Be-Haalotekha

Leaders, Representation, and Humility: The Story of Eldad and Medad

Aryeh Bernstein, 5762

This week's parashah comprises chapters 8-12 of Bemidbar and describes the completion of the dedication of the Mishkan and the first episodes of the Israelites' post-Sinai journeys in the desert. Most of these accounts are sad, as we witness the difficult struggles of a fledgling nation coming to terms with freedom. In our parashah, for example, we encounter the people complaining about the monotony of eating manna and getting punished by God for being ingrates and we see Miriam and Aharon speak ill of their brother Mosheh.

I would like to focus on a brighter moment in our parashah, the story of the widening of the tent of leadership.

In chapter 11, Mosheh complains to God that he can't bear the weight of the people by himself, so God commands him to appoint 70 elders to enter the Tent of Meeting with him, effectively widening the official, religious leadership of the people that has access to God's word. The Torah then reports the following (Bemidbar 11:24-30):

A few points here deserve our attention. What was the difference between Eldad and Medad and the other 70 elders and what does it mean that they were recorded but did not go into the tent? For that matter, why didn't they go to the tent? Finally, what is going on between Mosheh and his assistants: is it a good or bad thing that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp?

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 17a) records two opinions interpreting what happened. The first says that, essentially, Eldad and Medad missed the cut. God commanded Mosheh to choose 70 elders. Mosheh, wanting the leadership to be fair and representative, is stymied as to how to pick the 70. If he picks five from each of the 12 tribes, he will have only 60. If he picks 6 from each tribe, he will have 72-too many. If he picks five from some tribes and six from others, he may foment jealousy and rivalry between the tribes. So he picked six from each tribe and put 72 pieces of paper in a bin. On seventy of them, he wrote "Elder" and two he left blank. Eldad and Medad were the random two who picked the blank ballots and did not make the cut. (Modern scholars seem to support something similar to this view.)

The second view is that all 72 were chosen, but that Eldad and Medad did not feel worthy of the task and stayed behind. God rewarded them for their humility by granting them unceasing prophet abilities, while the other prophets' prophetic abilities did cease. A later midrash, in the Tanhuma (Be-Ha‘alotekha 12), extends this position to say that Eldad and Medad even merited to enter the Land of Israel, while the rest of their generation, including Mosheh, died in the desert.

Each of these two interpretations is an important statement of Rabbinic values about leadership. The first emphasizes the relationship of the leadership to the people. The whole purpose of having this expanded judicial system is to expand the ability to serve the people's needs. This need is undermined if the people feel alienated from their leadership or not represented, or that someone else's needs are more important. That is why Mosheh goes to such pains to sustain equal, representative leadership, while fulfilling God's command for a leadership of 70. (Of course, the question remains, according to this tradition: Why God didn't command Mosheh to appoint 72?) The second interpretation emphasizes the value of humility in leadership. The best kind of leader is the one who balks at performing the role. Although halakhah strongly frowns on one who is qualified to give legal rulings, nevertheless, it asserts that one of the core qualities of one fit to do so is to fear issuing rulings! Perhaps that is what is at issue between Mosheh and his assistants. They see Eldad and Medad as upstarts, undermining the legitimate authority, claiming to have access to the word of God even though they are not in the tent. Mosheh, however, knows that the last thing they want is to undermine the authority figures: they even turned down the opportunity to function in that role. They are all about the word of God, and not their own status. To put it differently, they care about government, not about politics.

Both of these interpretations relay important values for our relationship to leadership, performance of responsibilities, and how we deal with the intoxicating temptations of status and dignity.