The #1 Mistake That Kills Leaders at Home (Parshas Shoftim)

Parasim, we have a mitzvah to appoint a king upon ourselves when we get to the land. That's one of the first orders of business when getting to the land is appointing the king. And the king is not a ruler. He's a king. There's a difference. He's not a dictator. A king is not a dictator. And the difference is the checks and balances. A dictator does not have checks and balances. The dictator just is just says it like it is or says it like he wants it to be. A king has some level of checks and balances. The first level of checks and balances that a king has is the fact that he's appointed by the people. And you see this clearly in the Torah. The Torah says you should place upon yourself a king. It has to be self-imposed. It can't be imposed by the king. Otherwise, it's no longer a king. It has to be chosen by the people. Um that that's only at the beginning. Afterwards, it it runs through the dynasty of of King David as long as the next of kin is qualified. Um there's also regulations to this king. He can't marry too many women. Can't overdo it. And Rashi will tell you what overdoing it means. He can't have too many horses. He can't have too much money. He can't be he can't come off as as power hungry. And then there's a mitzvah for the king to write a Torah, a Torah scroll. And he has to have this Torah scroll with him at all times. Every individual has a mitzvah to write for themselves, a Torah scroll. Now, how we fulfill that mitzvah practically these days because not everybody has the skills to become a scribe and not everybody has the finances to hire a scribe to write an entire safer Torah for themselves. So, how that's fulfilled practically is is a separate discussion and there's different ways of doing that and when we get toward the end of the Torah maybe we'll discuss that in par. But the king has to have in addition to the regular safety Torah that everybody's supposed to write for themselves, a king has to have his own additional safer Torah, a Mishna Torah. A Mishna Torah means an additional Torah and he carries it with him wherever he goes, which means it's a really small Torah. Has to be like a little cute one. There there are opinions that say that he's not actually writing the whole Torah but just the ten commandments but but most view uh that he's actually has an entire Torah with him. It's small. He keeps it with him and as the Torah says I'll I'll read and and translate it should be with him and he should read from it all the days of his life. Why? So he learns to rever God. So the king has to have that Torah with him because it's going to prevent him from abusing power. He out of all people needs to rever God and needs to remember who the true ruler and the true master is and where guidance really comes from and what right and wrong really comes from. Then the next verse says, and this is the part I really want to hone in on in today's discussion, his heart shouldn't be arrogant, shouldn't be high, literally means high. You should have a high heart from among his brethren. So the king by having the Torah with him is prevented from he he's he's learning how to be God and thereby prevented from becoming arrogant from among his other brothers which is an interesting thing because a king by definition is different than everybody else. He was appointed by the people. Yes, he's a human being. He goes to the bathroom and stuff like that but he's not everybody else. He isn't. He He And this might be the difference, by the way, between like a a president versus a king because I think a pre I I mean a president kind of conotes it's kind of like a job. It's not just an ident, you know, it's not it's not really an identity. It's a job. You're appointed for a certain amount of time. You're voted in for a certain amount of time and that's it. a king, there needs to be a certain space between the people and the king, otherwise he's no longer a king. So although he's appointed by the people and although there are limitations on his rulership to a degree, at the end of the day, he is not the people. He's different than the people. He's in his chamber. He's on his throne. And this might be hard to kind of relate to in the 21st century or whatever century you are when you're watching this recording. No, I'm kidding. Sorry, bad joke. But but okay, it's been a while, guys. Um but okay, I just got it. The the king is by definition separated from everybody else. He's different than everybody else. So he needs that reminder that at the end of the day you can't become arrogant. The Ramban which is one of commentaries in the Torah points out that over here it's from this sentence in the Torah where we derive that not only should a king be humble that anybody should be humble. there is what he says a prohibition of being of being arrogant. Now, I don't know if it's a literal prohibition, like if it's one of the 613 commandments or not. I probably should have done a deep dive on that. That would have been interesting. Or if it's more like uh not in the spirit of Torah because it's it's how how do you like quantify arrogance, right? It's kind of hard to pinpoint that, but whatever that maybe one day we'll do a deep dive on that. But the Ramban says we derive from here that there's a prohibition for anybody to be arrogant, not just a king. And he says this is what we call a I don't know if there's an English word for this, I guess an inference. It's a it's a which is if a king who has good reason to be arrogant, good reason to feel above, to feel greater than, he has good reason to be on the high horse because he is then how much more so a and yet he still needs to be humble. He still not needs to not feel higher than his brethren because it's just a position. How much more so us regular folk who does not have good reason to be on that high horse. We better get off that high horse. That's what says we derive here that everybody can learn humility from the king. And where does the king derive his humility from? Where does he get humility from? So I think the most basic reading of text here is through the Torah. By knowing where his guidance comes from. Knowing that his guidance and his instruction and his calling and his purpose is not his own, but his gods. The king has to write a Torah and literally keep it with him the whole time. There cannot be a moment that he doesn't remember what his true calling is. The Maharal of Prague of Udala of Prague from the 15th for 14th 15th century points out an interesting insight. Where is this king getting humility from? This is a powerful lesson for anybody who's in a position of leadership. The king is, here's the interesting thing about a king. People don't