LESSON 1: THE HUMILITY TO LEAD
Can you think of an unfortunate event in your life that you could have prevented if only you had been willing to ask for help? Can you think of a friendship destroyed because you were too proud to say you were sorry? Can you think of an opportunity missed because at the time you thought it was beneath you?
In an age of image management, we sometimes forget that admitting vulnerability can be a source of strength. When we are cognizant of the facts that others have something to teach us and that each person is deserving of our respect, then our influence is often enhanced.
Hillel is an example of someone whose power as a leader derived from his humility. He was not afraid to give up wealth and stature in exchange for the opportunity to learn from the greatest teachers of the generation. He was not ashamed to admit that he had forgotten something he had been taught. And he showed patience and respect even to those who seemed to least deserve it. A model of restraint, he was able to maintain peace in turbulent times.
LESSON 2: THE COURAGE TO LEAD
How much are you willing to risk for the chance to preserve what is most precious to you? It does not take courage to rise to a challenge that you know you can win. It takes great nerve, however, to move forward with total confidence in untested territory, knowing that the slightest hesitation will ensure loss.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai, for all his gifts and talents, was referred to as the youngest of the students of Hillel. Living as he did through the time of the destruction of the temple, it would have been easy for him to defer the difficult decision-making to others. Yet he rose to the challenge, undergoing great personal risk to negotiate with Rome and trade the loss of the temple for the survival of the academy.
LESSON 3: THE INDEPENDENCE TO LEAD
We are social creatures, looking to our family and friends for love and support. What in your life is so important that you would pay the price of distancing yourself from the ones you love, in order to preserve it? Are you independent enough to stand against the world to protect what matters most?
It is said that it is lonely at the top. True leaders must often forge a path on their own, enduring the scorn and censure of those around them who do not understand what they are trying to achieve.
As a young man, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus left a family business and risked being disinherited in order to study Torah. Later in life, he endured excommunication in order to ensure the faithful preservation of the tradition.
LESSON 4: THE PERSEVERANCE TO LEAD
Are there dreams that you have given up on? What is it that you once would have loved to do, but think you are too old to do now? What new dreams are you afraid to consider because you think it is too late? Too often, we are content to live within the limits defined by distant decisions and former failures.
Rabbi Akiva, however, who spent his youth disdaining the academy, was willing to rethink his life at the age of forty, and with the encouragement of his wife, Rachel, spent the next twenty-four years absorbed in study and scholarship. He was able to see the destruction of Jerusalem, and yet retained faith in the future of the next generation. And when, as acentenarian, he lost all but five of his students in a plague, he began investing anew in training a new cohort of protégés who would transmit his teachings to the next generation.
LESSON 5: THE INNOVATION TO LEAD
Have you ever broken into your own car? Hacked your computer to get to your own files? Sometimes we need to know how to bend the rules in order to preserve the system.
Rabbi Meir was the most gifted of Rabbi Akiva’s students.With his brilliant wife Beruriah, he worked tirelessly to salvage and reconstruct the oral tradition during one of the most oppressive periods of our history. He made the controversial decision to maintain relations with his former teacher turned heretic, Elisha ben Avuyah, in an effort to ensure that Elisha’s knowledge would not be lost to future generations.
LESSON 6: THE VISION TO LEAD
Hard times can make heroes of us all. But there are some who do not need crisis to force their hand. They have the imagination and the vision to picture a life beyond anything they have known, and the will to make that vision a reality.
Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi came from a respected family. He was a wise and talented student and enjoyed wealth and authority. He was a great statesman, a close personal friend of the emperor of Rome. He led the Jews through a period of relative peace and prosperity.
Yet he remembered the hard times that had preceded him, in which Torah had almost been forgotten from Israel, and he resolved to ensure that the Jewish people would never face this crisis again. With vision and ambition, Rabbi Yehudah decided to organize all of the oral tradition into written form, preserving it for all generations. His monumental task was achieved with the recording of the Mishnah.