In your Siddur, when we recite the community prayer, there is now a sticker where we used to pray for the welfare of Queen Elizabeth II. Soon after her death last September the Movement for the Reform Judaism helpfully issued us stickers to replace the Queen with her son King Charles so that we were praying for the right monarch’s welfare, as has been Jewish tradition for many centuries. By the turn of the year our Prayer for the Royal family and the government plaque at the front of the Synagogue had been updated, although for nostalgia reasons we have left the original wooden plaque from the old EDRS synagogue with this prayer at the back of the Bet Midrash.
Just like his mother, King Charles will issue annual honours to British citizens on what is known as his official birthday, elevating a number of people to a peerage, knighting others so that they will thereafter carry the title of Sir or Lady and enrolling yet more in the time honoured orders which give them letters after their name such as MBE or OBE. Just like his mother, despite his biological birthday being in November, this will take place in June every year and so King Charles’s birthday honours list was released last week.
Jews always figure in some numbers in the monarch’s birthday honours list, as we contribute strongly to British society. Their name is also singled out and pride in their achievements shared with the nation. From the Queen’s reign, there is a tale of a British Jew who was waiting in line to be knighted by the Queen. He was to kneel in front of her and recite a sentence in Latin when she taps him on the shoulders with her sword. However, when his turn came, he panicked in the excitement of the moment and forgot the Latin. Then, thinking fast, he recited the only other sentence he knew in a foreign language, which he remembered from the Passover seder:
“Ma nishtana ha layla ha zeh mi kol ha laylot, your Majesty”
Puzzled, Her Majesty turned to her advisor and whispered, “Why is this knight different from all other knights?” Right that’s the end of the long run up to the one joke in this sermon – now it’s time to get serious.
The Passover Haggadah which contained that line, tells the story of the Exodus from Egypt without, traditionally, a single mention of the name of the unfortunate hero of our Torah portion Chukkat– Moses. He had led the Children of Israel for a terrible forty years through the wilderness. Throughout the journey they had moaned at him that they did not have enough to drink or to eat. Several times the Children of Israel told Moses that they would have preferred to remain in slavery in Egypt rather than to be wandering through the desert, even if they were on the way to their Promised Land.
In Chukkat, soon after Moses’ sister Miriam dies, she who, in Midrash, was followed by a well of sweet water wherever she went, the water runs out. So the moaning begins again in earnest. Moses loses his temper, and hits the water giving rock. Immediately he is told by God that now he will not be the leader of the children of Israel into the Promised Land.
Moses’ dismissal seems so unfair on the face of it after forty years loyal hard working service to the Children of Israel and to God. We all know stories of how it has been difficult for people to give up leadership and who feel that their hard work has not been appreciated when they are asked or nudged to step down. Therefore, the Rabbis had to try to work out why God’s reaction is, on the face of it, so extreme.
Rashi, the 10th century French scholar, said that Moses was dismissed from leadership because he disobeyed God publicly, an example that God simply could not allow to continue. Moses hit the rock in anger and did not speak to it as God had commanded him (Numbers 20:8ff).
Maimonides, in 12th century Spain, says that Moses simply lost the characteristics of a good leader. He, so to speak, lost his cool in front of the Israelites in his accusatory anger and so could no longer have the credibility needed as a leader of hundreds of thousands through difficult terrain and military campaigns.
Nachmanides, in 13th century Spain says that the problem was that he and Aaron said “Shall we get water for you from out of this rock” – we Moses and Aaron, not God. By ascribing the miracle to themselves they went a major step too far. Moses could no longer be the inspirational leader and nor could his name be mentioned in the Haggadah lest people think that it was Moses who brought us up out of Egyptian slavery and not God.
We will never know the one authoritative reason that makes Moses’ removal from the privilege of leading the Children of Israel into the Promised Land fair and reasonable. But what we do know is something far more profound.
It is what our Torah tells us Moses did next, when he knew that his dream was shattered, that his role was lost. Right after the incident at the rock Torah continues: “And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, Thus said your brother Israel, You know all the adversity that has befallen us… Let us pass, I pray you, through your country… And Edom said to him, You shall not pass by me, lest I come out against you with the sword.(Numbers Chapter 20:14ff)”
Right after hearing that he was to lose the role that had made him the leader of all of the Jewish people of the time, Moses went right back to work, straight into the tasks at hand. The Torah could have told us of a long and protracted period of mourning for his mistake, about Moses’ regrets and begging God to relent. But this did not happen.
Moses went straight on to give further life to the Jewish people and continued to do so for sixteen more chapters of the book of Numbers, a whole campaign to bring them to the borders of the Promised Land, and then thirty four chapters of the book of Deuteronomy reminding them what to do when they entered. Yes he clearly regrets that he will not reach the Promised Land and expresses those regrets to God towards the end of his life. But Moses does not give up on what he can still do for the task and puts his energies into preparing his successor Joshua, who is able to put maximum energy into the entry into the Promised Land as we heard in our Haftarah.
Judaism affirms life. Moses returned immediately to the task after hearing he will no longer be the leader into the Promised Land. World Union for Progressive Judaism communities bring back life to Jewish communities which our people had all but given up on, in the smaller cities of Britain, in Spain, in Eastern Europe and Shanghai for example. Each of us individually have to deal with disappointments when we find perhaps that we are not the one to lead where we might have wished – yet Moses example shows that we should not give up on the task even if it will no longer make our name great.
For every good leader the task of nurturing, training and encouraging successors and being willing to pass on the role of leadership is a critical part of the task. May we learn from Moses’ example.
