reuven Surpassed
Both Reuven and Yehudah confront several situations where they have to get others to do what they otherwise wouldn’t do. First, they have to convince their brothers not to kill Yosef. Second, they have to convince their father to allow them to return to Egypt with Binyamin. Finally, they have to convince Yosef to release Binyamin and allow him to go back to his father.
These three situations also correspond to the natural development of a successful leader. In order to command the respect of a larger community, one has to first develop a constituency of followers. The second stage in such a career is to rise above competitors, asserting the correctness of one’s vision over those of rivals. The third step in successful leadership is to be able to assert one’s will on others outside the community. In the international context, this would correspond to the influence one can exert on other nation-states. Moving through these three stages, Yehudah emerges as a model leader.
In contrast, Reuven’s awkward attempts at leadership rarely meet with success. He attains a small victory in his most likely sphere of influence, among his brothers. When he attempts to move out of that circle, even slightly, to exert influence on his father, he is completely rebuffed. The consequence is for Reuven to abandon the prospect of leadership altogether. Yehudah, however, is not only able to bend the will of his brothers, he uses his remarkable early success to move on to bigger and bigger challenges as he faces first his father and then the viceroy of Egypt, his brother.
In these three situations we have a dramatic contrast between the effectiveness of Yehudah and the ineffectiveness of Reuven. It is no accident that Yehudah’s natural leadership abilities are so greatly magnified by his brother Reuven’s weaknesses. As in earlier situations, here too, the Torah is calling out to us to delve into its subtle messages.
Saving Yosef – Forming a Constituency
Reuven heard and he saved [Yosef] from their hand; he said, “We shall not smite a soul.” Reuven said to them, “Don’t spill blood, send him into this pit that is in the desert and don’t send your hand upon him,” so that he could save him from their hand to return him to his father.... They took him and sent him into the pit.
(Bereshit 37:21–22, 24)
They sat to eat bread....Yehudah said to his brothers, “What is the gain if we kill our brother and cover his blood? Let us go and sell him to the Yishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, since he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened.
Reuven returned to the pit and behold, Yosef was not in the pit. [Reuven] tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, he said, “The boy is no longer and I, where will I go?”
Comparing Reuven’s and Yehudah’s respective plans to save Yosef, we notice striking differences. First, we see that Reuven tries to manipulate his brothers, whereas Yehudah works through consensus: Reuven tells them to throw Yosef into the pit, so that he can secretly take him out later when the rest of the brothers are not looking. Manipulative leader-ship is naturally problematic. Its surreptitious nature means that it is more fragile, requiring constant secrecy, lest the leader’s true intentions be revealed. It also engenders distrust.
The Torah shows us the fragility of such an approach by having Reuven reappear too late, when Yosef is already gone. Whereas Reuven only obtains an uneasy concession from his brothers,2See Ramban on Bereshit 37:22, who cites the brothers’ later discussion (Bereshit 42:22) as proof that the Torah initially only reports Reuven’s final position in his discussion with his brothers. Apparently, he had tried to convince them not to kill Yosef, but was only able to get them to compromise and, at least, not to cause his death directly. Yehudah is able to get his brothers’ full endorsement. Rashi marks the difference between the brothers’ responses to Reuven and Yehudah. He notes that the Torah writes that the brothers “listened to” Yehudah, which denotes acceptance – something absent from their earlier acquiescence to Reuven (Rashi on Bereshit 37:27, based on Targum Onkelos).
From the beginning, Yehudah prefers to work a public and open compromise rather than a secret victory. Even had Reuven succeeded in saving Yosef, the deception would have certainly brought fraternal strife in its wake, which might well have brought about an even greater disaster than Yosef ’s going down to Egypt. Moreover, Reuven’s credibility as a leader would have always been impaired. Not so Yehudah. He tells his brothers exactly what he proposes and waits for their agreement, realizing that it is the key to the creation of a positive working relationship in the future.
More than anything else, however, it is timing that allows Yehudah to save Yosef from the pit. While Reuven’s response is immediate, Yehudah waits for his brothers to calm down and for their guilt feelings to start seeping in before he attempts to convince them. In other words, the brothers had to be ready to listen.
Granted, in this particular case, Yehudah could be blamed for not taking immediate action, as it could have cost Yosef his life. Nevertheless, Yehudah’s hesitation here is mitigated – at this early stage the brothers naturally would have looked to the eldest brother, Reuven, for leadership. It would have been even presumptuous of Yehudah to upstage his older brother. Thus, in this particular case, Yehudah’s timing is a luxury afforded him by Reuven, who took on his expected leadership position in the more difficult situation – when the brothers were most poised to kill Yosef. We can only speculate what Yehudah would have done had Reuven not been present.3Yehudah later shows the ability to act immediately when it is required in saving Binyamin from imprisonment in Egypt. Be that as it may, it should already be clear to the reader that Yehudah understood that timing is a most critical tool in bending the will of others.
Convincing the Patriarch – Taking Charge
We can also gain important insights by comparing the way Reuven and Yehudah each try to convince their father to allow them to return to Egypt with Binyamin:
Reuven spoke to his father saying, “You can kill my two sons if I don’t bring [Binyamin] to you. Let him [come] with me and I will return him to you.” (Bereshit 42:37)
And Yehudah said to Yisrael his father, “Send [Binyamin] with me and we will get up and go, so that we will live and not die, both we and you, and also our babies. I will be his guarantor. From my hand you may request him. If I don’t bring him to you and present him in front of you, I will have sinned against you all the days. For had we not delayed, we would have already returned twice.” (Bereshit 43:8–10)
Yaakov’s indifference to Reuven’s plea is easily understood, given the assurances Reuven gives his father. If Reuven’s plan fails and Binyamin is lost, Yaakov is given the right to inflict suffering measure for measure (midah k’neged midah) on Reuven by killing the latter’s own sons. It is hard to imagine why Reuven would believe that Yaakov would be motivated by the thought of killing his own grandchildren.4See Rashi on Bereshit 42:38, based on Bereshit Rabba 91:9. In contrast, Yehudah provides convincing arguments, personal responsibility and appeal to the unity of the group he is trying to lead. Compared to Reuven, who speaks of my children vs. your children, Yehudah speaks about the survival of all three generations together. Knowing that Yaakov cares greatly for his children as well as his grandchildren, Yehudah points out that if they don’t go to Egypt, the entire nation will die. Not only does Yehudah stress his personal responsibility for Binyamin to his father, he displays a high level of credibility in his commitment to live up to it. When Binyamin is arrested, it comes as no surprise that Yehudah immediately offers himself up as a captive, in place of the brother he has sworn to protect.
Another clever tactic used by Yehudah and missed by Reuven is to make it a situation of “us” and not “you and me.” Yehudah convinces Yaakov that he and his father are both on the same side in their mutual predicament. When Yaakov understands that he and his son are on the same side, he sees the option of sending the brothers back to Egypt in a different light.
More than anything else, however, here too Yehudah is a master of timing. Reuven’s idea of timing is to address a situation as soon as it arises. Yehudah knows that one must be patient, and that silence is better than speaking to men unwilling to listen. When the moment is not right, a skilled leader bides his time. As soon as the brothers return from Egypt without Shimon, Reuven tries to convince Yaakov to take the necessary risks and send them back with Binyamin. Yaakov was certainly still in shock at the loss of Shimon, a loss compounded by the earlier disappearance of Yosef, and he certainly was in no mood to take more risks. Fully aware of this, Yehudah bides his time and waits for the famine to get more pressing – he understands that eventually his father will calm down and realize the futility of his obstinacy. The Midrash in Bereshit Rabba 91:6 formalizes this into an actual discussion, wherein Yehudah tells his brothers to leave Yaakov alone and to come back to their father only when they run out of bread. Later, when they appear to be running out of food and Yaakov actually suggests that they go to Egypt to acquire more, Yehudah senses his cue to convince his father to allow Binyamin to go down with them to Egypt. Yehudah knew that the most convincing proofs would not have worked until then, when Yaakov was ready to listen.
