Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the leadership lessons from the great books podcast, episode number 116. I'm sorry. No. Not 116. 117 in chronological order. It's episode number 117 that we're on today. With our book today, a measured tactical meditation about the nature, purpose, and focus of leadership and leadership best practices through the lens of what I consider to be deep Judaism.
The Bible, in particular the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, contains, understandings of the deep structure of reality itself, which is typically why people struggle with it, particularly people in leadership positions struggle with it today. And our book is going to focus on those first five books of the Bible and what leaders can learn from them. Look, the Bible is more than mere poetry or mere literature.
And for a secularized postmodern culture, such as the one that many leaders work on or work in in the West in general and in America in particular today, an understanding of the Bible and specifically an understanding of the Torah can indeed reinvigorate, I believe, the language of leadership. Now, the book that we are covering today, the book that we are going to be talking about, is a collection of readings interpreting
leadership best practices through the framing of the Torah. And it can provide a leader, I believe, who is bereft of such language with a map throughout the territory of leadership, whether they believe in the value or even the presence of an all knowing, all seeing, and all present, transcendent God or not. Today, we will be covering and examining the ideas and approaches to leadership from the book lessons in leadership, a weekly reading of the Jewish Bible by Rabbi Jonathan
Sacks. And we will be doing all of this deep examination with our 2 hosts today. First off, my usual guest co host here, Tom Libby. Say hello,
Tom. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. Alright. And a returning guest co host from both our 100th anniversary episode, as well as our episode I believe it was episode number 63, if I remember correctly, although you can go back and look for it where we talked about Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, the founder of the World Ethics Organization and a member of the Growth Graph Startup Community as well as many other different projects, Richard Messing. Hello, Richard. How are you doing?
Doing great. Glad to be back. Really, really glad to be with you guys. So, Richard is a big fan of the show as he said in the 100th episode. He's really a big fan of what we're doing here. And, actually, Richard was the one that recommended that we bring this book, onto the podcast. He actually recommended it in the 100th episode, and so this is an example of us taking a recommendation from a guest and incorporating it into the overall
purpose of what we are doing here. Now I got to admit, I was not familiar with the work of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, nor was I familiar with lessons in leadership. However, when I picked it up and when I started reading it and when I started examining it, I realized what exactly was happening here. And so, so Richard and I and Tom are going to talk about this today. We're going to break apart some of the lessons that are in
this book. And because it is a book that is current to our time and is still under copyright, we're not going to be reading directly from the book. What we're going to be doing or what I'm gonna be doing for my portion is I'm going to be summarizing some of the ideas from the book, and then we're going to bat them around. And, I have a set of questions here, starting with, of course, the impact of Jonathan Sacks' work, on Richard. I wanted to
talk a little bit about that. But then going into and exploring some of these ideas as well. So let me provide some framing for you if you're listening to this podcast about what you can look forward to if you do pick up this book. So it opens up with a discussion of the book of Genesis and some of the lessons that can be learned from the book of Genesis. Now, where Rabbi Sacks begins is with the
idea that leaders take responsibility. And he directly references in the first few chapters of this of the book, talking about the fault that begins the the story of man in Genesis, with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and the serpent, which if some of you are familiar with the work, and the writing of, oh, doctor George doctor Jordan Peterson. He's been running around talking about the book of Genesis as if he just discovered it, for about the
last 10 years. And look, you know, we do need more people talking about this in the world, and I I can't imagine a better person advocating for that. But rabbi Sacks immediately goes into the second story. He goes into the story of Cain and Abel, and he quotes directly when talking about taking responsibility for leaders from the book of Genesis, which I'll read this portion just so that you know where we're going here. He says the second story is more
tragic. The first instance of sibling rivalry in the Torah leads to the first murder. Cain said to his brother Abel, and it came to pass while they were in the field. Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied. Am I my brother's keeper? By the
way, pause. There is an assertion to be made, that the entire remainder of the Bible all the way through even the New Testament and into the book of Revelation is an answer to is God's answer to man of that question. Am I my brother's keeper? Which is at the core, of course, of taking responsibility. Back to the book of Genesis. The Lord said, what have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now rabbi Sacks takes this, and he talks about how Cain does not deny
personal responsibility. He claims that Cain denies, and this is critically important for leaders, moral responsibility. Right? And moral responsibility exists at an even deeper level than just personal responsibility. And Rabbi Sacks, draws from this the idea that the responsible life is a life that responds. It responds not merely
personally, but responds morally. And from there, he moves into the discussion of Noah and talks about how righteousness is not leadership and how Noah was a man of the soil. By the way, for those of you again who don't know book of Genesis, Noah was the guy who built the big ship that you see in all the little kids' books with all the little animals on it. Yeah, the ark. And he built this big ship. By the way, I believe and Richard can correct me on this. He might have
