What does it mean to be a Jewish leader? 

This was the question asked by my teacher during our first meeting of the Jewish Leadership Institute.  Honestly, I didn't get it.  A leader is a leader.  A Jewish leader?  Well, a leader who happens to be Jewish...right?

The teacher lead us through reading of various Biblical leaders--Abraham, Moses, even Esther.  We discussed their various reactions when they were called to leadership.  From an immediate "Here I am" to Moses' arguing with God that he was wrong for the job.  Again, I wasn't clear why these reactions were "Jewish".  Aren't these universal?

Then I started reading the Torah each week in order to prepare a d'var torah discussion for my family's Shabbat.   I happened to start during Leviticus, so all the stories I was familiar with that fill Genesis and Exodus had passed.  Suddenly, I found myself reading about what it really means to be a Jew--how to live a Jewish life--and what it means to be a Jewish leader.

Answering the call to lead is one of the key messages in the Torah.  After all, the Five Books of Moses, recount the life of one of our greatest leaders.  While reading, we learn not only of Moses' sucesses, but, perhaps more importantly, of his failures.  Of his mistakes.  Of his trials and doubts and insecurities.  And...how he learns from all of this and goes on to lead our people, not only to the Promised Land, but to Judaism.

Reading the parshas each week has been a true gift.  I have learned so much about who we are, about what we believe.  And not just that we believe in one God, but that we believe that when a poor man is in our debt, we are obligated to make sure he has a warm coat at night.  These ethics and morals that were to stand as guides for living a Jewish life are guides for serving as  Jewish leader.

As Jews, we do not doubt when we are called to lead.  We lead knowing that we are one more in a chain of leadership that extends from thousands of years.  We lead with dignity and humanity.  We lead with compassion and morality.

Do we lead this way because we were once slaves?  Or because we know what it is like to have others want so desperately to strip us of power that they try to rid the world of us?  Are there horrors in our history so that we know when we are in positions of power that we must lead with humility and humanity?

One of my earliest memories of my mother is hearing her practice her speech for PTA president.  She ran for president because her opponent wanted a big Christmas tree in the school and for all the students to sing in a Christmas pagent.  At the same time, there was a proposed plan to re-district that would have eliminated a predominately black neighborhood from attending our school.  She ran on a platform of inclusion--for all religions and all children.  We received threatening calls.  But she didn't back down.  In the end, my mother was elected president.  North Hills remained a part of our school, and we sang "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" in the Winter chorus concert. 

Was she a Jewish leader?  You'd better believe it.  And not just because we went to synagogue.

This Friday, my daughter will give the first speech of her budding political career as she runs for Vice President of her elementary school.  I have never been more proud.  She put a lot of thought into why she wants to run, why she wants to lead.  Her speech is full of ideas--of wanting to make the school the best possible and to do so by incorporating the students' voices in the decision making process.  My husband and I will be in the audience to listen as will my mother and father.  I hope she wins.  But that's not what makes me proud.  I'm proud that she's brave enough to want to lead.  That when she was called, she answered "Here I am."  

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