Once Yaakov is ready to listen, Yehudah uses some of the boldest speech ever heard by a son to his father in the Torah. By telling Yaakov that they could have already come back twice, Yehudah places the blame for their predicament squarely on his father. Without the right timing, such words would have been rejected out of hand. Now, however, they gain Yaakov’s acquiescence.
Facing Yosef – Defeating the Adversary
One difference between the first two and the third encounters with Yosef in Egypt is the leadership dynamic of the brothers. In the first meeting (Bereshit 42:10–22), the brothers are always speaking as a group, with the one exception of Reuven’s brief interjection of “I told you so” (verse 22) when they recognize their guilt in their earlier treatment of Yosef. In the second encounter, before Binyamin is framed, the brothers are still speaking as a group. Afterwards, when the brothers are arrested and there is a need for leadership, it is no longer Reuven who steps up but Yehudah. Now that Yehudah’s leadership has come to the fore, the text (Bereshit 44:14) describes the group as “Yehudah, and his brothers.” Yehudah now becomes the undisputed leader, to be confirmed by Yaakov later on (Bereshit 46:28, 49:8–12).
Rabbenu Bachya highlights Yehudah’s wisdom in how he speaks to Yosef, who has just framed Binyamin. Yehudah had every right to be angry at this time. He easily could have accused Yosef of creating a conspiracy designed to give them trouble. Instead, Yehudah remains goal-oriented, his priority Binyamin’s release.5Rabbenu Bachya, Introduction to Parashat Vayigash. Rather than argue with Yosef, Yehudah speaks to Yosef ’s conscience. He does this after he notices the Egyptian viceroy’s curious sentimentality toward his father: After having previously asked about Yaakov’s well-being (Bereshit 43:27), Yosef now wishes the brothers a peaceful journey and sends them back to their father (Bereshit 44:17). Having just imprisoned Binyamin, Yosef meant to make a point that the brothers never really cared about their father’s well-being – not earlier when they sold him and not now when they were about to lose Binyamin. Whether Yehudah caught Yosef ’s bitter irony or not, he sees the viceroy’s own concern for their father as his best weapon to parry back at him.
In this interchange, Yehudah gets even more than he bargained for. Yehudah fully expects Yosef the viceroy to give in to him; yet Yosef his brother breaks down completely. The Torah states that Yosef could no longer contain himself, which means that Yosef actually intended to continue the charade even longer. Yehudah, however, knowing what to say as well as when to say it, makes Yosef understand that he is not obligated to go through with his plan to make Binyamin a slave and has the choice to do otherwise. Moreover, Yehudah’s speech makes Yosef realize that he is no longer the victim, but rather has now become the victimizer. Whereas the brothers had caused grief to Yosef and Yaakov in the past, Yehudah convinces Yosef that it is now he, Yosef, who has become the new cause of the family’s anguish.
Leadership and Communication
It is interesting to note that no one ever answers Reuven. In every section mentioned above, Reuven’s statements are generally ignored.6Even when Yaakov answers Reuven (Bereshit 42:38), he completely ignores his suggestion. At best, as with his suggestion to throw Yosef into the pit, his brothers silently obey. Yehudah, on the other hand, is always involved in conversations. What seems to account for this difference is that Yehudah speaks with people, whereas Reuven speaks at them. Indeed, effective leadership is predicated upon understanding the art of communication.
After all, speech is, first and foremost, a means of communication, which means that our words should be used to get across a message. Using words properly, however, requires forethought. The famous mussar personality, Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l, initiated long pauses before he spoke. They were meant to accomplish two things: 1) to fully understand what his interlocutor was saying and 2) to properly think out what he would say in response. He understood that words can have great power, but only if you take many things into account. You must be aware with whom you are speaking; what their emotional situation is; what their motivation for speaking is, etc. It appears that Yehudah was a master of communication, someone who fully appreciated the power of thought-out speech. Clearly, the effectiveness of his speech indicates that he carefully determined which words would have the most impact in each situation.
