Rabbi Evan Krame

This week’s Torah portion is Pinchas: Numbers 25:10 — 30:1

This election season feels like the “Hunger Games.” Candidates enter the political arena with cameras and iPhones rolling. The ruthless and the radical have a better chance of survival, that is, of winning an election. Must every debate become a battle, every poll a scoreboard, every news cycle another test of who can outlast or outshout the rest? Has politics become a dystopian contest of survival of the fittest, not an advancement of the most empathetic? In that setting, it is easy to forget a deeper question: What qualities should we seek in a leader?

The Torah offers a remarkably relevant answer as Moses approaches the end of his life. God tells Moses to ascend a mountain and gaze upon the Promised Land that he will never enter. The reason refers to when Moses struck the rock in anger rather than speaking to it as God commanded. While the punishment seems harsh, what matters here is Moses’ response.

Moses spent 40 years leading a difficult and often ungrateful people through the wilderness. Everyone from his generation is gone. His sister Miriam has died. His brother Aaron has died. Now he learns that his own life’s dream will remain unfulfilled.

Yet Moses’ first concern is not his disappointment. His concern is the people. Moses turns to God and says: “Let God, Source of the breath of all flesh, appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that God’s community may not be like sheep that have no shepherd.” (Numbers 27:16–17)

At this crucial moment, Moses chooses an extraordinary title for God: “Source of the breath of all flesh.” Why this name? Why not one of the many familiar descriptions of the Divine?

The phrase echoes the creation story itself. God breathes life into the first human being. In Hebrew, a word for soul is nefesh, closely connected to breath and vitality. Moses reminds us that every human being carries within them a spark of divine possibility.

The medieval Midrash Tanchuma makes the point explicit. Moses is effectively saying to God: “The personality of each person is revealed to You, and no two are alike. Appoint over them a leader who will tolerate each person according to his individual character.”

This is a profound vision of leadership. Moses is not asking for a military commander, a charismatic orator, or a political strategist. He is asking for someone capable of seeing people as they truly are: distinct human beings, each bearing the breath of God.

Here the contrast with our dystopian politics becomes sharp. In the “Hunger Games” version of public life, candidates are like tributes sent into the arena, often to advance someone else’s agenda. What matters is who wins, who trends, who dominates the screen. In Moses’ vision, what matters is who sees the people, who recognizes their dignity, who understands their differences and cares for them.

The shepherd image matters here. How does a shepherd lead? A shepherd guides, protects, understands and cares. Leadership, in Moses’ vision, is not conquest. It is stewardship.

That vision stands in sharp contrast to the leaders who measure success by power accumulated, enemies defeated, or attention commanded. Leadership is not about possessing the flock but caring for it. Facing death, Moses did not ask who would preserve his power. He asked who would tend the flock.

As our politics look increasingly like a televised arena of survival, we must resist the temptation to celebrate tough competitors. We can choose instead to seek out and support leaders who will shepherd us, the leaders who see each person’s nefesh, honor the breath of all flesh, and guide us toward a more just and compassionate future.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame is the co-founder of the Jewish Studio, former president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, and an attorney practicing estates and trusts law.