a deeper knowledge of this even than I do. I believe that, it says in the Torah that, it took us something like 600 years to build the ark with some some nonsensically long number. But I might have heard that in a different interpretation. Either way, it took him a long time to build this boat. And he built the boat because, he was the most righteous person that God could find, the spirit of God could find in the land
at that time. Not the best person, not the most moral person, not even the person who's taking the most personal responsibility, but the most righteous person. Now, of course, the Noah builds the boat, the flood comes. And, while Noah was righteous, he was not a leader because after the waters receded, Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk, was in his nakedness, and then there was a transgression with one of his sons. Rabbi Sacks pulls from this in the second chapter of the book that the
Torah sets a high standard for moral life. He says, and I quote, It is not enough to be righteous if that means turning our backs on a society that is guilty of wrongdoing. We must take a stand, we must protest, we must register dissent even if the probability of changing minds is small. That is because the moral life is a life we share with others. We are in some sense responsible for the society of which we are a part. It is not good enough to be good. We must encourage others to be
good. There are times when each of us must weed. It is not good enough to merely be a righteous person. We must be a leader in our time as well. We must be
our own personal Noahs. And I would even assert that as a leader, if you're listening to this or just as a person living in the world, if you're listening to this, I would assert that being a Noah involved building an ark, not for everybody in your neighborhood or even everybody in your community, but building an ark that is your family and saving those
people that you are tasked with leading. That's something also that we talk about on this podcast in the context of a lot of other different books, including, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, which we talked with Tom about, as well as, lessons that we learn, about this dynamic from even Shakespeare, most recently The Tempest. We covered that on the podcast recently. So those are some ideas that are in the first couple of chapters of lessons in leadership, the weekly reading of the
Jewish bible. And he goes through the entire book of Genesis and pulls from each one of those stories, Cain and Abel, Noah, even Abraham, and draws ideas about morality, draws draws ideas about courage, draws ideas about how to begin the leadership journey from this book. Now one of the other structural things that you're going to wanna note if you're reading this book is that he begins each chapter with the, I believe it's the Yiddish, terms, that go along with each part of, each part of the
Torah. Hebrew. And so Hebrew. Hebrew. Hebrew Hebrew terms? Okay. Sorry. Hebrew terms. Right? That begin each part of the, of the bible or I'm sorry, the Torah. And so, I was not familiar with those terms, and maybe Richard, who who's a big fan of this book, can explain some little bit of some of that to us. But that's the rough outline of the first, like, 5 chapters or so, some of the ideas in the first five chapters of lessons in leadership.
So let me start off with this because there's quite a lot there. So let me start off with this. I'd like to get Richard in jumping into the conversation and get Tom in as well at this point because I've done a lot of bloviating by this point, as is my want. I mean, it is my podcast. It does have my name on it. So It is 'tis your right, my friend. It is. Yes. And my privilege too. So I'm going to begin with Richard. And, Richard,
why don't you talk a little bit? Because you recommended this book. You strongly recommended this book, actually. So why don't you tell listeners a little bit about the impact of this book, on your thinking about leadership behavior and the sticky area that you're deeply involved in with the World Ethics Organization of Ethics. How has this book impacted you? Well, I'm gonna demonstrate it to you. I'll show you. See that? Oh, yeah. Those are my Post
its on this book. I've got more post its and bookmarks in this book than any other book I've ever read. And so, needless to say, this I've just learned so much from Rabbi Sacks. Just to tell you, I was introduced to Rabbi Sacks' work by a very learned rabbi who lives in my neighborhood. We became friends. We started learning Torah together. He introduced me to Robert Sachs' work. He bought he bought one of his books. Rabbi Sachs wrote over 30 books
starting at the age of 40. Okay? He was enormously prolific. And thousands of articles, not documentaries, you you name it. And so, so I started reading the book, one of his books, and but then then I started then I then I looked him up on YouTube. And when I started listening to him on YouTube, I I got addicted. I could not I could I had to
listen to everything he had to say. He is an incredible orator, an incredible teacher, So I'm so needless to say, he's had an enormous impact on my thinking, my my understanding of the world, of of of the Bible, etcetera. So in terms of leadership, well, his his life story is a testament is a testament to he and he's the I can't think of a better example of a leader than him. He, he had no plans of becoming a rabbi. He he was gonna either be an economist or a lawyer or, you know, not a
doctor. Not an accountant, but an accountant. Just, maybe a philosopher. And, he went he during the during in in the in 1967, the 67 war 67 war in Israel. But Yeah. So he was he was going to college at Cambridge. And, you know, there there were other Jews there go going to college there. But when the 67 war broke out, all of a sudden, all the Jew Jewish students started to go to synagogue, which
wasn't the case before that. Mhmm. And and and, there there was this he had this experience that he has to he he, Rabbi Sacks, had he himself at that age, he was a college student, he has to start learning a little bit about his heritage, because he really wasn't, that wasn't his focus. He ended up taking a trip to the United States during the summer, to visit all these, you know, the the big rabbis in the US.