Also, in seeking the right timing, Yehudah shows his awareness of something the rabbis would later formalize: motivatory speech is only appropriate when it can work. The Talmud points out that it is just as much of a mitzvah not to give rebuke when it will not be accepted as it is to give rebuke when it will be accepted (Yevamot 65b). It is true that we can rarely be sure of the outcome of our efforts. Nevertheless, a leader has to keenly determine which outcome is more likely. Giving rebuke when it will be rebuffed is just as risky as failing to give it when it will be accepted; once a person has offered ineffective rebuke, it compromises their future effectiveness with that party.
Analyzing the leadership of Reuven and Yehudah helps us view communication in a more focused manner. We see the need to constantly be aware of how our speech will affect others. To do this we need to weigh our words carefully. We need to know what to say as well as when to say it.
Long before Dale Carneige ever came on the scene, the story of Reuven and Yehudah helps us understand what it takes to motivate people. Besides predating Carneige, the Torah conveys a crucial dimension missing from How to Win Friends and Influence People – the moral angle on good leadership. The message seems to be that it is Yehudah’s respect for the dignity and opinions of others that allows him to get their support. We see this from his consistently understanding what others want and guiding their views accordingly. Thus, the Torah’s narrative suggests that Yehudah’s success is a natural result of a morally correct stance on leadership.
The Paradox of Jewish Leadership: The House of Leah and the House of Rachel
Of the three candidates for leadership among Yaakov’s sons, Yosef is the boldest and most flamboyant. On one level, Yosef has a legitimate birth-claim to the leadership. Since Rachel was meant to be Yaakov’s first wife and Yosef was her firstborn, he could well have claimed to be Yaakov’s natural heir. His claim seems further validated by his God-given good looks and abilities. Of the twelve brothers, it is only Yosef who could have become viceroy in Egypt. The other brothers simply didn’t have the “right stuff.” Yet in spite of Yosef ’s having all of the qualities we would expect in a leader, his bid for leadership is categorically rejected by his brothers. This rejection comes early on and is never truly reversed. Yaakov himself, at the end of his life, confirms the brothers’ decision by reserving the leadership for Yehudah alone (Bereshit 49:10) – the lavish blessing given to Yosef and the double portion given to his children notwithstanding.
Yosef and the “Right Stuff”
To understand Yosef ’s rejection, we have to examine his political career more carefully. To begin with, we have to explain why Yosef was so determined to tell his dreams to his brothers. He certainly must have noticed the negative response the dreams always elicited. One possible reason is that Yosef wanted to inform his public of his aspirations. In typically political fashion, he must have felt that you can’t win the race if you don’t run. Thus, Yosef does what is usually necessary to attain leadership: he campaigns. In this vein, Yosef saw nothing wrong with publicizing the signs that confirmed his intuitive aspirations. After all, if leadership was his calling, this would benefit his entire family.
The text (Bereshit 37:2) gives us an additional hint to Yosef ’s early political behavior by mentioning a seemingly unimportant fact – that he would spend his time with the children of Bilhah. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch provides us with a highly plausible explanation for this behavior. Could it not be that Yosef preferred to be with the children of maidservants, because they viewed themselves as his social inferiors? When he was with them, there was no contest for leadership and he could pursue his calling – without engendering the bitterness of Leah’s children, who might have viewed their young brother’s ambitions with suspicion.
To round out the picture, the Midrash tells us how Yosef would expend unusual effort on his personal grooming (Bereshit Rabba 84:7). Given that such a view seems to fit the Biblical personality that emerges from the text, the Midrash may be revealing – as it is none other than a Jewish king that has a halachic obligation to cut his hair every day (Taanit 17a). According to this, Yosef very early on seems to have felt the need to publicly prepare for his destiny by dressing the part of royalty.
