Being a Light Unto the Nations Was Never My Career Choice

Sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Detroit, Michigan. I don’t know what year it was; I know that it was at the height of the fight for civil rights, and I know that my grandmother, who was a young teen at the time, went with her father and brother to march alongside Dr. King.

Growing up, I always saw that as a point of pride. “My grandmother marched with Martin Luther King, Jr,” I would very excitedly announce in class whenever his name or the civil rights movement came up. At the time, I couldn’t have articulated why I kept coming back to that moment in my family history. There was, of course, the celebrity factor. MLK was a legendary figure, and to be only two degrees removed from him was quite cool. But I’ve been thinking about it more lately, and what I’ve come to realize is that the point of pride actually lies somewhere much, much deeper than that.

In this past week’s Torah portion, the second portion of the book of Exodus, God appeared to Moses and said, “I am the Lord; I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Exodus 6:1-2). On those words, Rashi, the premier eleventh century Biblical exegete, explains that these three figures are our forefathers. It’s an odd comment from Rashi, who only ever makes a comment when there is something enigmatic or cryptic in the text. It’s as if he were writing for those who skipped the entire first book of the Bible to give them the summary of the cast of characters.

Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum, the former head of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn who passed away in 2008, explains that we need to view Rashi’s comment within the broader context of the conversation between God and Moses. This conversation began a week earlier, with Moses demanding of God, “Why have you sent me?” (Exodus 5:23). God’s response, then, seems somewhat out of place—what kind of an answer is it to say that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? What Rabbi Berenbaum offers is that God is subtly rebuking Moses, reminding him that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not always patriarchs. They were people. They were the regular guys you would pass on the street, the ones who were simply doing their best, the ones who were just trying to live good lives. They did not seek greatness. They did not ask to start a nation. But in their quietly living their lives, they found themselves in positions of leadership, and they rose to the challenge to become patriarchs. Similarly, says God to Moses, are you: Why have I sent you? Because you are the man for the job and while you did not ask for greatness (to be clear, it took God a week to convince Moses to accept this mission), this is the task that is asked of you.

Ultimately, Moses rose to the challenge. He became, in the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the consummate leader. More importantly, he provides the blueprint for us, the Jewish people who are his inheritors, to be moral leaders in a world that needs clarity and conviction.

The Legacy of Our Relectunt Leaders

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t ask to be a light unto any nation. But I was born into a Jewish family, and that meant that this mission immediately became my birthright, as it did yours. We can, as Moses did, turn to God and ask, “Why have you sent us? What good will we, a small and hated nation, do in a world that is awash in noise and decadence? Why, God, have you placed this burden upon us?” And honestly, it’s a fair question. It is a burden. It’s easier to not be Jewish. Yet, embedded in our souls is this inherent ability to shoulder that burden and to continue to stand up for morality and decency.

Now, frankly, I don’t know what it means to be a light unto the nations. It sounds somewhat preachy, if I’m being honest, and from my experience as a teacher, that’s the most counterproductive way to try and reach people. To that end, when I think about this form of leadership, when I think about being the inheritor of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, when I think about taking on the mantle of being a Jew, I think of Rabbi Israel Lipkin of Salant, a giant in the nineteenth century Lithuanian yeshivot. He is reputed to have said that when he was young he wanted to change the world. He realized that was too big a dream, so he thought about changing his community. And then he realized that the only thing he can do is change himself.

That is the legacy of our patriarchs. That is the legacy of these reluctant leaders, the ones who did not ask for greatness but were asked to be great anyway. They lived as best they could, answering the call of morality and human decency, trying to be good people, and shouldering the burden of leadership when it was placed on them. If we do that, we’ll be okay.

My grandmother’s got dementia now. She’s not as sharp as she once was, and time and space are no longer relevant in her world. Yet, this mission of leadership, of being a light unto the nations, of living a good life and sharing that with the world, burns as brightly as ever in her. I try to visit her every Friday, and for about two months now, every single week, she talks to me about sharing our light with the world. And even though she’s no longer so clear, her refrain—which she knows, with utter clarity—is, “Because that’s what God asks of us. And it’s good. It’s good.”