Leadership Beyond Despair

Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, is remarkable for the extreme realism,

with which it portrays human character.

Its heroes are not superhuman, its non-heroes are not archetypal villains.

The best have failings, the worst often have saving virtues. I know of no other religious

literature quite like it. This makes it very difficult to use biblical narrative to teach a simple

black and white approach to ethics, and that argued Rabbi Zvi Hash Chayas in his Mavur Ha'adot

is why rabbinic midrush often systematically reinterprets the narrative,

so that the good becomes all good and the bad all bad.

For sound educational reasons, Midrush paints the moral life in terms of black and white.

Yet the plain sense remains,

and the Talmud tells us, En micrayaeotsemi de Pshutot, a biblical passage never loses its plain interpretation. And it's important that we don't lose sight of it. It's as if monotheism

brought into being at the same time a profound humanism.

God in the Hebrew Bible is nothing like the gods of myth. They were half human, half divine.

The result was that in the epic literature of pagan cultures, human heroes were often seen

as almost like gods. They were semi-divine. In stark contrast, monotheism creates a total

distinction between God and humanity. If God is holy God, then human beings can be seen as holy

human, subtle, complex mixtures of strength and weakness. We identify with the heroes of the Bible because despite their greatness they never cease to be human,

nor do they aspire to be anything else.

Hence the phenomenon of which the Parachat of Balotachar provides a shattering example,

the vulnerability of some of the greatest religious leaders of all time, to depression and despair.

The context is familiar enough. The Israelites are complaining about their food.

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