Right Leader for the Wrong Nation
Yosef ’s father and brothers seem to view his political antics with a certain amount of disdain. His actions appear to grate against the fundamental spirit of Yaakov and his family. Thus, the brothers plot against Yosef because of his dreams of lording over his family and not because of the potentially more damaging tale bearing (Bereshit 37:19–20). More than anything else then, it is Yosef ’s political behavior that eventually brings about his exile.
Ironically, it is in exile and among strangers where Yosef’s politicking finds a more receptive response. In Egypt, Yosef becomes a tremendous success. In jail, he becomes even more popular than Aryeh Deri. In his charismatic way, he proceeds to make a monumental political comeback, reaching the highest office possible. In the world at large, he became the second most powerful man in the entire world – and on some level, the most powerful man.
However, Yosef ’s leadership in Egypt is typically functional – it is not the leadership of Jewish inspiration. Instead, it is the leadership of Noachide administration. Yosef’s success is built on his ability to get things done, both as a campaigner and an administrator. In the Noachide world, this is all that is expected from a leader. But while positive in context, Yosef’s style of leadership is not yet what it takes to become Yaakov’s successor.
We get further insight into Yosef from an unusual source. An interesting point is made by Eliyahu Mizrachi and further developed in other later commentators.7See, for example, Me'am Lo'ez. Mizrachi asks a strong question concerning the rabbis’ explanation of the “bad report” the Torah tells us Yosef gave about his brothers. According to the rabbis, one of the three things Yosef reported was that they ate flesh from a living animal, something forbidden even by Noachide law. Mizrachi questions the plausibility of Yosef ’s brothers straying so far from the path of their father. Based on this question, later scholars come up with an ingenious approach to what may have transpired: The brothers were following Torah law, which allowed them to eat from an animal that was ritually slaughtered even though it was still moving, whereas Yosef held them accountable to Noachide law, which, in this case, was actually stricter.8This was at a time of lack of clarity about their status as halachic Jews. If, as the rabbis claim, the Avot were able to intuit Torah law (pre-dating the Sinai event), were they actually bound by it and not by Noachide law? The answer to this question is not clear.
While this answer to Mizrachi’s question is obviously speculative, it is no coincidence that Yosef is viewed as the defender of the Noachide code. In the Noachide world at large, a natural leader such as Yosef is expected to pursue leadership. It is equally not coincidental that the brothers insist on Torah law. Yosef ’s approach to leadership is foreign to the type of leader personality the Torah would later seek to create.
The idea of Yosef following a Noachide approach to leadership is further vindicated by an interesting phrase (Bereshit 42:7), wherein we are told that Yosef was “yitnaker” to his brothers. On the face of it, this means that he did not reveal his identity. Yet more than one commentator9See, for example, Ibn Ezra and Rabbi S.R. Hirsch. understands the phrase to mean that Yosef was disguising himself by pretending to be a “nochri” (from the same Hebrew root as yitnaker), a non-Jew. Moreover, Yosef ’s dual identity is formalized by his being given an additional Egyptian name, something unparalleled in the foreign residence of any other personage in the Torah. From all of the above evidence, it appears that, on some level, Jewish tradition has long been aware of that which we are suggesting – that Yosef straddled the Jewish and Noachide worlds, whereas his brothers did not.
To Lead or Not to Lead
If there is indeed a Jewish approach to leadership that is distinct from the Noachide approach, it follows that the “right stuff” needed to be viceroy of Egypt was precisely what prevented Yosef from becoming the leader over his brothers and the Jewish people. In looking at classical Jewish leadership from Moshe to Gideon to Shaul to David, one finds a trait, common to them all, that is missing in Yosef. In all of the cases mentioned, the Jewish leader does not seek out leadership; on the contrary, he tries to avoid it. Such a tendency is most concretely expressed by Midrash Tanchuma.10Midrash Tanchuma on I Shmuel 17:22, explaining that a true Jewish leader is one who, like Shaul, runs away from leadership. This is not from lack of self-awareness, but from a realization of the ultimate distortion presented by human leadership. Even as we are commanded to imitate God in other ways, we need to be wary of imitating His trait of leadership. The Talmud points out the impropriety of being overly eager to accept even so seemingly innocuous a position as that of the sheliach tzibur (prayer leader).(Berachot 34a).