And to make a long story short, he he had a meeting with, it's called he's called the the the Lubavitcher Rebbe or Rabbi Schneerson, who, is, he's really the only rabbi that I think ever ever ever lived who started a movement where His disciples would go out and establish, you know, synagogues around the world to help unaffiliated Jews, you know, learn about the religion. Mhmm. And so so in in the book, in in in in the book that we're talking about, he tells the story about how he was sitting in
the Lubavitcher Rebbe's office. Mhmm. And, you know, the the, the rabbi, you know, just, started asking him, you know, questions about, you know, what he's doing. And, you know, and then and they they started asking Rabbi Sacks, so what's going on in Cambridge? You know, what you know, how many Jews are there? How many how many Jews are going to synagogue? And, and he said, well, it's not very you know, it's really not not not that great over there. And so the rabbi said to him,
what are you doing about it? What are you doing about it? How are you taking responsibility? There you go. Exactly. What are you doing about it? Rabbi Sacks was like, you know, taken aback. Well, he said, Well, I find myself, in this situation. And the rabbi says, what do you mean you find yourself in this situation? You put yourself in this situation. If you can put yourself in that situation, you can put yourself in any other situation. By the time the rabbi was done with him, okay, he
was now on a whole new career path. You know, he went back to England. He started learning, you know, learning Torah at a whole new level, and he eventually got ordained. He became he became a rabbi. Never never thought of doing this before until he met Rabbi Schneerson. So but he didn't just become just a rabbi, he became a leader of rabbis. Eventually, he Rabbi Sacks became the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom for 22 years. Okay.
Like I said, I know I know nothing. I knew nothing about this guy. It was one of those areas where, and this is a good background for all of us listening to the podcast because I'm going to bet that the vast majority of my listeners don't know anything about this this person either. That's not I mean, that's not unusual. There's a lot of things I don't know
anything about. And so, you know, the it sounds like the guy had a fascinating journey, personal journey that started from him being sort of personally goosed, I guess, into, into, into leadership, sort of they're taken by surprise. Right. And maybe that's why he opens up lessons in leadership with, you know, the idea of
moral responsibility, right? Because that's that is an answer to the question that the gentleman was asking or the other rabbi, the older rabbi, was asking him was the moral responsibility you're taking for the situation that you're in, you know, and why aren't you doing anything about it? And he had really had sounds like he really had no he had no good answer. Exactly. I wanna switch to Tom for just a second. I wanna get Tom some Tom
some of Tom's thoughts on this. I did show Tom a version of the book. We were recently at an event together, and I showed up with it. Ladies and gentlemen, normally, we are not in the same room together. And normally, I don't get a chance to share the books with him physically. And so we got a chance I got a chance to do that. And I showed him the book, and he flipped through, and he's like, why do you why did you hand this to me? I say, well, just because I want to
prove to you that I actually have a physical book. Because all all the books on the book all the books on the shelves behind you did not prove that you had books. He had to bring he had to bring me the copy. Had to bring you a copy of the book. So I know I know for sure that Tom has almost no familiarity with this, with this book. But just hearing us talking about it, what are some of your impressions or
some of your thoughts so far? Well, I I'm first of all, Richard, I I always I always feel like I'm perfectly okay being quiet and just listening to you talk because every time I hear you speak about anything, I tend to, like,
learn something or pick something up that I wasn't thinking before. And and it it's it's usually very helpful for me to listen to yourself and and and people like you who've who've been around a little bit and have a very, clear pathway as to what you feel like your mission is, which is another thing I appreciate about you. But when I was thinking about this book, I was looking at it more from a perspective of, like, so how does all of this translate?
Right? And what I mean by that is, like, whether because I I feel like there's lessons to be learned in there. Whether you're Jewish or not is not the most relevant part of it. Right? It's more about it's more about, you know, to to Haysan's point, pointing people in the right direction using a moral compass, using leadership to to drive,
results in the results that you're looking for. So how how do you how do you feel like or give me some, like, some specific examples about how this book, like, translates into how how would I translate this into my business, right, so to speak? Like, if I'm trying to lead if I'm trying to be a leader of men, it's the the impression that I get from him being a a rabbi being a leader of rabbis is is essentially the equivalent to that. Right? Like, being a leader of men, so to
speak. So how how do some of those lessons directly translate into into business? Well, one of the, one one of the conclusions that rabbi Sacks came to after meeting Rabbi Schneerson, who is one of the greatest rabbis, you know, in the 20th century, is that not only do, great leaders have a lot of followers, but but great leaders create leaders. They create leaders. K? So, this this this is true in business also.
