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Moses: the Ideal of a Leader
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
Extract
And I will give you shepherds after mine heart and they shall feed you knowledge and understanding
(Jeremiah 3:15)
To talk about leadership in our times evokes the spectre of those leaders in the thirties and forties who led their nation to disaster, without any consideration for the cost in human suffering and moral degradation which their course involved. Yet, despite the distasteful association, we talk about the need for leadership in various domains of life—education, business, politics—and we look for individuals who are capable of providing such leadership also in civilizations which are committed to the principles of liberalism and democracy. Obviously, there is more than one sort of leader and more than one kind of leadership.
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- Copyright © 1989 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 The King James' version reads: "but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." We have preferred a literal translation of the Hebrew phrasing, which indicates some deficiency in speech, whether physiological or mental in nature.
2 Moses himself argues his weakness with iron logic: "And Moses spake before the Lord, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumsised lips?" (Exodus 6:12)
3 Ahad Ha'am (pseudonym of Asher Ginzberg), "Moses." Available in English in Selected Essays, translated by Leon Simon, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publica tion Society of America, 1912.
4 The second part of the verse could possibly be translated: "and they shall lead you in the way of knowledge and understanding."
5 The King James' version reads: "above all people." "Above all the nations" is a more accurate translation.
6 Plato, Gorgias, 502 (Jowett's translation).
7 Ibid, 518.
8 Philo Judaeus, The Life of Moses, Book II, 14-15. Quoted from F.H. Colson's translation of Philo's works, Vol VI, Cambridge, Mass., The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press and London, William Heinemann, 1935.
9 Plato, Apology, 31-32 (Jowett's translation).
10 Apology, 29.
11 Cf. a similar situation in Numbers 14:11-20.
12 The King James' version reads: "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." We chose to use the word "hum ble" rather than "meek" for anav, though it conveys both and more, as explained further on in the text. The other significant departure from the accepted English text is stylistic: to be meek or humble above sounds somewhat paradoxical, so we preferred to repeat the word "humble" in the superlative, in the spirit if not letter of the Hebrew text. Finally, the Hebrew text refers to "the man (ish) Moses," but then compares him with "all the adam," another word for man, or humanity, reminiscent of Adam and stressing what we would call today "the species of man." "Human beings" conveys the idea better than simply "men".
13 Cf. also my essay "Democratic Elitism", Judaism, Vol. 27, No. 1.
14 Translated from the selection of legends in Sefer Ha'agada, arranged by H.N. Bialik and Y.H. Ravnitzky, Tel-Aviv, Dvir, p. 77a.
15 Cf. Lincoln Steffens, Moses in Red: The Revolt of Israel as a Typical Revolu tion, Philadelphia, Dorrance & Co., 1926, pp. 143-144.
16 The King James' version reads, rather clumsily: "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses."