The True Leader Lives Only for Others

1“When you take the sum of Bnei Yisrael by their count, each man shall give an atonement for his soul to Hashem …”¹ Rashi explains: “Tisa is a word of receiving, as Onkelos translates it: when you wish to take the total of their number, to know how many they are, do not count them by the head.”² My holy great-grandfather, zt"l, looked closely at this wording in his holy sefer Divrei Binah. The verse says ki sisa es rosh, which literally means “when you lift the head.” If counting is meant, why does the Torah not say plainly “when you count them,” as the Targum puts it, “when you receive the reckoning”? The Ohr HaChaim raises the same point: the verse should have said ki sifkod, “when you count.”³ This implies that besides the counting, there is also a “lifting of the head” here, an elevation of Israel.

2Notice, too, the words “each man shall give an atonement for his soul.” The word ish, “man,” seems unnecessary. The verse has just spoken of Bnei Yisrael, who are to give an atonement for their souls, so it would have been enough to say, “They shall give an atonement for their souls to Hashem …” Why, then, does the verse add the word ish?

3Let us first cite the Tiferes Shlomo on the verse “For Mordechai the Jew was second to King Achashverosh, and great among the Jews, and accepted by most of his brethren, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his offspring.”⁴ The true tzaddik's whole desire and aim, he writes, is to see to the good of his generation, in the things of Heaven and the things of this world alike. That is the meaning of “Mordechai the Jew was mishneh to King Achashverosh.” Mishneh usually means “second,” but here it is used as in the Gemara's phrase hameshaneh mida'as ba'al habayis, “one who departs from the owner's wishes”: Mordechai's outlook was the opposite of Achashverosh's. For it is the way of the nations that “every kindness they do, they do only for themselves.”⁵ That is why the Megillah opens with the great feast Achashverosh made “for all his princes and servants,” and closes, “And King Achashverosh laid a tax upon the land.”⁶ “The kindness of the nations is sin”:⁷ in the end he collected the whole cost of the feast from the people of his kingdom, since from the start his only aim had been to display the splendor of his greatness. The tzaddik is not like that. His one desire and wish is to be good and to do good to others. And this is the meaning of “great among the Jews”: all his greatness was for the Jews alone, so that he could do good for them. That is the gist of his words.

4The Noam Elimelech writes in the same spirit on the verse “May my teaching drop like the rain.”⁸ Moshe prayed, he explains, that his words would be like rain. Rain waters the earth and makes it bring forth and sprout, yet it gains no benefit or pleasure for itself; its only purpose is the good of the world. The tzaddik's will is the same. Whatever he does, he has no thought at all of his own benefit, only of the good of Israel: to bring blessing to them and to awaken mercy for them. That is the gist of his words.

5Indeed, tzaddikim are like this from childhood: they do good for others. So it was with my holy great-grandfather, the author of Divrei Binah, whose yahrzeit is 23 Adar. While he was still a child, he and his righteous brothers, R' Shraga Yair of Bialobrzeg and R' Pinchas of Kintzk, zt"l, kept a box for the money the Chassidim gave them. When the box was full and a respectable sum had been gathered, the holy Rebbe of Bialobrzeg proposed using it for a feast for their friends. His brother, the holy Rebbe of Kintzk, proposed buying many candles to light before the prayer leader's stand during prayers. But my holy great-grandfather of Biala spoke of the chassid R' Moshe, one of the men who sat and learned Torah at their father's side. R' Moshe's garment was torn, and he had no silk garment to wear on Shabbos. So, he said, it was right to buy him a new one in honor of Shabbos. The holy brothers agreed and bought him a new Shabbos garment. This story shows us that the whole concern of tzaddikim is for others alone, and not for their own needs.

6In light of this, we can read the words ki sisa es rosh, “when you lift the head,” as a hint. When we need to lift up and raise a “head,” appointing a head and leader for Bnei Yisrael, he must be the kind of head who cares only for others and gives all he has to his fellow. This also answers our question about the word ish. That is why the verse goes on to say, “ish shall give an atonement for his soul.” As Chazal teach, the word ish refers to a tzaddik who overcomes his yetzer hara.⁹ The tzaddik must always give everything to others.

7This lets us explain why the Torah calls the leaders of Israel “shepherds.” The verse says: “Let Hashem, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out before them and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of Hashem will not be like sheep that have no shepherd.”¹⁰ A shepherd is always thinking of the good of his flock, and he always walks at their head to guide them along the straight path they should take. So too, a leader of Israel must keep his eyes and his heart always on the needs and the good of his community. Having already said “Let Hashem … appoint a man over the congregation …,” the verse goes on to say, “so that the congregation of Hashem will not be like sheep that have no shepherd.” At first glance these words are unnecessary: once there is a man over the congregation, they have a shepherd and leader as a matter of course. But the verse adds them because it is not enough to have a man over the congregation. He must be a shepherd devoted to his flock.

8We see this in Yehoshua bin Nun, whom Hashem's word appointed leader of Israel. Chazal tell us that he would come early to the house of study and stay late, arranging the benches and spreading out the mats.¹¹ Although he was always occupied with Torah, as the verse says, “Yehoshua bin Nun, a young man, would not depart from within the tent,”¹² he turned to see to the community's needs with his own hands, and he did it purely for the sake of others. This is the greatness of a leader of Israel, and it is why Yehoshua was privileged to inherit the leadership of Klal Yisrael from Moshe Rabbeinu.

9May Hashem, blessed be He, grant that we cling to the good middos, the character traits, of the tzaddikim and bring the redemption near. Amen, may it be His will.