need him. This is ironic, but people don't need him as much as he needs people. Which is good reason to be humble. If you're in a position of leadership, whether you're I mean whether you're uh I mean Kavi used to say, you know, Kavi was serving as principal. She used to say this all the time and this is true with anybody in like a CEO position, which is your employees don't need you as much as you need them because they could get another job somewhere else and if they do, you don't have them anymore. So if everybody leaves, if these people don't exist, you don't have a king. The king literally exists for the people. And if you don't have people, you have no king. And by people, by the way, there has to be they have to be independent people. They can't be family. If it was one big family, he wouldn't be a king. It would mean, you know, everybody would be too close to the king. That's why you need that distance from the king. So the king in some ways needs people more than people need him. Which means his identity as king is being there for people. Nobody exists so that he could serve as king. They don't exist for his position. His position exists for them. If you listen to Dave Ramsey's u podcast, he has a he has a podcast for entrepreneurs. And by the way, he should he should pay me. I'm quoting him on this, whoever's watching this. Um, but Dave Ramsey has a podcast for entrepreneurs and people call in and you know troubleshooting issues and give business advice and often his advice is bro remember what your job is. You're there to serve because if you're in a position of leadership and you're there so you can be a leader, you're not going to be humble. In order to remain humble, you have to remember why you exist. And the Maharal points out that this is actually alluded to in the Hebrew word king. The word king mel has three letters. Melik me lamemed. And in the order of the olive base in the in the Hebrew alphabet, this is like backwards because goes first, right? Then lammed goes and then you have men. So if you're reading through the Hebrew alphabet, you're going to have me. And if you go backwards, if you're going through the alphabet backwards, you're going to have mem. Well, what's the next letter after the or before the because we're going backwards. That's the Y. What does Yud represent? He says the word melik king is pointing to the letter yud because what's yud? Yud is 10. This is what the maharal says. Yud is 10. You know what 10 represents? A congregation of people. A congregation of people is 10. A minion is 10. the spies, the evil spies who messed up catastrophically. There were 10 of them and they were referred to as an adah, as an as a congregation. The melik is there for the yud. The melik is there for the congregation for the people. The people are not there for the melik. And by the way, it might be like the spies. It might be an evil congregation. They might be bad people. They might not be the best. But the king is there for them. They are not there for the king. Although people do tend to serve the king. But fundamentally speaking, the king is there more for them than they are for the king. That itself is humbling. And if any of us find ourselves in a position of leadership, whether it be our families, whether it be our businesses, whether it be our schools, in in whatever capacity, we all our all of us, anybody watching this right now is a leader in some way or will be a leader in some way, needs to lead. Maybe it's a leader toward ourselves. Maybe it's leading our lives. Maybe it's stepping up to lead our community. And the way to remain humble is understanding that it's not about the position. It's about literally just serving. Going back about a little over 200 years ago, there was a rabbi named Rabin Nasan of Brasv, Rabbi Nassan of Braslv was a student of Rabin who was the the famed Rabman of of breast ofus I don't think wrote much maybe he wrote one or two things but he had a a scribe that would basically transcribe a lot of his classes and and ideas and Rabbi Nasan Abres was his top student and transcribed a lot of his teachings on the para in something called the and in this book he talks about the value of a king remaining humble and he says all of us have within ourselves the capacity to be a king on some level like the Ramban said that the the the call of humility is not just to the king, it's to all of us. But he says the reason why we can be humble is because we have within us a king. What is a king? A king is somebody who knows how to rule over their life so their life doesn't rule over them. A king is somebody who is never a victim to circumstances. That's what he says. I'm kind of paraphrasing here because he doesn't say in those exact words, but somebody who doesn't fall victim to circumstances is a king. Somebody who says, "I can't because right, somebody has excuses because of the circumstances. I don't have the ability to lead to serve to connect to God to fulfill my to fulfill my purpose in for which God had created me because of these limitations is becoming victim to circumstances and is no longer a king and ironically that becomes arrogant because then we become entitled. Victimhood leads to entitlement. But the moment we have the ability to lead our life despite how difficult circumstances are is the moment we step up to humility. When when I work with couples going through a very difficult time, one of the first questions I like to ask is before even saying like so what is the problem that brings you here? It's it is what are your best hopes from this discussion? Which is a funny question like we're suffering. Why are you asking me about hope? But what ultimately emerges is a discussion about connection. And that's not to say that the pain they're going through isn't real. It's not to say that the distrust they might be experiencing, the hurt they may have gone through, the feeling of betrayal, all these different things aren't real. They're very real and they're very painful. And if somehow within all that pain, they still find that connection they're looking for, they're not playing victim. They're leading. They're leading their marriage. They're leading their lives. That's a very humble thing to do. You can't do that if you feel entitled. reminds me of the story um Rabbi Jonathan Saxs of blessed memory describes how he was in Oxford University or Cambridge University I don't know all the same to me across the pond um he was in one of those whatever university he was in at the time he was in his early 20s and he was visiting New York he was working on some sort of project for school he was interviewing famous notable people asking them different questions about life and he landed a meeting