Just over thirteen years ago, I was deliberating between two offers for my first rabbinic position following ordination. One was to be what my mom affectionately calls being a “real rabbi.” It was to join the clergy team at a larger congregation outside Philadelphia. The other was a more academic, administrative type of position – to serve as the director of the nation’s largest introduction to Judaism program, based out of American Jewish University in Los Angeles, which among other endeavors helps hundreds of students each year convert to Judaism.
These weren’t simply two different jobs. They represented two completely distinct rabbinic paths.
For many days I agonized over the decision. Almost from the beginning of my journey to the rabbinate, I had envisioned serving in a pulpit, which I believed then, as now, to be a sacred calling, one of cultivating community; helping people connect with what is deepest within them, woven between them, and greatest beyond them; days filled with facilitating sacred experiences, teaching Torah, accompanying congregants in seasons of sorrow and joy, and equipping and empowering partners in repairing the world.
Yet I was also passionate about the Introduction to Judaism program, which I had been helping to lead while completing my rabbinic studies; and there was something alluring about working on the wholesale rather than retail side of things, playing a leading role nationally in nurturing a more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse Jewish community.
I am blessed to have many mentors in my life to whom I can turn for wise guidance; not the least of which is my incredible mother-in-law, Carol Rose, who is a trailblazing Jewish feminist spiritual leader and teacher, and always eager and willing to give me sagacious counsel…whether I’ve asked for it or not!. In this case, I actually asked for it.
And in the typical way of great Jewish sages, my wise mother-in-law answered my question with a question of her own: "Well, what do you want to be? Moses – or Aaron?"
I immediately understood the meaning of her question, or at least I thought I did. To take on the university position would be, in effect, to embrace the leadership model of Moses – to be an executive, atop an organizational pyramid. Moses, of course, was a prophet; according to tradition the greatest of all the prophets – a spokesperson for God whose life’s work was moving people to enact godly ideals in the world, from challenging Pharaoh to liberate enslaved peoples, to inspiring the Children of Israel to step forth into freedom, to cajoling his fledgling nation to uphold their covenantal commitments and forge an exemplary just and inclusive society that might transform the world. Moses led from the front, intoned from the mountaintop, pushing people past their comfort zones to change and grow in accordance with absolute principles.
Of course, as Moses would likely tell you himself, prophetic leadership may sound enticing, until one remembers that it can be quite lonely at the top. Moses frequently found himself isolated and alienated from the people he purported to lead, which in turn made it increasingly difficult for him to succeed in his mission, a vicious cycle that ultimately resulted in him being barred from completing his life’s work. As my teacher, Professor Rich Voelz, wrote in his 2019 book, Preaching to Teach: Inspire People to Think and Act, “even with a benevolent message”, the prophet “still stands apart from the community, even oppositional in some ways,” above and, often, against the people they seek to lead. Womanist theologian Emilie Townes underscores this point, arguing that such an authoritarian and, in a sense, coercive, approach to spiritual leadership “can hurt or anger others to the point that [the religious leader becomes] marginalized and sometimes completely cut off” from the rest of the community.
Aaron, on the other hand, was a priest; in fact the very first High Priest; the paradigm of the type. To be a leader in the mode of Aaron is to serve both people and God; to help people connect to the Divine, and to bring God’s presence into people’s lives, households, and communities. According to rabbinic tradition, Aaron was “ohev shalom v’rodef shalom,” a lover of peace and a facilitator of wholeness – a healer of broken hearts, a mender of fractured relationships, a tender to lost and lonely souls. Moreover, Aaron was “ohev et ha-briyot u’mekorvan la-Torah,” a lover of people, who brought them close to Torah – a compassionate cultivator of connections within community and between God and people.
In so many ways, I have always resonated with Aaron’s character and approach to spiritual leadership. I share his love of people, his passion for connecting Jews and Judaism, his commitment to cultivating a more peaceful world. I feel it is a sacred and special privilege to be with people in times of trial as well as in seasons of celebration, helping them make meaning and discern God’s presence in each step of their life’s journeys. And I believe deeply that making our world more loving and peaceful is the highest Jewish calling. Animated by these commitments, I embraced the priestly path and went into the pulpit.