Great business leaders. Yeah. A lot of people are reporting to them, and a lot of people are reporting to the people who report to them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. They got this big organization. They got all these followers. But the greatest leaders are the ones that take the people that report to him and transform them into leaders. Mhmm. That's the key thing. That's
the difference. It's interesting that you say that because I always try to I always try to get people to understand that that that hot up and coming person should never be a threat to you. I I I teach people about this in sales all the time. That the, you know, the best sale if you're a sales manager and you're thinking that that number 1 sales guy or girl is gonna replace you or if you're fearful of that, you're in the wrong position. Right? Like, you should be
encouraging that. You should be looking at that and saying and I always I always thought of it even for myself back in the day when I was, you know, first getting into the business world. I wanna train my replacement because I don't want there to be a hesitation to promote me. Right? Like, I actually saw that firsthand where a person was ready to be promoted, but they were held in the waiting blocks because there was nobody
ready to replace them. And they didn't ever think of it, like, from that perspective of, like, I'm gonna be held back because nobody is gonna be able to so so companies do that on occasion where they have somebody ready to be promoted, but they don't do it because there's nobody ready to fill that spot. And I always thought of it the opposite going, I want somebody ready to fill my spot because I want that first open slot to be mine. Like, I want that promotion ready for me, and I'm
not worried about it. So to your point, I guess that's kind of the beginning stages of that thought process with the with this book, right, where he's basically talking about creating leaders because as you move up the ladder, you need somebody to replace the ladder rungs, and you can't just throw people in there. You have to they have to be ready for it. In other words in other words, if you're creating leaders, you are also creating yourself to be even a greater leader.
That's what you're saying. Because now you you you're gonna get promoted to even, like Right. Yeah. So yeah. Exactly. So in order for me to obtain more responsibility, I have to be able and willing to to train the person to replace me. Now that being said, because this did this actually did happen to me once or twice where I would have the person ready and a spot would open up laterally, and they would take them from underneath me and put them in there, which,
by the way, for me was great. I I I still had no problem with it because I always always, had that next That's that's a feather in your cap. Right. And I was always looking for the next next person up. Right? Like so I would always have a secondary person that I knew would be the next person I would wanted to train. Like, I I
was always looking for that person, I guess, is my my point. So he Well, one of the things you might one of the things you might take into consideration is is that maybe there is even a higher a higher, level, which might be that you're you're creating leaders not for your own personal gain, not so that you can get promoted, but you're creating leads because it's the ethical thing to do, just because it's the right thing to do. Oh, we're gonna get into ethics. There's no possible
way we can't with Richard here. We're gonna get into ethics. Don't don't have no fear. Something that something but something that occurs to me or and something that occurs to me is that, what, Tom, what you're talking about and Richard, what you're supporting only works if the individual who is in that position where they can either be promoted up the chain or even promoted laterally. But let's talk about the person who can be promoted up
the chain because they've been prepared for it. This is a person whose ego is in the correct spot. And the challenge that I see, before we go back to the book and we'll talk a little bit about this when we jump into the book of Exodus because we're going to try and jump around the book a lot. And fortunately, Richard's got it all he's got it all post it noted, so he'll know where we're going, which is good.
But the challenge of having your ego in the right place is a real issue, particularly today in our organizations. And we've we've we've seen this in the generational shift over. That's happened in organizations and cultures where the baby boomer generation, for good or ill, we we can talk about whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact of the matter is didn't prepare good secession
plans for the 2 generations behind them. And now you have 2 generations of people coming into the workforce into leadership positions who not only weren't prepared by dent of having a succession plan, But now, weirdly enough, aren't preparing the generation behind them. And so you see from in general, this is
not to crap on the baby boomers. I'm not doing that. I'm just saying the behavior overall of a particular generational cohort was to believe, and you see this in politics, by the way, was to believe that they're irreplaceable and can never be. They can never the the vac the seat will never be empty. Because the seat will never empty, there's no reason to prepare somebody, and thus, when I go by the way, I'm surprised that I'm gonna go. If I'm a boomer, I'm surprised that I'm
going to go. I'm shocked that that well, I'm gonna say it for the this particular podcast episode. I'm shocked that god will take me. Every boomer is shocked. Well, almost everyone. But the fact of the matter is when you're shocked, you don't prepare a succession plan. And so you've got the ego of not preparing the succession plan to have somebody replace you, but then you've also got the the inappropriate placing of ego among people who should be
ready to replace you behind you. This is a huge problem in organizations right now because along with the ego comes with selfishness and all of this and the knowledge grabbing and the greed of of of power or the greed to hold on to power, some of which we see in our organizations today, which is leading to some of the dysfunctions that we're seeing, which is leading to unethical behavior. Thoughts on this assertion from either Richard or Tom? Well, capitalism is based on the notion
of self interest. Sure. Yeah. That's the fundamental idea. Right? Everybody's interested in themselves, and let's create a, an economic system where people can fulfill their self interest, and where there's a level playing field. Mhmm. Right? And and and so when you have a whole culture, a whole the whole basic infrastructure based on self interest, the ego is gonna, you know, it's gonna empower the ego. The ego is to a 100% interested in itself. That's that's Right.
