I’d like to discuss something about leadership today. Everyone here is a leader, and whoever’s listening is a leader, in whichever field you’re in, whichever thing you’re in. I’ll explain now, and you’ll understand what I mean by leadership.
If you look at the Torah, we all know famously that when they were inaugurating, when they were building the Mishkan (Tabernacle), the Nesi’im, the leaders of each tribe, said, “Let everybody give, and we’ll give whatever’s needed. We’ll give the rest.” And it says over there that they got punished for doing that. The yud (Hebrew letter) of the Nesi’im was pulled out of their name. In Nesi’im, one of the yuds is pulled out. So there are two questions. The first is: their donation was a great donation. Imagine somebody came over to you and said, “Oh, you’re building a building? How much is it costing?” “It’s costing a hundred million.” “Wow, that’s a lot. When do you need it by?” He says, “The truth is, I need it with the money.” The person says, “So you know what? Collect what you collected this year, and I’ll cover the rest.” Imagine the guy collected only a million. “Okay, here’s 99 million.” It’s the greatest donation that anybody could give. So why are they getting punished for that? And second, why are you taking the letter, the yud, from the name of the Nesi’im? If that’s true, each tribe should get a letter off of their name. Each tribe, whoever the leader is—let’s say Chaim. So take this: there are two yuds in Chaim; take one yud away from his name. Not from the Nesi’im, not from the word Nesi’im. You know the question?
And the answer is like this. The donation that the Nesi’im gave, when they said what they were giving, was the greatest donation. It’s an amazing donation. Nothing’s wrong with that. But the problem was that there’s a problem in actual leadership. What’s the problem? If you’re a leader, you have to lead by example. The people don’t see your calculations. “Oh, I’ll give the rest.” They don’t see that. They see what you did. Therefore, they should have been the first ones: “Okay, Rabotai (my masters), I’m giving this, and I’m giving, I’m giving, I’m giving, I’m giving.” And then everybody else would have followed, which anyway they did. But as a leader, you have to know that you have to lead correctly. You lead by example. You’re not just, “Oh, you have a great calculation.” However, in actuality, from a leadership perspective, it’s wrong. I’ll give you an example. I wouldn’t say it was wrong, but in the sense that it was a claim on the Nesi’im. It was a claim. As a leader, you should give right away, and then everybody will follow.
One guy came over to me. He says, “Rabbi, my kids finished high school. I tell them to go to shul (synagogue), go to shul, go to shul. He’s not going to shul. Every time I tell him, every morning, ‘Go.’” So I said, “Let me have a talk with him.” He sits down and talks to me. And he says, “Rabbi, if my own father doesn’t go, why should I go?” I speak to the father. I say, “What’s going on over here? Don’t go.” He says, “Rabbi, you know what I’m saying? I have a business to run. I have to be there at a certain time. If I could, I would, but I can’t. It’s impossible. I have to be in business. I have to be there. I have to be there.” So I told the father, “Your calculations are your calculations. But your son sees what he sees.” And if he doesn’t see his father going to shul, he sees that. And therefore, he sees, “My father’s the leader of the home. My father is my leader. And therefore, if he’s not doing it, how can I do it?” Even though you have calculations, “I have to go, I have to go.” We don’t see your calculations. So therefore, as a leader, you have to lead by example. You can have the greatest thoughts in your mind about why you can’t do something, but it’s no excuse when it comes to leadership. You have to go, and you have to actually lead, and you have to be there.
Every father and every mother in their own home is a leader in their own way, to conduct the home the proper way. If children see their mother dressing a certain way, they’re going to dress. If they dress modestly, then what? She’s going to see, “Oh, my mother’s like that.” They automatically pick it up because they’re seeing and following the leader by example. And that’s why, by the Nesi’im, the problem wasn’t with the donation. The donation was the greatest donation ever. It was the greatest donation ever. But the lack of leadership was that they should have led by example by giving first. Then already Hashem said, “I have to take the yud away from the Nesi’im.”
That’s why we have to understand: we’re all leaders in our own way. We have to lead by example. They see us. Our children see what we do, and they follow what we do. And even though you might not think so, you can have a four-year-old, a five-year-old, a ten-year-old; they’re downloading everything that you do in their brain. And when they get older and they become mothers or fathers, things like that, they’re always going to remember what they downloaded from what they saw their parents do. And therefore, be the great leaders we are.