One problem with leadership is the need to decide what is right for others, something which only God Himself can truly know. A flesh and blood leader having to make such judgments blurs the distinction between man and God. Another problem with formalized human leadership is that it requires coercive power. On a mass level, leadership can only properly function when it has the power to force the recalcitrant. This is what is referred to as police powers or law enforcement. Endowing a man with these powers creates obvious difficulties. Since human justice cannot be perfect, the misuse of coercion that follows can have very undesirable consequences. This will occur in the best of situations, not to mention in instances wherein lesser states and individuals misuse power to their own advantage – the disastrous results of which will often outweigh any benefits that coercion brings to a state in the first place.
Thus, the refined Jewish personality is hesitant to be put into a leadership situation, even while he or she must eventually accept it once it becomes clear that his or her leadership is needed. Even when required, it is not necessarily viewed as a permanent “position.” Accordingly, ideal Jewish leadership is what was seen during the time of the Judges, wherein human leaders arose only to meet specific needs. When the need passed, those who were still alive went back to private life.11While this is not necessarily the case with all of the Judges, it is most clearly recorded concerning Gideon (Shoftim 8:23, 29) and appears to be depicted as the ideal in the parable of Yotam (Shoftim 9:7–15). There are many who understand the Jewish desire for a formal leader during the days of Shmuel as moving away from this Jewish ideal.12Although this is not clear from the Biblical text. Correspondingly, it was against this call for the power of office that Shmuel cried out so vigorously.
Proactive Self-Sacrifice
The Talmud compares the greatness of Yosef to that of Yehudah, stating that they both were able to make a kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God). At the same time, the Talmud states that Yehudah was greater. Whereas Yosef ’s kiddush Hashem, pushing off the advances of Potiphar’s wife, was done in private, the Talmud points out that Yehudah’s acknowledgment that he had mistreated Tamar occurred in public (Sotah 10b and 36b). On the face of it, the comparison seems unfair. After all, Yosef ’s stand could have been taken only in private. Even as this is true, Yehudah’s gesture did not have to be public. On the contrary, Tamar allowed for what we would expect any savvy politician to do – taking care of his debt to her privately. Occasional scandals notwithstanding, this is inevitably the road of the Noachide politician. In Noachide politics, personal image is everything and consequently must be saved at all costs. Yehudah, however, as per the Talmud, is more interested in setting a personal example for his community than the resulting personal embarrassment. Thus, he went out of his way to make a private issue public, so that people could learn about the tremendous importance of honesty and accountability. In this, Yehudah is the prototype of a Jewish leader: completely focused on the content of his leadership, regardless of its personal political consequences.13Targum Yonatan on Bereshit 49:8 makes this exact point by understanding Yaakov’s blessing to Yehudah that his brothers will acknowledge him (as their leader) in the following manner: “Since you acknowledged the matter of Tamar, your brothers will acknowledge you….”
In the Jewish worldview, the person best qualified to take on a task does it without fanfare and without drawing attention to himself. On the contrary, while prepared to lead, the Jewish leader does not want to be thought of as a leader, a position with intrinsically problematic connotations. This was the case with Yehudah, who invited public disgrace in order to do what needed to be done. In marked contrast to Yosef, Yehudah showed little interest in his career as a leader. While the Talmud is not judging Yosef on missing an opportunity that wasn’t granted to him, it does seem to identify the proactive self-sacrifice of Yehudah as a highly unusual trait that could only be found in a true Jewish leader such as he.
