Leadership is measured by the leader's ability to handle expressions of doubt about his position or ability to lead the group. The doubts can come from the group itself, but also from the leader.
The hegemony that characterizes each group, its background and its culture, influence the leader's power and ability to lead, especially when it's a matter of leading toward a new, unknown reality.
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From the group under their leadership will rise tongue-clickers and doubters who prefer the existing "comfort" or situation, even though they are aware of the hardship it entails, to starting out on a new path. Throughout the course of history, the Jewish people have dealt with situations of slavery, forced separation, and struggle. Moses was given his leadership role against his will and expressed enormous concern about leading the Hebrew nation to a new reality. Compared to other leaders, Moses doesn't meet the basic criteria for a classic leader. He doubts his own ability to accept the important role. He was raised in Pharaoh's household, in a culture not his own. He became a leader in a place that was close to his enslaved brethren, a kind of "Diaspora," but not with them. He finds himself assimilating into Pharaoh's household, at a time when his Jewish brothers were being crushed by hard labor. He discovers where he belongs historically and culturally when he sees an Egyptian man beating a Jew. From that point on, Moses' approach changes, and the way to the Promised Land is paved.
Some three millennia after Moses' death, a Jewish lawyer from the Diaspora became aware of the constant discrimination toward and suffering of his Jewish brothers. His name? Binyamin Zeev [Theodor] Herzl. When Herzl shows up to cover the Dreyfus trial and hears the crowd calling, "Jew! Traitor! Death to the Jews!" in a ceremony of public humiliation, his life takes a historic turn. From that day on and until his death, Herzl devotes his life to the rebirth of the Jewish people, united and gathered in a Jewish state. Herzl takes on the role because there is no other choice. His internal feelings steer him to respond, just like the Jewish people's first leader, Moses, did when he saw the Egyptian beating the Jews. Herzl takes on the mission. He holds countless meetings with world leaders to find a solution for the Jewish people, who were subjected to hatred, persecution, pogroms, and anti-Semitism.
One of the biggest challenges Herzl faced in his life was to get the Jews to believe in him. For thousands of years, the Jewish people had grown accustomed to living in the Diaspora, in closed and persecuted communities. Herzl encountered trouble when he tried to spark hope about the need to break a path to the longed-for independence. Doubters who were used to living in exile-raised difficulties. The sense of comfort, despite the difficulty, was preferable to many communities than starting out on a new path whose end was unknown. Herzl overcame the difficulties. He managed – for the first time in Jewish history since the destruction of the Second Temple – representatives of Jewish communities from all over the world. He sparked their hopes and inspired them to dream of the Promised Land.
When the sons of Israel leave Egypt, they wander in the desert for 40 years. They are confronted with hunger and thirst, with leadership crises and fear. They ask Moses to go back to Egypt, to slavery: "Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness" [Exodus 14:12]. In Herzl's time, the idea of establishing the Jewish state "wandered" and encountered numberless challenges. At age 44, Herzl died, leaving behind him a people who now had hope of returning to Zion, but a long road ahead of them.
In our people's record of traveling toward a better future, the qualities of these two leaders should be compared. Both Moses and Herzl start their lives as part of the people – close to it, but not with it, not inside it. Their identities take a sharp turn when they see their people's suffering. As leaders, they are both confronted with doubts about their abilities and they both take on enormous missions. One met with Pharaoh and his ministers, while the other met with sultans and heads of state. They envisioned their people's liberation, as well as the long road to the Promised Land and the problems that would await them along the way.
Each in his own way wound up standing there, on the edge, so close to their goal. They nearly touched the door to the Promised Land and there, their journeys ended.
Moses and Herzl, each in his own generation and in his own way, devoted their lives to the Jewish people and leading them to the Land of Israel. They might not have been allowed to enter the Promised Land, but they left behind them legacies that produced generations of leaders, generations of dream-fulfillers, and gave us the eternal torch so we could live our lives in the Land of Israel. Two leaders, two different times, and one dream that came true: the Land of Israel.
What are we asked to do? We, the bearers of the torch, have an obligation to go on and fulfill the Zionist idea while strengthening the links between the Jewish people, Jewish tradition, and the Land of Israel.
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