I have never regretted the path I chose then. As a matter of fact, over the years, I have turned down opportunities to take on different types of rabbinic positions.
Yet, if I’m being honest, I often found myself harboring the thought that my mother-in-law’s original question had a right answer, and that I had chosen wrongly. After all, was it not Aaron’s love for people, his empathy for their pain, his hunger for harmony, that made him willing to tolerate, indeed to accommodate, behavior that he ought to have considered beyond the pale? Was it not his eagerness to please, his desire to make people happy, that resulted in grave derelictions of his leadership responsibilities? When he heard his brother being defamed, he remained silent, not wanting to make waves. When his eldest sons were tragically and arguably unfairly killed, he kept his peace, not wanting to rock the boat. When the people, anxious that Moses hadn’t come down from Mt. Sinai, ask for his help to make an idol, he goes door to door collecting gold to forge into a calf statue. Not only did Aaron fail in these instances to stand up for what was right, his policy of appeasement and accommodation resulted in great harm to the very people he claimed to love.
True, I thought, rabbis are called to be healers of broken hearts and organizers of sacred community. But certainly synagogues are more than feel-good centers for fellowship and spiritual healing, right? Are synagogues just Jewish social clubs, nice places filled with nice people attending nice programs and enjoying each others’ nice company, places where we can retreat and feel comfortable, where we can have what we already believe affirmed and reinforced? Are our congregations not called by our tradition to be something more? To be models of justice and inclusion, and to play a meaningful role in repairing the world?
If so, then are congregational rabbis not also meant to push their people beyond their comfort zones? Is it not the rabbi’s responsibility to point out the gulf between the real and God’s ideal, the chasm between who we are and who we ought to be, to at least from time to time lead from the front, to inveigh from the mountaintop, to stand in the breach and say, as Moses does when he finally comes down the mountain and sees the people worshiping the Golden Calf – on Aaron’s watch, no less – “mi l’Adonai elai / whoever is with God, come to me!” Can congregational rabbis not take moral stands, even when they might be controversial, challenging their people like Moses did, encouraging and hopefully inspiring them to do what they can to advance the Torah’s vision of a just society, even when it might ruffle feathers, cause discomfort, or make them unpopular? And if so, is it not then a betrayal of our tradition and an abdication of leadership for congregational rabbis to embrace Aaron’s priestly model? Should congregational rabbis be like Aaron, keeping their heads down and their mouths shut in order to preserve the peace, even when their conscience and calling might compel them to be more like Moses?
What, then, is a rabbi, and particularly a congregational rabbi, supposed to be? Moses or Aaron? Prophet or priest? And what does it have to do with us?
In this week’s parashah, Mattot-Mas’ei, as the Children of Israel are situated at the border of the Promised Land, Moses recounts the 40-year journey through the wilderness, detailing where they left from and where they went to. Yet in one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it biblical moments, the Torah says that the Israelites’ journeys through the wilderness were undertaken “b’yad Moshe v’Aharon, in the charge of Moses and Aaron” (Num. 33:2).
The Torah has conditioned us to think of Moses as the sole and unquestioned Israelite leader – the one who led them out from under enslavement in Egypt, brought them to Sinai, and through the wilderness toward the Promised Land. Given that, the inclusion of Aaron here, as that whole history is recapped, is striking. Mentioning that Moses led the Israelites on these journeys makes sense, especially since Moses is the narrator of this passage. Yet this verse implies that Aaron was an equal partner, that his leadership role was just as essential to the Israelites’ march to the Promised Land as was his brother’s.
Perhaps the Torah mentions both Moses and Aaron here to teach us that both types of leadership were, and are, necessary. Without someone like Moses, without someone who knew the way with certainty, someone who held the people to account and refused to back down from what he knew to be right and good and true, it would have been impossible for the Israelites to know where they were going, or how to get there, or why they needed to keep moving. Yet without Aaron, without someone who was committed to connecting people to each other and with the divine, someone who refused to abandon a single person, even when they lost their way, someone who deeply felt people’s pain and worked tirelessly for wholeness and harmony, it also would have been impossible for the Israelites to get to the Promised Land. In the absence of such a lover of people and of peace, the Israelites would have quickly broken down and fallen apart. The fact of the matter is that afflicted Israelites needed an Aaron to comfort them. And, conversely, comfortable Israelites needed a Moses to afflict them. The Israelites needed both.