Right. And and, you know, that's the that is the dark side of capitalism. The the upside of capitalism is we have this wonderful tool called Zoom where we can all talk to each other and not be in the same place at the same time. No. I'm not saying capitalism is I'm not
saying capitalism is a bad system. Sure. I'm just saying that, actually, what I'm saying is that if you don't have an ethical framework to go along with capitalism or any system, by the way, any system that doesn't have an ethical framework is going to implode eventually. Sure. So Yeah. Yeah. Tom, on the succession idea, why is why are succession plans so hard?
I've never and and as a leadership consultant, I've never gone into a meeting about a succession plan working with an org where everybody anybody was happy about any of it. Like, nobody was happy. The people who are succeeding aren't happy, and the people who are having to give up and allow other people to succeed, they are not happy either. Nobody's ever happy and never.
Yeah. I I think part of it again, I think to to Rich's point a couple of times to it, it kinda depends where like, it depends on
what you're talking about. Right? Succession planning for a company that's smaller family owned and, like, and you're looking to, you know, take your son or daughter and you're gonna put them in in that CEO seat and you're gonna basically groom them from the time they're teenagers and to run the company is very different than a company that's been in business for a 100 years, and it's had turnover here and there. Like, all kinds of CEOs come and go and all of a
sudden, like, it's just very different. The the reality of it is though, to what you're talking about earlier, is that anytime you start talking about succession planning, everybody involved, to your point earlier, Richard, they're always going to think about their best interest first. They just do because that's the way it works. Right? Like and I I was
told once, and I I thought I thought this was pretty fascinating. I was told once that in in any sort of negotiation or negotiating practice, whether it's succession rate or anything else, that if everybody is miserable, you did your job well. Like, there should be no like, it's and and I said, well, if everybody's happy, shouldn't that be a job well done as well? And they said no. Because usually, if you get a board of directors of, you know, 12 people and everybody
seems to be happy with it, then something's wrong with the agreement. Like, something's wrong with that succession plan because there there's no way that everyone to your point, Haysan, when you said everybody's miserable. Right? Like, everybody's miserable when you walk in the room. It's it's because they always feel like there's money left on the table or stocks left on the table or something titles, money, salary, something.
There's always something that they feel like they didn't get quite enough of. But if everybody is equally miserable, then you probably did a really good job of making it
fair and equitable. Right? Like, that that's the so I think I think it's okay to be upset or miserable about the excess succession plan as long as you're as long as you understand that the the plan is in place for a reason and there's some ethics driving it and that everybody is going to take some sort of, like, backseat to whatever the greater good is, then I think you did your job.
I think you did your job and you did it well. I think it's again, I think and by the way, typically, if everybody's happy, that means the the person that got the short end of the stick is either the lower level employees or the customers. Like, one of those two people who have no voice at the table typically get the short end of the stick. And that was the point they were trying to make when they said if everybody in the boardroom's happy, you probably did something wrong. You did
something wrong. And that's and they were talking from an ethical standpoint. Like, they were talking about it from that complete stakeholder capitalism versus just plain driven by the dollar capitalism. Right? Yeah. So, again, it's it's but, anyway Well, it sounds like it sounds like there's something paradoxical going on there, which, doesn't surprise me given the fact that the human condition is fundamentally paradoxical. Well, let's explore some of that paradox.
