Parshas Balak 5785
In Vienna 1923, at the First International Congress of Agudath Israel, Rav Meir Shaprio launched a program that changed the Jewish world. He proposed a regimen of Gemara learning whereby one page of the Babylonian Talmud would be studied each day, thus uniting world Jewry in a shared daily limud. With that audacious proposal, Rav Meir Shapiro founded Daf Yomi.
Sort of.
In Midrash Rabbah 14:20, Chazal record a gripe shared by the collective nations of the world: The Jewish People decided to accept the Torah because they were led by the most extraordinary leader in history, Moshe Rabbeinu. Had another nation been gifted with such a luminary, it too would have pined for a connection with G-d and would have been eager to accept the Torah. Hadn’t G-d provided the Jews with an unfair advantage?
Parshas Balak, explain the Chachamim, serves as a retort to that claim. Enter Bilaam, whose prophetic abilities Chazal describe as being on par with those of Moshe’s, and in some ways, even surpassed them. With Bilaam at the helm, Moav could have become Israel, and the spiritual achievements achieved by the latter could at least have been shared by the former. And yet the opportunity was squandered. Even with Bilaam, the people of Moav remained far from spiritual nobility. Even under a great leader, Moav remained Moav.
Yet, was it really the same? Was Bilaam actually a reasonable stand-in for Moshe Rabbeinu? Bilaam was a conniving mercenary, willing to weaponize his remarkable prophetic powers and sell them to the highest bidder. Moshe was a transcendently righteous individual whose famed humility was unsurpassed. How could it have been lost on Chazal that apportioning Moshe to the Jews and Bilaam to Moav was far from even-steven?
Perhaps Chazal hold a different view of the interaction between the leader and the led. That much of the refinement of character and personal acumen possessed by the leader is actually facilitated by the people who will ultimately be in his charge. In other words, Moshe became the Moshe we know because of the people who surrounded him and the environment they provided. And so did Bilaam.
Could Bilaam have become like Moshe Rabbeinu? Perhaps he actually could have. But it would have required the very best of all those around him. The sort of people who would hear that G-d wanted to impart His wisdom to them, to impose upon them a mode of living that would be spiritually uplifting on the one hand but immensely challenging on the other and would respond with, “Na’aseh v’nishma”.
Perhaps it is not that the people of Moav failed because of the shortcomings of their leader, but that their leader failed because of the shortcomings of his people.
Which means that as much as the world needs its leaders, it needs its followers even more. The rank-and-file, going about their business, choosing right over wrong thousands of times throughout their daily lives, all in a manner that never makes the headlines.
I remember sitting at MetLife Stadium during the last Siyum HaShas and watching the image of Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky appear on the screen. “How different,” I thought. Compared to the faces usually shown on those screens—athletes, singers, and the like—Rav Shmuel’s visage served in delightful contrast. But the most remarkable thing about that spectacle was not Rav Shmuel—neither his face nor his words. Rather, it was the 100,000 strong who showed up to hear him, to listen to the Gadol HaDor recite the Hadran in completion of all of Shas, to celebrate the learning accomplished by tens of thousands worldwide.
And the same can be said of the movement that is Daf Yomi itself. Was the Jewish People fortunate to have the leadership of Rav Meir Shapiro? Undoubtedly. Is he responsible for the success of Daf Yomi as a movement? Sort of.
What would have become of Daf Yomi had Rav Meir Shapiro’s proposal fallen on deaf ears? If there hadn’t been the response of thousands worldwide—even in those earliest years—who were willing to be led? If there hadn’t been throngs of carpenters and accountants and physicians who heeded his call? And had such a Jewish world not existed, would Rav Meir Shaprio have even become Rav Meir Shapiro?
“Leadership” is all the buzz, whether at corporate outings, professional in-services, or teen summer programs. And yet if we focus on leadership alone we may well be failing to properly develop the one area that permits leaders to enjoy any measure of success. It is not enough that we step up and lead; we must be doubly prepared to step up and follow.