Moses and Aaron’s first meeting with Pharaoh to demand freedom for the Israelites does not go well: Pharaoh refuses to acknowledge God and punishes their temerity, increasing the Israelites’ suffering. The result is a general deflation: God convinces Moses to persevere but, as we read in Shemot 6:9, “But when Moses told [of God’s intentions] to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage” (JPS translation). This failure of leadership spooks Moses, who reverts to complaining about his difficulties in speaking:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Go and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites depart from his land.” But Moses appealed to the Lord, saying “The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech! (lit. uncircumcised of tongue)” So the Lord spoke to both Moses and Aaron and commanded them in regard to the Israelites and in regard to Pharaoh king of Egypt, instructing them to deliver the Israelites from the land of Egypt (6: 10-13; JPS translation, modified).
What is this command that God presents to Moses and Aaron? Has God not told them to take the Israelites out of Egypt already? And for that matter, why, after an extended conversation with Moses alone, does God now address Aaron along with Moses?
Rashi offers a midrashic answer to both questions:
…Because Moses had said, “I am of uncircumcised lips,” the Holy One of Blessing associated Aaron with him to be his mouth and spokesman… “And commanded them regarding the Israelites,” that is, to deal with them in a gentle manner and to be patient with them “and with regard to Pharaoh, king of Egypt,” that they should show respect to him in all that they spoke (See Exodus 7:3 and Tanchuma, Vayera 2; Silberman translation, modified).
For Rashi Moses’ modesty is admirable and rewarded with a spokesman. Ramban would agree, pointing to Moses’ second complaint about his uncircumcised lips (6:30), to which God replies “See I place you in the role of God (elokim) to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet” (7:1). For other voices in the tradition (see Exodus Rabbah, 7:1-2), however, the turn to Aaron is “a rebuke to Moses, [and] he no longer is the singular vehicle of revelation” (Burton L. Vizotsky, The Road to Redemption, 89). Vizotsky, however, also suggests that the Torah is presenting a case for sharing the burdens of leadership: “[It] is a shift that enables Moses to return and confront Pharaoh yet again. Leadership cannot always be carried along. Failure can be a cause for despair, but it can also lead to shared responsibility.”
In sharing this responsibility, Moses and Aaron need to fear not only Pharaoh, who is likely to ignore them, but also those they lead, the Israelites, who as the rest of the Torah demonstrates, do not follow them blindly or peacefully. In Sifrei Bamidbar, God explicitly warns Moses and Aaron of this danger:
God said to them: I want you to know that the Israelites are a stubborn and troublesome lot; but you accept this mission on the understanding that they will curse you and stone you (Piska 91; translation from Nehama Leibowitz’s Studies in Shemot, 144, modified; also see Exodus Rabbah, 7:3).
The Rambam draws on this reading to make a larger point about leadership:
It is forbidden for a person to lord it over the community in a domineering manner but he must exercise authority with humility and reverence; it is likewise forbidden to treat the people with disrespect even if they are ignorant; and a leader should not ride over the heads of the holy people. Though they be ordinary people, common folk, they are the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the host of Hashem who brought them out of Egypt with great might and a strong hand. The leader should rather bear patiently the cumbrance of the community and their burden, as Moses our teacher, as it is said: “as a nursing father carries the sucking child” (Numbers 11:12). Look at Moses, Master of all the prophets. We are told that no sooner did the Holy One of Blessing send Moses to Egypt that “He commanded them regarding the children of Israel” which our tradition takes to mean that God made Moses and Aaron accept the leadership of the people “on the understanding that they will curse you and stone you” (Hilkhot Sanhedrin, 25:1-2; translation from Nehama Leibowitz’s Studies in Shemot, 144, modified).
The Rambam’s lessons about leadership still apply today. As any management guru will tell you, putting yourself forward as a leader often means opening yourself up for criticism and hostility. For this reason, leadership is too difficult for one person alone: every leader needs collaborators, whether they be partners (as one midrashic tradition would see Aaron) or as lieutenants (another midrashic tradition). Despite (or perhaps because of) the potential hostility, it is the leader’s responsibility to treat his or her community with the utmost respect.
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