Measuring Up for Leadership

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston.
We have so many ways to measure all that we
need to do to hold to where the old adage
is measured twice cut once. We have tools to measure

(00:22):
everything from our hat to our shirt, to our waist
to our shoe size. But what tools do we have
to measure the heart and the soul of a person.
The moral character of a person is not a relative matter.
We need a reliable tool and we need durable models.

(00:44):
In the Tora portion that we read this week, in
the cycle of Tora reading, we open to the Book
of Genesis in the portion called Noah. You know the
story of course, Noah and the Ark. But without focusing
on Noah and the Arc and the flood story, we
can also find meaning in how the portion begins right

(01:06):
at the start Genesis, chapter six, verse nine. There we
read these words, Noah was a righteous man, he was
blameless in his age. And from this we learned two
reliable lessons. These lessons come from the Middle Ages, when
the rabbis of old were writing their important commentaries and

(01:27):
interpretations of texts that they had questions about. Too just
like we do. But we begin by learning from them. First,
the rabbis asked if Noah was righteous in his generation
because it was a lawless generation. Perhaps he stood above
others due to their lowell, low moral character. Perhaps Noah

(01:51):
wouldn't have been considered righteous if he had lived in
the generation of someone like Abraham. Alternatively, the rabbis consider
that Noah would have been righteous in any generation, though
some might still argue to make a point for our purposes,
Noah stands out as a moral person in any generation.

(02:14):
It's true that this makes for good table talk. It
might be a good conversation starter around the table with
your children or grandchildren, or among others who raise these
kinds of questions, especially in the times in which we
find ourselves. But second, another Middle Ages commentator revealed that

(02:36):
the Torah praises Noah without immediately mentioning the names of
his children. Quoting and citing from Proverbs chapter ten, verse seven,
this commentator says, the mere mention of the righteous shall
be for a blessing. That's what we read in Proverbs.
The mention of the righteous shall be for a blessing.

(02:57):
And from this we learn that the horogeny of the
righteous are their good deeds, because Noah was considered a
righteous man, as the Tora tells us in chapter six,
verse nine, but there's no mention of his children afterwards,
following in his footsteps. We learned from this that Noah's
best work was his deeds, not his children. We could

(03:23):
look at other biblical and characters and call them our
role models too, but there's a difference between Noah and
other candidates we might consider from the Hebrew Bible. Even Abraham,
our patriarch, was taken to task when he bound his
son Isaac on Mount Moriah. It was an ultimate test,

(03:44):
and it tested the minds and questions of many who followed.
What's more than midrash, the Rabbinic commentary tells us that
the event shocked his wife Sarah, so terribly that she died.
Even Moses, of all biblical heroes, didn't uphol God's holiness

(04:04):
in the eyes of the people, and he was denied
access to the promised land. Miriam two, while celebrated for
her leadership, maligned her brother Moses, and she was stricken
with a skin affliction until her brother prayed for her recovery,
which God granted. So we begin to see that heroes,

(04:24):
even biblical heroes, are human. They're naturally flawed. Their feats
of courage, paired with their humanness, inspire us to feel
aspirational about our own deeds. What child didn't feel like
he or she could be a hero one day too?
Didn't you? I did? We all thought that we could

(04:47):
overcome some of the limitations of our human experience by
being a hero or being like our heroes, only to
learn that they were human too, just like Superman was
Clark Kent. So our biblical heroes were masterful, prophetic, incredibly special,

(05:07):
singled out by God in some cases, but ultimately only human,
but only. Noah didn't fail to rise to the occasion,
and he did what God commanded him. Noah, for all
the grief that history and story telling have heaped on him,
continues to stand out as a man who listened without

(05:29):
question to what God needed him to do. The world
was a mess, a chaotic stew and Noah was called
to save God's creation for what we would likely call
a redo. It wasn't just his agreeable nature that was notable.
It was also his duty to adhere to a task that,

(05:51):
while inexplicable at the time reflected what the world required
in its time of crisis and potential. Now, ancient flood
stories like ours in Torah are familiar in the ancient
Near East. They place into proximity the power of the
universe to destroy what was created, and the power of

(06:12):
the universe to be refashioned into something much greater and
more useful. In our times, we see crisis and destruction
all around us too. Now we can't imagine a catastrophic
flood to end the world as we know it, but
the metaphor applies when we feel desperate for a proverbial

(06:33):
redo and hope in the face of disaster, natural or
man made. So the question becomes, who do we follow?
Who do we call upon? In Judaism, we bow to
and worship only God, but we rely on human figures

(06:54):
to interpret our highest moral obligations into public policy and
political goodwill. So it is a covenant, it is a partnership.
We appreciate the text and teachings of Torah like you
admire and respect the teachings of your faith, tradition, or
your secular understanding of what is the highest moral good.

