בס”ד
Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35 )
In this week’s Torah portion, we find a striking exchange between Moshe and Yehoshua when Moshe returns from his forty days on mountain to the Jewish people. As he descends from the mountain, Yehoshua, who had waited below, hears the sounds emanating from the camp and exclaims: “There is the sound of war in the camp!”1 Moshe responds: “It is not the sound of victory, nor the sound of defeat; it is the sound of distress (anoy) that I hear”2
The Yerushalmi in Taanis3 elaborates on Moshe’s reaction to Yehoshua’s pronouncement. Realizing that Yehoshua has erred in assessing the emotions of the people, Moshe rhetorically asks: “Will the one who is destined to lead 600,000 people not be able to distinguish between one type of cry and another?” The question arises as to what exactly was Yehoshua’s mistake, and why was this failing significant enough to warrant such a pointed rebuke?
The simple way of understanding Yehoshua’s assessment is that he totally misunderstood the situation. He thought the people were engaged in battle, when in fact they were indulging in the sin of the Golden Calf. However, Rabbi Shimon Shwab4 explains that Yehoshua did realize that the people were sinning. When he proclaimed that there was the sound of war, he meant that he understood that the people had turned to the Golden Calf and in that sense, it was considered as if they were waging a battle against G-d. Thus, Yehoshua viewed the people very harshly, given their abominable behavior.
Moshe corrected him, saying that what they were hearing was not the sound of war, but a sound of ‘anot’ – what exactly does anot mean? Rav Shwab explains that the word ‘anot’ is related to ‘inui’, which means affliction or distress. True, the people had sinned grievously, but why were they acting this way? Moshe explained that it was born out of deep pain and confusion. The immediate cause of the Golden Calf was that they thought that their beloved leader had died. They had been totally reliant on him as their conduit to G-d and they feared being abandoned in the wilderness. In their desperation, they turned to another source of leadership – one that would not die – the Golden Calf. Thus, the sound was not a victorious cry of defiance, but a mournful cry of a lost and anxious people.5
This understanding carries a profound lesson about the importance of perspective in leadership and judgment. Often, people see the external manifestations of sin and assume the worst about those who stray. Moshe was teaching Yehoshua that a leader must look deeper. He must understand the root causes of a person’s actions before responding. Not every sin is an act of defiance; sometimes, it is a cry for help.
This idea has ramifications for all of us, even if we are not leaders of nations. In particular, parents and teachers must internalize that when a child acts out, or when a student misbehaves, the first question should not be “How do we punish them?” but “What is causing their struggle, and how can we help them?” Teachers and parents who immediately resort to harsh punishment without first understanding the child’s struggles may drive them further away. A Rebbe who sees a student struggling should not assume defiance but should seek to understand what is burdening him.
A leader must see beyond the surface of his people’s behavior to the heart of the matter, a teacher must do the same for his students, and a parent for his children. Just as Moshe taught Yehoshua, so too must we learn to hear not just the cries of wrongdoing, but the cries of the souls behind them.
By Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen
- Shemot, 32:17.
- Ibid, 32:18.
- Cited by Rabbi Yissachar Frand.
- Cited by Rabbi Yissachar Frand.
- Needless to say, this does not mean that they were blameless and indeed the people were punished according to the level of their involvement in the sin. Yet, Moshe was teaching Yehoshua that a leader must understand why his people are acting a certain way, especially when it is so out of character.
WEEKLY TORAH PORTION,
The Guiding Light
by Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen
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