What would it look like for contemporary congregational rabbis to somehow balance both models, to synthesize Mosaic and Aaronide leadership, to serve at once as both prophet and priest?
In her 2010 volume Prophetic Preaching: A Pastoral Approach, Yale Divinity School professor Leonora Tubbs Tisdale argues that clergy should aspire to be prophets like Moses, but to do so by embracing the “pastoral approach” of a priest like Aaron. Contemporary clergy should, Tisdale writes, “speak the truth,” as Moses did, but at the same time take care to do so “in love,” emulating Aaron. Clergy should, like Aaron, lovingly and selflessly care for and tend to their people, standing with – as opposed to over and against – their congregations, while also refusing to retreat from the responsibility of holding forth a vision of the right and the good as God gives them to see it.
Personally, I find Tisdale’s guidance useful in some respects, but upon close examination, biblical prophets like Moses, and for that matter biblical priests like Aaron, defy too neat a dichotomy between “prophetic” proclamation and “pastoral” or priestly love. For starters, many of the prophets, including Moses, were also of priestly stock and functioned as priests, facilitating worship, fostering peoples’ connections with God and one another, providing comfort and consolation, imagination and hope. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense: prophetically holding forth God’s vision for a perfected world means nothing if you see your own people suffering and refrain from mending their broken hearts, soothing their weary souls, and helping them repair their relationships. Caring for your people is as prophetic as crusading for justice for all people. It’s not an either/or proposition. To be truly prophetic, it must be both/and.
Similarly, many priests, including Aaron, also sometimes served as prophets, regarding prophetic proclamation as an authentic extension of their pastoral role as priests, much like parents discipline their children as an expression of their love for them. Caring for people does not mean approving of everything they do, and enabling their bad behavior. An attitude of “anything goes” is not love; it’s neglect. A core function of priesthood, then, is to lovingly redirect people when they’ve gone astray. Moreover, one who truly loves people ought to be heartbroken not only when they see people suffer personal tragedies, but also when they become aware of people suffering as a result of more widespread or systemic inequities. Advocating for the kinds of systemic social change that enable all people to flourish is not just prophetic; it’s also priestly. As Dr. Cornel West famously teaches, “justice is what love looks like in public.” Again, it’s not an either/or proposition. Any spiritual leader who seeks to embody Aaron’s priestly model must, like a prophet, strive to be both/and.
The Torah goes out of its way to teach that the Children of Israel were led by both Moses and Aaron throughout their sojourn in the wilderness, reminding us that priest and prophet are not separate professions but essential parts of an integrated whole.
In my years as a congregational rabbi, I have tried, if imperfectly, to take this wisdom to heart, striving to be a spiritual leader who embraces both roles simultaneously, priest and prophet, Aaron and Moses. And it is the kind of rabbi I hope to continue to become as I embark on this new stage in my journey here at Temple Beth El.
This means that, sometimes, my job will be to comfort the afflicted; and sometimes, it will be to afflict the comfortable. Sometimes I’ll get it wrong, challenging, when cheering is actually called for, or consoling when I should be cajoling. Sometimes, the needs will not be uniform within the congregation, and try as I might, I won’t be able to be all things to all people.
So in this moment, at the very beginning of what I hope to be a long and blessed relationship, I pray that you will evaluate me and my rabbinate in light of my love – a love that calls me, to the best of my ability, both to help you strive toward the right and the good, and to hold you with compassion and care.
Of course, no single person, rabbi or otherwise, can fulfill both of these roles simultaneously all the time. So above all, on this day, at the start of our journey together of faith and friendship, I pray, that we all do what we can to share in these responsibilities, channeling both our inner Moseses and our inner Aarons, striving to be a people of priestly prophets and prophetic priests, embracing our commitment to one another as members of this covenantal community, a commitment to support one another as well as to challenge one another; to carry one another with kindness as well as to lift up all people with justice.
So may it be God’s will. Amen.
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