(07:16):
But we depend on human beings, yourself and others elected
officials volunteers to interpret those teachings because they are our
highest moral obligations, and how they are interpreted into public
policy and political good will makes the biggest difference in
what tomorrow might be. Currently, it's difficult to identify anyone

(07:42):
who in bod is the highest moral values we cherish,
or who has demonstrated very consistent moral judgment in these
tumultuous times. Not to take away from anybody, but who
is the ultimate hero, the consistent purveyor of our moral
obligations translated into actions and deeds. I'm not a fatalist,

(08:06):
and these aren't what scholars would call antediluvian times. These
aren't ancient times, primitive times, pre flood times. But now
more than ever, we need a reliable measure to judge
human behavior in ourselves and others. Noah might serve us

(08:26):
as a model, maybe even a starting point, to begin
a conversation about the moral commitment required of a person
in our times and for all times, and like Noah,
that person would be known for his or her deeds.
We learn from another Jewish teaching in the Mishnah from
around the third century in pure cha Avote sayings of

(08:48):
the Fathers, Chapter three, Verse seventeen. If one's deeds exceeds
one's wisdom, then one's wisdom will endure. If one's wisdom
exceeds one's deeds, then one's wisdom will not endure. Their conclusion,
it's all about one's deeds, and so it is a

(09:11):
starting point for conversation or at least personal contemplation. You
might need to listen to this message again or share
it so that you can engage in conversation with others.
And to find it again, you can find it at
my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon
at Sunday ninety nine dot com, are on the iHeartRadio app.

(09:34):
Why is it so important? Because we're heading into an
election season next year, into mid terms and all around us.
I believe there are quality candidates, but just as much
confusion about who they are, where did they come from,
what do they stand for? And if we want to
measure them like we measure simple things like our shirts

(09:57):
and pants and shoes, then we do need a good
tool to measure the heart and soul of a person.
If we go back to sacred texts which endure and
we rely on, then perhaps it's this first teaching from
per Kfo that might guide us well. Deeds are what
it's all about. For example, in Judaism, when we make tshuva,

(10:23):
when we repent seeking forgiveness for somebody we wronged, the
other person is supposed to forgive us immediately. But the
proof of our forgiveness, the proof of our sincerity, isn't
just the word or the wise way we conveyed our
forgiveness and apology in conversation. It's all about the deed.

(10:47):
If set up with the same set of circumstances again
in the future, will we choose to do it better
next time? That's the proof, And so it is all
about the deeds. Many people can claim degree from about education,
where they graduated college, how much money they made, and
all the good things they claimed to be about. But

(11:09):
what difference have they made for the people, for the community,
for the state, for the country or the world. There
are people who have huge responsibilities and great sources of power.
But if one's deeds exceeds one's wisdom, then that wisdom
will endure. And you know it to be true because

(11:33):
very often it's a person whose life is filled with
good deeds and those deeds are accompanied by wisdom, good judgment,
moral character. I just officiated at a funeral for a
man who lived to be eighty five. The room was
filled with more than seven hundred people and many more

(11:54):
online watching the funeral service to pay respect and eulogize
a man of such generosity, character, love, good humor and deeds.
There was no question this man was not the most
brilliant person in the world, but he wasn't without his
wisdom and intelligence. But what was true about him was

(12:16):
a flood, no pun intended, of enormous deeds that gave
everybody in the room and those who were touched by
his life reasons to continue following him, believing him and
trusting and what he had to say, because what we
knew was that he would follow up with good deeds.
And if one's wisdom exceeds one's deeds, then one's wisdom

(12:41):
will not endure. It's not only that they will lose
their truthfulness or their intelligence. The fact is that if
they don't follow up on good deeds, we won't regard
them very highly. Will eventually consider that person to be
unreliable or even the fool. And that's not a good

(13:02):
place to be for that individual, and certainly not for
us who rely on people of good moral character to
take the lead and help us follow where we need
to be. It's all about one's deeds. And if we
can begin the conversation with that sentence, it's all about
one's deeds, then you can sit down at night or

(13:23):
put your head on the pillow and consider for yourself. First,
where do I fit into this equation of moral character
moral judgment? How would I measure up personally? I may
not be the valedictorian of my class, but have my
deeds reflected good judgment and moral character. If the answer

(13:45):
is yes, then you and I can feel comfortable in
knowing that other people regard us for the kind of
wisdom that we display over the course of our life,
through the best of times and through the most challenging
times too. But if we can be honest with ourselves
and say that our deeds haven't lived up to the
best that we can be, you can better believe that

(14:07):
you're not portraying yourself for being seen as the wise
person you think that you are. In the end, we
fool nobody, not ourselves or others, and certainly not God,
who judges us inevitably, so, the story of Noah teaches
us much more about a flood. It teaches us about

(14:27):
a man who uniquely adhere to the call that God
needed him to respond to by building something to transform
the world. And while we don't have to transform the world,
we do have to transform our heart, our family, our neighbors,
our colleagues at work, and wherever we go to be

(14:47):
the very best we can be through good deeds and
good judgment. Thank you for joining me today. I look
forward to being with you again next time.