Arista Dinner Address - October 17, 2012
YUHSG
Yehoshua Bin Nun, Harry Potter and Leadership
It is an honor to be asked to speak before a group that represents the future leadership of the Modern Orthodox Jewish Community, a group of young women who are dedicated to tradition and yet open to all that is good and ennobling in secular culture.
It is because of who you are and what you will become that I have chosen to speak on the topic of Yehoshua Bin Nun, Harry Potter and the concept of leadership. To those of you who have not not yet read the Harry Potter novels, I say: It's not too late!
On Simchat Torah we read the very first words said by Hashem to Yehoshua bin Nun: Moshe Avdi Met.
Newsflash! Just in case you were wondering what those thirty days of mourning were all about, the tears, eulogies and rending of garments--well, now you know. Moshe is dead.
Clearly, the words Moshe Avdi Met were not meant to convey new information, but to address the greatest potential mistake that Yehoshua could make. Yehoshua could think that the only way to follow an act like Moshe Rabbenu, is to become the second coming of Moshe through imitation. But if he simply imitated Moshe, he would not only fail, but he would have failed to learn the lesson of Esav and Yaakov. Esav thought that by asking his father how to give Maaser on straw and salt, he could simulate Yitzchak who had adopted the mitzva of Maaser. Yaakov, on the other hand, realized that you cannot imitate or simulate righteousness--you must Emulate it, in your own unique way.
The same is true of leadership. Hashem wanted Yehoshua to realize that he could not succeed by trying to be Moshe. Moshe is dead, Hashem was saying, but Yehoshua is very much alive! He had to be Yehoshua. But not the Yehoshua who stood at the foot of Sinai waiting for Moshe, nor the one who set up the benches in the Beit Midrash. Not even the Yehoshua who fought Amalek or remained faithful at the time of the Meraglim. He had to be the sum of all those Yehoshuas, bringing all of his experiences with him, as well as the role models he had learned from along the way.
When Harry Potter finally squares off against Lord Voldemort at the end of book seven, he says,"I don't want anyone else to try to help. It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
In his typical deceitful style, Voldemort twists the truth and says, "Potter doesn't mean that. That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?" Voldemort is claiming that James and Lily Potter, Sirius Black and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore himself, who all laid down their lives in the battle against the Dark Lord, were merely human shields, used cynically by Harry to protect himself. Harry knew better. He knew that these were his role models who taught him what it meant to be a leader and that now it was his turn, at last, to serve as a role model for all those in the great hall during the battle for Hogwarts.
And he was ready. Ready with what he had learned from each of his mentors...and ready with what he had chosen NOT to learn from them. From his parents he had learned courage and self sacrifice, and that night he willingly sacrificed himself for others as his mother had sacrificed herself for him, and the result was the same magical protection that prevented Voldemort's spells from binding them. From Sirius and James he had learned the joy of breaking rules, but unlike them, he broke rules to help friends in need, not for the joy of flouting the system. From Dumbledore he had learned the value of understanding his opponent, and the value of love, a concept foreign to Voldemort. He would use both to defeat Voldemort tonight. But he would reject the secrecy that made even those closest to Dumbledore come to doubt him at times. He would involve his friends in the tasks that had to be done, whether finding the lost Diadem of Ravenclaw or dispatching Nagini, the last Horcrux.
Yehoshua, likewise, armed himself with all the lessons of his role models. This didn’t only mean the Torah and midot he learned from Moshe Rabbenu. Did you ever wonder why Moshe changed Yehoshua’s name from Hoshea to Yehoshua before the mission of the Meraglim, BUT HE NEVER DID THE SAME THING FOR KALEV? Why didn’t Kalev become Yichlav or Yichlov? I would suggest that Kalev didn’t need to be plugged into a source of strength with the addition of a letter of G-d’s name. He already had his own reservoirs of chizuk – he knew by himself to visit Chevron and fortify himself at the Me’arat HaMachpela. But Yehoshua was at a different stage in his development. He knew how to fight evil, but to him, evil wore the face of Amalek, the tribe he battled in the deserts sands. Evil looked like evil. But what do you do when evil masquerades as good? When princes of tribes say that they have the best interests of the people at heart even as they defy the command of G-d? Yehoshua had never been exposed to a situation where he had to play along with such people only to defeat them at the end. That’s why Moshe apprenticed him to Kalev—Kalev, who knew how to have “Ruach Acheret,” to say one thing, but keep his own counsel in his heart. On this mission, Kalev did the talking and Yehoshua did the learning. But when the time came to designate a new leader, it was Yehoshua who was described as “Is asher ruach bo,” a man who can deal with all kinds of people on their level, a man who recognizes all facets of human nature.
