This week’s parsha post will be rather quirky because, alas,
I am still working my way through my pile of grading… It’s the raw side of being
a teacher. Speaking of teachers, I see a particularly easy segue into this week’s
Dvar Torah: How do we know that Moshe Rabbeinu was the first of Klal Yisrael’s teachers?
It’s right there in pasuk 16:14 – “I cannot carry all this people by myself,
for it is too much for me.” – Every teacher has days when they have just this
feeling!
In all seriousness, however, in the middle of Parshas
Behaaloscha, after Bnei Yisrael are led by the eruv rav to want meat over
manna, Moshe “heard the people weeping, every clan apart, at the entrance of
each tent” (16:10). And he goes to Hashem fed up and frustrated. The people are
too much…why? It isn’t their complaints specifically; Moshe knows that Hashem
can do what ever is needed. It’s the complaining. It’s that when people get to
that level of complaint, they are not able to be talked down – they aren’t able
to see that they are being unreasonable.
But, it’s also more than that. Moshe is an empath…Moshe
feels their pain – his deep caring and empathy long proven beginning from the
connection to the Israelite slaves even as he lived in the palace and through
his days as a shepherd when he worried even after one little lamb. Imagine
being an empath and all that feeling of urgent want coming at you. Moshe wants
Bnei Yisrael to feel secure, which they expressively do not. He wants them to
feel secure not just because it will make his life much easier, but because he
KNOWS that there really is no better place to be than where they are at and
they just can’t see it as he does. He wants them to understand the world with
the Divinely guided senses that he has, and they can’t, and that hurts him.
Hashem understands. Hashem sees that Moshe’s seeming anger
is actually pain. And so Hashem tells Moshe: “Gather for Me seventy men from
the elders of Israel of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the
people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place
there with you.”
Now I may be an English teacher, but mathematically speaking
70 doesn’t seem like quite enough to manage the needs of all of Bnei Yisrael. If
there are 600,000 men of fighting age, then there are far more than a million
in total… and just 70 elders plus Moshe. Also, if you hadn’t noticed, 70 is not
divisible by 12, so it wasn’t as if Hashem was setting up a representational
system in that every tribe had the same number of elders.
Since I am an Engllish teacher, I will present a metaphoric
idea. Seventy represents the bones of the nation. In many ways, seventy is a continuum. It’s
the multiplication of teva, nature, with infinity. Numerous commentaries bring
down the correlation of the 70 elders to 70 descendants of Israel who came down
to Egypt with Yaakov. What is important about that correlation? Over and over, Jewish
society is built on 70. These were not the first seventy elders (though the
first 70 died in Terebitha), and they were not the last (Indeed, did not
Napoleon gather 70 rabbis plus one to try to form a new Sanhedrin!) But more
than that, human civilization is built on 70. At the tower of Bavel, the Midrash
says, Hashem split the people into 70 languages, and throughout the Midrash and
aggadata we hear of the 70 nations.
With Moshe and 70 elders, Hashem was laying down the
foundation of building civilization, because a civil society needs a multi-faceted
government. Everything cannot depend on one person or they either abuse that
power or give up, the way Moshe feels in this perek, because there are so many
different needs and different personality types and different ways of finding
solutions. And 70 seems the perfect numerical unit for addressing this
plurality of needs…an idea aligned with a statement in Bamidbar Rabbah – not connected
to this particular perek – that reminds us that shivim panim bTorah, there are
70 faces to the Torah.
This brings us to another concept brought down by quite a few
commentators. Rashi attributes the idea to Sifrei Bamidbar. The commentary
stems from the fact that Hashem did not literally say 70 men of the elders of
Israel, He says 70 man – eesh – of the elders. He uses the singular. This,
along with the description, “of whom you have experience as elders and officers
of the people” lead us to understand that the men Hashem specifically had in
mind were particularly unique, as Rabbeinu Bahya put it: “G’d meant that Moses was aware that the
people in question had demonstrated empathy for the people in Egypt absorbing
physical punishment on their own bodies rather than inflicting it on their
charges. The officers were the ones of whom we read in Shemos 5:14 that ‘they
were beaten by their Egyptian counterparts’ for having displayed sympathy for
the Jews they were in charge of. They had acquired experience in the qualities
needed to deal with the people, and they had established a reputation for fair
play.”
Hashem saw that it was Moshe’s empathy that was causing him
pain and frustration in dealing with the people, and while that did not feel so
good for Moshe, it was exactly what made him a good leader. And Hashem wanted those
who would share some of the burden of caring for Bnei Yisrael to have that
quality to.
It was, perhaps, Hashem reminding Moshe - or the Torah reminding us all – of another fundamental
concept. Hashem initially was going to create the world solely through His
persona of Elokim – justice, but, before He began, He realized that a world
based on justice, rules and laws, would not stand, and so He brought forth His
attribute of rachamim, compassion. Moshe wanted help so Hashem sent him the necessary
number 70 for setting up a court but made certain that those men were men of
empathy, the critical characteristic of a true leader.
And so, even as I face the chaos at the end of the school
year and wonder how we survived the complaints and the challenges, I think back
on my students and recognize the special and unique place they hold in my
heart, and how I look forward to starting all over again next year… or I will
look forward to that, just as soon as I finish these essays.
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An additional thought that came up as I was reading the pasuk:
“Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel of whom you have
experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of
Meeting and let them take their place there with you.”
I saw commentaries on the use of “lee” to Me, but as I read
I was struck by the incredible compassion within Hashem’s response. He doesn’t
say get these elders to help you for your sake. Hashem claims these elders. “Gather
for Me.” And at the end of the pasuk, He says: vhityazvu sham eemach – they will
take their place WITH you.
At this moment of vulnerability for Moshe, Hashem doesn’t
thrust another layer of leadership on him. He doesn’t say, “Okay, go form a
committee to help you.” He tells Moshe to bring Him the men, that these elders
will be His and that they will be WITH Moshe.
It’s a subtle but profound lesson. When someone is
overwhelmed, the solution is not to give them an additional level of
responsibility…a lesson perhaps in the business world, but in day to day life –
When someone is overwhelmed, don’t just tell them an organizational plan that
they should implement – don’t add to their pile. Look to help them get out from
being overwhelmed first. See the real problem going on.