Let's, let's let's return to the book, lessons in leadership. Well, you know, there's there's there's succession going on in the Bible. Right. And we're gonna talk about that coming up here. This is exactly this is exactly where we're going right now. So, because it's not just succession, it's also vision and purpose, which we we we probably should to tie together. And when you look at, the second set of chapters in lessons in leadership, a weekly reading of the Jewish bible, Rabbi
Sacks by the way, is it doctor Sacks or is it rabbi Sacks? Which one or is it doctor rabbi or does it matter? It's well, lord rabbi. Lord rabbi. Okay. Alright. Okay. Well, rabbi lord rabbi lord Jonathan Sachs. Lord rabbi lord Jonathan. He's he was he was he was, you know, inducted into the yeah. Okay. He's a lord. He was a lord. And well, he's also a doc. He has a PhD, so he's a doctor also. But Sure. Not by doctor Lord Johnson's side. So it's a lot of
lot to that's a lot to lead into. That's a long handle as my grandma would have said. He he he was humble. He was humble. He didn't have to throw the doctor in there also. Yeah. Alright. The author, let's go with that for the moment here. Just gonna shorthand it a little bit, opens up in his discussion of the book of Exodus, which is probably out of the the the 5 books of the Torah, for me anyway, probably the most interesting one of, one of those books.
And he opens up his examination of leadership lessons from, book of Exodus by beginning with the idea of, how are women leaders? How do how do women lead? What does what does female leadership actually look like? And he references a couple of different, ideas that are in the book of Exodus because the book of Exodus, which is, of course, the story of how Moses leads the people of Egypt. I'm not gonna say that people, Egypt. The people of Israel, out of Egypt, after 400 years of of,
slavery. And by the way, the end of the book of Genesis, you know, talks about how, Joseph saved, the Israelites. Then the book of Exodus picks up 400 years later with, if I remember the quote correctly from from the first book of Exodus, how the pharaoh did not know Joseph because there had been a pharaoh that had arisen into, into, into power who did not honor the previous agreements and the previous No. He didn't know. He just didn't know. He he didn't know, you know,
this is, like, the next generation down. So Joseph is already dead. Right. Right? And so he didn't he wasn't aware of the impact that Joseph had, how he saved he saved Egypt. I mean, he saved he saved Egypt. He didn't know. And and so, see, that's the problem when you don't know history. Right. Right. Which we're running into, by the way, in our own culture. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And it's gonna have deleterious impacts, which is part of the reason why I do this podcast the way that
I do it. Exactly. And so That history, you mean? So that that that that pharaoh that pharaoh who didn't know about Joseph and what he had done, he ended up getting very concerned about the population growth of the Jewish people inside of Egypt. Yep. And that's when he decided, you know, to crack down on the Jews, you know, it's and eventually enslave them. Right. Exactly. And part of that enslavement, and, Rabbi Sacks talks about this in the first book, women as leaders.
He talks about the 3 of the people who were going to be great leaders of the Israelites, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses himself, right? And Jochiveth is the wife of Amran. Okay? And Amran was the mother of or, I'm sorry, the father of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. And then he also talks about, Yokobed's daughter, Miriam, right, Moses' older sister. Now he does briefly discuss, although he doesn't really necessarily focus on them, Pharoah, demanded that they kill the, Israeli or the Jewish, sons
when they were born. And actually, I think it was kind of broader than that, but they really focused on the Jewish sons, in the book of Exodus. And the midwives, and it's it's even says this in the book of Exodus, feared God more than they fear the pharaoh. And so they basically disobeyed. Right? They engaged in what we would call, these days, civil disobedience. Civil disobedience. Correct. Exactly. Yes. In order to preserve the, the Jewish people.
And, Rabbi Sacks points out that these leaders, these female leaders, including the princess of Egypt who raised Moses, he throws her in there as well, that he said that they were leaders because they had courage and conscience, which I think is 2 2 character traits that we don't often talk about in leadership. Or maybe we not maybe. We talk a lot about courage in terms of dodging a bullet or in terms of running into a fire. We
don't talk about you about courage as Brene Brown. We talk about courage in terms of the heart word, right, which you can only really do, and you can only really act out of courage if you have a conscience. And a conscience is more than just merely knowing the difference between right and wrong. It's also having the willingness to act on the difference between right and wrong. And Rabbi Sacks points out that their courage is still a source of inspiration
today. From there, he moves into Moses' mission and how Moses had to overcome setbacks as an adult as he went back into Egypt. So again, for those of you who've never read the book of Exodus, Moses, is seen killing an Egyptian, overseer, and burying the body. The Jewish people who he is soon to lead, well, soon meaning 40 years after that. But spot him and, in essence, they, they drop a dime on him or they try to drop a dime on him. And, and Moses has to flee Egypt, right? And he
goes to a different land. While he is there, he becomes a shepherd, wandering around the backside of a mountain where he eventually, 40 years later by the way, this would make Moses 80 years old when he sees God in the burning bush, has a conversation with God in the burning bush. Again, you can read the book of Exodus. I recommend reading it. For those of you who are listening, I'm some I'm doing the hessian version of the summarization of this. I
recommend you go back and read it yourself. It's fascinating reading. Again, even if you don't believe in anything in there, it's fascinating reading. But he goes, he sees the burning bush, of course, it burns, but is not consumed, takes off his shoes. And, of course, the bush tells him, go back to Egypt and tell pharaoh to let my people go, right, that they may be free to come and worship me, in essence. That's the backside of that
command. Moses, of course, when he gets this call, one of the first things Moses says when he receives the call to leadership is And I want you to just kind of imagine this in your head. He kind of looks around left and right and kind of goes, who me? What? You're talking to this guy? I can't go in there. I am a murderer. I'm sure he still had that floating around in his head. I am a man that is not righteous. I'm sure he had that floating around in his head.