Yehoshua would need to tackle his new position with what he learned from Moshe AND from Kalev. But he, like Harry, would also have to know what NOT to adopt from the playbooks of his mentors. While some of Yehoshua’s miracles, like the parting of the waters of the Jordan River, seemed like reruns of Moshe’s escapades, there were notable exceptions: When Yehoshua sent spies, there were two, not twelve; they were sent secretly, not with fanfare, and were given very narrowly defined goals. What was this but learning from the mistakes of his generation? And when Reuven, Gad and Menashe appeared to be setting up a cult of idolatry on the eastern bank of the Jordan, Yehoshua did not respond with the knee jerk echo of his teacher’s harshe words towards these tribes. He investigated and discovered that their actions were l’shem shamayim.
And so the first lesson of leadership from Yehoshua Bin Nun and Harry Potter is to learn from your role models, without becoming cheap imitations of them. Just as the Kohen gadol had to purchase new bigdei lavan every Yom Kippur and could not wear those of a previous Kohen gadol, or even his own of the previous year, a true leader must find her voice and not just channel that of her predecessors, or even settle for her own mindset of a year ago.
You have remarkable role models in Central. Members of your faculty and administration are known and appreciated far beyond the confines of this building. My shul prides itself on bringing the community programs featuring the real stars of the Torah world. Offhand I count at least three people you interact with daily who have shared their Torah with hundreds of people at Etz Chaim and been rousingly received. And that’s just on the limudei kodesh side. Learn all you can from them and their colleagues, as you prepare to find your own authentic voice and leadership mantle.
But true leadership involves more than how you view your teachers. True leaders know they cannot do it all. If Kalev was Yehoshua’s mentor in how to deal with evil, why wasn’t HE appointed the next leader? According to the Gemara, the 400 laws forgotten during the period of mourning for Moshe were re-derived logically by Otniel ben Knaz. With such a talmid chacham available, why was Yehoshua chosen leader? The answer is that a leader need not be the best in all areas. She can learn what she needs from others and can call on them when the occasion demands. She maintains relationships with these people, some of whom date back many decades. Yehoshua had Kalev at his side when he needed to send spies to Yericho, and Otniel would be ready to be the first shofet. Harry Potter, without Ron and Hermione, would have been just an annoying teenager. Without the DA and the centaurs and Grawp and all those befriended by Harry along the way, the battle of Hogwarts would have turned out differently.
My 24 year old son went to SAR, MTA and Harvard and is now beginning a career. Yet the people I see him building a future with are not new; they are his friends from each school. He treasures each one, understands their relative strengths and makes an effort to stay in touch. The friendships you make now and have already made are precious, on a personal level, and as future leaders.
But both your role models and your peer relationships will not suffice without the third lesson of leadership—the lesson of trust.
This trust must run in multiple directions. You must trust your mentors to really have your development as leaders foremost in their mind. Because Harry expressed trust and loyalty in Dumbledore, he was able to pull the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat in the Chamber of Secrets and able to overcome his nagging doubts in Book Seven. Ultimately, the quality that the Midrash focuses on to explain Yehoshua's fitness for leadership is his loyalty to Moshe and Talmud Torah expressed through his setting up the Beit Midrash. Without a doubt, you need to trust your parents, teachers and administrators that they have your leadership potential in mind when they seek your involvement in programs and added responsibilities. But it's a two-way street. Those same parents and educators must constantly search their own souls and motives to be sure that everything they do with you--is FOR you. And the trust must ultimately extend from you to your own students. Yehoshua invested trust in his two hand-picked meraglim, and they did not disappoint him. Harry trusted the members of the DA enough to teach them the Patronus charm, just as Lupin had trusted him. And when the chips were down, during the battle for Hogwarts, when Harry himself could not find a thought happy enough to form his own Patronus, his students, Luna, Ernie and Seamus were able to take what he had taught them and light the way for their teacher. There is no guarantee that the people you trust--mentor or student--will not disappoint, but there is no alternative. Without trust, the Order of the Phoenix becomes a group of Death Eaters.
I have left out the most important part of leadership, and, perhaps the hardest. To be a leader you have to know what you stand for. What are your core beliefs that you have the passion to communicate to others? What do you feel as strongly about as Yehoshua felt that Moshe was coming down that mountain, and Harry felt that it was his job to face the Dark Lord? I don't mean the ideas that have been passed down to you, the E-lokei Avoteinu, but those that you feel in your own hearts--the E-lokeinu you have made your own. These are the years when, with the help of others, you answer those questions for yourselves. In an election year there are too many examples of politicians who shift commitments with the same regularity as underwear, leaving their constituents to wonder if there is anything at all at their core. The truest way to build a leader is the way a microwave cooks--from the inside out. Start with the core: the amazing neshamot and talents that you have, the deep beliefs that you make your own through an attachment to role models coupled with a search for your own voice; add passion, peers and trust in equal measure, and stir gently (with one counter clockwise stroke for every seven clockwise...) Then serve yourselves to a world thirsty for principled leaders and let the magic begin!