with the labrebba a one-on-one meeting and he was shocked because he prepared all these questions and the Reb is questioning him and he's like why you know all the leaders are politely answering giving their best answers and he he's not interested in in he doesn't need to answer my questions like to you know he doesn't need to be an entertainer you know and he starts asking asking him what are how many Jews are in the university and how many are are engaged how many of them need to become more engaged in their Jewish practice and what do you think you can do to engage in more Jews he had no plans of being a rabbi or or or or anything like that so he politely says you know the situation where I find myself in you know about to walk his way out of this leadership rule that he didn't even know existed. And the Reba cut him off and said, "We don't find ourselves in circumstances. We create circumstances." And that assertment ultimately led to a change of course in his life in becoming a rabbi and being one of the most influential rabbis in his time. It's still influential. People listen to his classes, his talks, his teachings be because he was incredibly profound and inspirational. All that happened because of the humility of not becoming a victim to a circumstance but leading like that king. That's a humble thing to do. I think we need to be very careful with the word humble. the word humility because there is a misconception about humility. People think humility means telling everybody how unqualified we are or how great I am not. But as the saying goes, humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself. Humility means thinking less about yourself. And the difference might sound subtle but it's astronomical. It's a very big difference. In the introduction to the Tanya, the altar describes the purpose of the book and he describes how people had so many questions, theological questions, philosophical questions, questions that were weighing them down because people were feeling real inner tension. They felt the pressure of acting Jewish on the outside. They felt the emptiness of not experiencing it on the inside and the Tanya was and people would go to the alter for guidance and he would lead them and ultimately would write that guidance into a book because he couldn't possibly meet with everybody and he writes that I'm writing all the answers to all the questions in this book. Now, not everybody has the ability to pick up a book and glean personal meaningful answers either because they don't have a familiarity with the book or the concepts or they just not everybody has that ability. He says somebody has that ability and if you can't do it yourself, go to somebody who can and get the answers to your question from that book from somebody who is capable. And he says to all those out there who are capable. None of that false humility. Don't do that. That's not humility. Saying I can't when you can because you don't want to look ostentatious is not humble. It's just dishonest. Humility means being very honest with how great I am. I'm just honest with why I'm great because where it really came from came from God. In cababalistic lingo, the idea of king of kingship kingship is one of the 10 uh human or or uh 10 intellectual emotional attributes. There's 10 attributes with which God interacted with the world with his kindness with his discipline with his connection. The last one is kingship. Hashim interacts with the world like a king. These 10 attributes correspond to the human psych. We have within ourselves the ability to be a king. And you know what kingship really corresponds to? being open to receive. In in cabalistic lingo, kingship is code word for being open to be to to receive because a real king is humble and has the ability to receive receive guidance. He has to have this Torah with him and know where his guidance truly comes from. like the moon. The moon is a guiding light for everybody at night. But it receives its light from something much greater than himself. In one of his uh teachings, Rabbi Dovich known as the mitler, a beautiful mimer, a beautifulic essay on on simka on joy. And he explains how sima how joy does not only contradict does not only um sorry is not only not a contradiction to humility but it actually goes handinhand with humility. Somebody who's humble is going to be happy. Somebody who's happy and by happiness I mean simp not just somebody who's chasing pleasure. Someone who's really happy, who has real deep sim is going to be humble. And here's what he says. He says you have the ability to receive from something bigger than yourself, right? Which is what cabalistic lingo calls kingship. And the kipa sense, the negative sense, the unholy sense of being able to receive. What opens you up to receiving unholy things like arrogance? Sadness. This is capitalistic psychology. Sadness, depressive feelings, negative emotions. And sometimes we feel like we should feel sad because I've done something wrong and I should feel guilty. And if I don't feel guilty, I'm a horrible person. And I and we like self-inflict ourselves. And you know what we do when we do that? We open ourselves to being able to receive but to receive negativity. We end up receiving arrogance. And when we have joy, when we have sima, that also opens us up to being able to receive. When we have real deep simka, we're able to receive humility. We're able to be more humble. And you know why? Because you know what real simka is? You know what real joy is? We're used to thinking of joy as a verb. As sima as a verb. Like when you see somebody dancing cuz they're happy. He's doing happiness. It's a verb. Just just do this to be happy. We're constantly looking for solutions, behavioral solutions. And that's not what simka is. The behavior is emblematic and symptoatic of something much deeper. The part of you that inspires you and will make you unstoppable. That is sim. Think about what you would do anything for, you'd wake up early in the morning for even if it's uncomfortable. You'd stay up late at night even if it's uncomfortable. You'd bear other people's social criticism even if it's uncomfortable. Maybe you'd run into a burning building for it to save it. I don't know what it is, but there's a part of you that's unstoppable. I mean, that's the nishama. That's the soul. But I I and it might manifest slightly differently, different shapes in every person. But that's real sim. And if we operate on that level, that's humble. That is humility. That is real humility. And where we get that from is through the Torah. Is through constantly aligning ourselves with truth. Like that king keeping the Torah with us. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.