Yosef and Joe (Lieberman)
In comparing Yosef with Yehudah, we should not be too harsh in our treatment of the former. After all, Yosef was not only the viceroy of Egypt – he was also the defender and sustainer of the Jewish people in their first exile. It was Yosef who saved the Jewish people from famine, serving as an archetype of Jewish leadership in exile. Furthermore, the classical Jewish leadership of Yehudah will not be successful in exile. The truly Jewish politician who aims to provide moral leadership will encounter difficulty in the world at large (and it has been suggested that Yosef ’s modern namesake, Joe Lieberman, floundered in his bid for the American presidency for this very reason). It is only within the Jewish nation that such leadership will be sufficiently appreciated to work. In their exile, the Jewish people need Yosefs to protect them in their historical vulnerability.14It is interesting to note that Yosef ’s mother, Rachel, is also associated with exile. She dies shortly after entering Eretz Yisrael for the first time. Ramban explains that Yaakov could not remain married to two sisters in the more pristine spiritual atmosphere of Eretz Yisrael.
Yet just as Yehudah will not succeed in exile, Yosef will similarly not succeed in Israel. The disastrous consequences of applying the functional Noachide leadership model to Israel is clearly shown when Yosef’s descendants attempt to reassert their ancestral claim to leadership. When Yeravam starts the northern kingdom of Israel, ripping away all the tribes from Yehudah (with the ironic exception of Yosef ’s brother Binyamin), it is a harbinger of one calamity after another (I Melachim 12–14). The political judgment of Yeravam and his successors is based on the political considerations of the Noachide worldview. It is such considerations that move Yeravam to build an alternative to the Temple in his own territory. His decision to change the traditional calendar is also political in nature. While such an approach is doable in exile, it is a catastrophe for a Jewish state in Israel. As authoritatively discussed by Ramban,15Especially Ramban on Vayikra 18:25. Israel is a place where one has to live according to the ideal and not just the functional.
In summary, God gave the Jews two prototypical leaders – Yosef and Yehudah. Although the Jewish people need both, we look to Yehudah for our ideal. In seeking personal paradigms, even as we will sometimes need to look to Yosef for guidance, we should always want to pursue the paradigm of Yehudah. Moreover, in recreating a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael, we have to revert to the ideal. This is true in all realms, but especially in choosing our leaders. We cannot look to who will be pragmatically successful, as is the case for other states. Rather, we must seek true Jewish leaders, who will be completely willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the Jewish nation.
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We have seen from the competition between Yehudah and Reuven that proper leadership of any type is rooted not only in skill, but also in the respect for and understanding of those whom one is leading. This is an important moral issue that the Torah wants to bring out. Although coercion may be a necessary evil for leading a large group, the primary approach of a successful leader will be to create consensus. Yehudah employs many important tools in order to bring about that consensus. He uses timing and communication skills, making sure he has the most likely chance of getting his interlocutors to weigh the merits of his vision. He also tries to place issues in the context of what is good for the entire group, making others more willing to listen. Finally, he remains goal-oriented, never losing sight of the big picture.
In our subsequent comparison of Yehudah and Yosef, we have seen that being a capable and moral leader is not enough to make one into a Jewish leader. As opposed to Yosef, Yehudah is the quintessential Jewish leader, whose focus on the national interest is completely divorced from personal advancement. Even more crucial, an archetypal Jewish leader like Yehudah cannot help but be uneasy with the notion of leadership altogether, as leadership is ultimately appropriate only for God Himself.
In spite of Yehudah’s appropriate hesitations, he is literally obligated to show leadership when the need arises. What is true of Yehudah is true of each one of us. The Jewish concept of arevut (mutual responsibility) requires that we worry about not only our own growth and progress, but also that of others as well. Inasmuch as leadership is a calling for all Jews – at least as parents, but usually even beyond that, as a “nation of priests” – it is fitting to take a close look at the do’s and don’ts of Yehudah, Yosef and Reuven.