And, he also says specifically to God, I don't speak well. I'm not good at talking. He might have had a speech He had a he had a serious speech impediment. Right. Speech impediment. Exactly. And God brushes aside all of his excuses. Every single last one of them, he swats them away like flies, you know, floating around like a piece of watermelon. He's like, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Oh, you have a speech impediment. That's cool. I'm a send
your brother with you. By the way, this is one of the first times that we hear, Aaron mentioned again in the Bible. It's curious as to where Aaron went. I'm sure Richard has some thoughts on that. Those of us who read who read the Bible through a lens of Christianity don't really get too much of that information. And so it's always kind of curious to me. And we can talk about that later. But where Aaron went and then why he just showed up then? Like, okay. Where were you this entire time?
Like, if Moses was struggling with a speech impediment, where the heck were you? Right? So God says, take Aaron with you. And, oh, and by the way, here's a staff that you can turn into a snake if you throw it down on the ground. And if you pick it back up again, it'll be a staff again. Go do these things. I will empower you. Go have a good time. Go go intimidate pharaoh. And Moses goes, well, I guess I'm all out of excuses, so I guess I better get on the road.
And so he gets on the road, and he goes to pharaoh's palace. And this is, of course, when things begin to go down. This is where he begins to have interactions with pharaoh, who, by the way, there is some indication in the Bible that he would have known pharaoh because they would have both grown up in the same household, and they would have had not they would have not been strangers to each other. Right? And so he's, he's turning a staff into a snake. The Egyptian
magicians are doing the same thing. There's sort of this battle of transcendent forces that's going on inside of the Egyptian court in front of pharaoh. Pharaoh will say, yes. I'll let the people go, and then pharaoh says, no. You know what? I'm not. By the way, it says in in the book of Exodus that god made pharaoh's heart hard, which is another idea that
rabbi Sacks explores in this book. And he talks about how Moses had to overcome setbacks in order to, particularly setbacks with his faith in order to continue down the path that he was going down in order to successfully take the Israelites out of Egypt or leave the Israelites out of Egypt towards the far horizon towards freedom. In the chapter on freedom, Rabbi Sacks references, of course, Abraham Lincoln and many others. He talks about, how Moses
gave a great speech. And in in Exodus 1226 through 27, Exodus 13:8, and Exodus 1314. And he talks about how this speech is a counterintuitive act where Moses does not speak about today or tomorrow, but he speaks about the distant future and the duty of parents to educate their children, which has of course become ingrained in the Jewish tradition. Mm-mm. Finally, he comes to the summation rabbi Sacks does. He says Moses was the greatest
leader because he fought further ahead than anyone else. He knew that real change in human behavior is the work of many generations. Therefore, we must place our highest priority educating our children and our ideals so they will so that what we begin, they will continue until the world changes because we have changed. That's vision. That's vision. Most leaders struggle with vision Because most leaders, unfortunately, fall into the trap of only barely thinking
about tomorrow, much less 5 years from now. Matter of fact, I believe there is an old idea or might be old in my time now, but there is an idea floating around. And it used to be framed in the saying that the Chinese think about make plans a 1000 years out, whereas Americans barely make plans 5 years out. And that is a fundamental difference in worldview when you think about it, particularly at a cultural level. But I don't think leaders get the luxury of
adopting a short term worldview. And so we talk about succession, right? Who will come after me? When we talk about what will happen in the future, leaders are or we should be tasked with setting the vision and creating a purpose. By the way, this is an ethical thing to
do as well. Now, Moses, for his part, did struggle with his own people, you know, the second that they were out of slavery in Egypt, they, well, the second Moses' back was turned to go up to the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, they decided that they were going to take his brother and and take down the gold that they had gotten from the Egyptians, melt it down into a golden calf, and worship it. Moses was unhappy with that. Came down from the.
