If you were to leave one message to your descendants, what would you say?
Knowing that his epic leadership journey will soon come to an end, the once verbally challenged Moses begins a quite verbose swan song. In the portion we call “Devarim/Words,” in a book we call “Devarim/Words,” Moses begins the first of three speeches which serve to impart his instructions and rebuke to a people who will soon be on their own without God’s favorite prophet.
It is unsurprising that Moses will spend much of his remaining airtime warning his often fickle followers that they will need to scrupulously follow God’s Torah if they are to gain blessing and avoid the curses of the ancient world.
What is surprising is how Moses begins his farewell. He begins by telling them that the success of his leadership stems from shared leadership: “I took heads of your tribes, men wise and experienced, and I placed them as heads over you” (Deuteronomy 1:15). Moreover, he commands these judges to: “hear-out [what is] between your brothers; judge with equity between each man and his brother or a stranger” (Deuteronomy 1:16).
Moses’ first piece of advice is not a spiritual admonition — instead, our prophet leads with a call for wise, capable, and fair human leadership.
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Over the past few weeks, Americans have witnessed a maelstrom of political drama. We had front-row seats to a frenzied media attempting to cover two remarkable events: The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a political rally in Pennsylvania, and President Joe Biden’s long-discussed and yet still surprising decision to exit the 2024 campaign.
The conversations around both historic events are woefully misguided. While the tragic shooting at the rally has produced scores of images and articles about Trump’s bravery, it has yet to reignite a meaningful conversation about our country’s gun violence epidemic. The semi-automatic AR-15 rifle used in this shooting is responsible for high-profile mass shootings in Uvalde, TX; Parkland, FL; Las Vegas; Orlando; and Newtown, CT. Despite the rifle’s capacity to cause mass casualties and horrific trauma, there are currently 25 million AR-15 rifles in American hands.
Meanwhile, news outlets have spent weeks invading Biden’s privacy and providing arm-chair diagnoses with an undercurrent of relentless ageism. Much of the media and memes focus exclusively on Biden’s alleged senility, verbal clumsiness, and anxiety around his electability. Our collective conversation is failing to assess the policies and positions he has taken over the last three and a half years. What do we actually need from a President? “Lesser-evilism” will only keep us entrenched in the same cycles of oppression we have been witnessing for generations. We need to begin a meaningful conversation around the leadership qualities and policies required to lead our diverse, and all too often inequitable country. We need to talk about the kind of leader we need at the top in order to move the needle on the issues that matter most.
For this, Devarim is helpful. We need a leader who is both wise and experienced; discerning and focused on justice for all.
The media circus, internet memes, and social media chatter do little to help direct us toward the most essential question. We need to ask the question Moses uses to frame his goodbye address: How do we appoint leaders who are both wise and experienced? How do we make sure that our leaders in turn appoint others who will judge and decide fairly, remembering the dignity and inherent worth of our “siblings” — fellow citizens — and the “stranger” — the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants who live in our country?
In just over three months, the American people will have a choice to make, and much more than the age of our president is at stake. Trump’s 78 years and Biden’s 81 years pale in comparison to Moses’ 120 years young.
Find more commentaries on Social Justice: Leadership and Philosophy.
In coming years we have a slew of human rights concerns to contend with: gun violence, climate crisis, immigration, poverty, abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, institutionalized racism, and the brutality of war, just to name a few. The single most impactful and global decision we make every four years is whom we choose to hold America’s highest public office.
Political slogans, media posturing, and social media images are all distractions from what is truly at stake. We must demand honest and clear conversations about the issues that affect us all and ensure that the person who is trusted to lead our country is capable of making the wise and capable decisions that have the potential to bring justice, peace, and security to millions.
The ancient Midrash, Sifre Bamidbar (paragraph 99), proposes that every place the Bible uses the verb daber [speak] it indicates rebuke. When the text uses the verb amar [say] it conveys a message of praise and supplication. Both words have the same literal meaning but confer drastically different emotional injunctions. Our portion opens: Eleh hadevarim asher diber Moshe — “These are the words Moses spoke.” These are the rebukes Moses rebuked. In our present moment, we gain much by reading Moses’ words as a firm warning: It is time to choose our leaders wisely, avoid unhelpful rhetoric, and learn from our mistakes. As we travel into the unknown wilderness of our shared future, may we clearly articulate what we need from our leadership and insist that we be led by wisdom, capable experience, and the commitment to equity for all.
And most importantly, though Moses couldn’t have predicted the details of a representative democracy, he surely would agree: Let’s get out the vote.
Rabbi Suzie Jacobson (she/they) is the rabbi and director of congregational learning at Temple Israel of Boston. Ordained at Hebrew College, Suzie is passionate about teaching Talmud and Jewish philosophy and ensuring that our Jewish community is welcoming, rooted in righteous values, and full of joy.