And I'm minimizing this. He's not happy with it. He was a little bit unhappy. It's a little little tweet when he came off the mountain. Never I never heard it described that way. There's a little there's a little less to please, let us say. Well, you have to you have to understand, Richard. I think cinematically, so I'm thinking of, like, Charlton Heston with the giant beard covered off the mountain and, like, just wrecking things left and
right with the staff. Like, that's the image I have in my brain. And then he takes the golden calf, and this is described in the book of Exodus. He ground it up and made the Israelites drink it. That's some old school not even old school. That's ancient school. That's like Precambrian, okay, school behavior. And this was after, you know, the water from the rock and manna, and, yes, we're in the desert and the giants and the reports with
the spies. And I was even talking with my boy about this, my 7 year old about this because we're actually reading ironically enough, we're reading about Moses right now and the 12 spies. And I had to tell my 7 year old that what is what is this the the lesson that we learn from the idea of the Israelites losing faith in the wilderness and not being able to enter into the promised land. The lesson we learn is that even though all these miracles
happened from them, they still weren't convinced. They still weren't converted into believing in God. They still had a slave mentality. Right. I'm not going to use that term with my 7 year old, but yes, exactly, they still had a slave mentality, correct. So the challenge here with all of that that Rabbi Sacks lays out and all of the what is laid out in the book of Exodus is a very broad challenge, which is why this is an incredibly important chapter, I believe, in the Bible for leaders
to read. So the question I'd like to kick off our conversation, our part of the conversation here with is, what is the challenge of vision and how can leaders behave ethically in perilous times, like the ones we're living in now? We already mentioned the lack of knowledge of history, and we do live in perilous times, particularly in the West overall, but in America in particular. And it feels perilous to us, maybe because it's an
election year and a lot of weird things are happening. But in general, for the last 25 years, it's felt like perilous times in America. So how does a leader behave ethically? How do you how do you not come down from the mountain and grind up the golden calf and make everybody drink it? Or maybe maybe we should. Maybe we should be having somebody do that. I don't know. Tom or Richard? I don't I don't know. Richard's thinking. So, Tom, do you wanna take that? You
wanna start? Well, first of all, the I don't know if Richard wants to start. Go ahead. No. I mean, it's Tom, you wanna you wanna you wanna you want yeah. The Go ahead. Go ahead. You're you're fine. Rabbi rabbi Sacks says in the in in his book that, there there is no rule book for leadership. Right.
Because every situation is different and unique. And and therefore, leaders have to be able to, you know, make decisions, you know, in the face of uncertainty, in the face of, you know, whatever is happening in the moment, number 1. Of course, you know, like you said, vision vision, of course, is long term. But, well, first of all, let me just mention that also that, the first chapter of the book, actually, it's the not the chapter,
it's the it's the introduction. The title of the introduction, the rabbi Sachs' introduction to the book is called Daring Greatly. Daring Greatly. So, so leaders need to be able to face the uncertainties and the dangers that
lurk in their world. They have to be able to be that kind of a person to be able to not know and be able to operate without knowing the answers, without knowing exactly how to achieve success, but willing to, you know, learn and bump into the world and, you know, see how the world reacts to their decisions. And so that's one of the key, skill sets of a leader. If you don't have that, then you're never gonna be able
to lead. Yeah. And I mean, I Yeah. He talks about adaptive challenges for technical or adaptive challenges. Exactly. Exactly. Adaptive. Exactly. Adaptive because the human beings themselves are, you know, they're not robots. You know? They're they're unpredictable. They're, and so so that's number 1. Number 2, in terms of perilous times, you know, the Jewish people basically, you know, build 2 temples.
Right? Those temples got destroyed. And so, you know, the the the leaders, had to be able to function and operate while this all of this was happening. And so, this is just the nature, this is the nature of the world. The world is a dangerous place. And I think Rabbi Sacks says that, a lot of most people wait and complain about how bad the world is, but leaders actually do something about it. They turn on the lights. They act.
And so they don't wait. And I think that's, that's another key attribute I think the leader a leader has to have. He has to be able to make decisions. You know, one of the problems that a lot of people have is being indecisive. Leader cannot be indecisive. He has to be able to, assess what's going on around him and make decisions and then learn from his mistakes. And, and, so, I think Rabbi Sacks talks about this, in detail, in the book. I'll give you another example.
There's a huge story first of all, I just want to say, just in general, that I don't think there's a book that describes the human condition better than the Old Testament, than the 5 books of Moses. It shows the good and the bad of man. And so that's one of the reasons why it's such a valuable book to read. But, there's a story where, enemies of the Jewish people, the the
the the nation of of Midian. What they decided to do was they decided to have their women go after the Jewish men and enter into immoral relationships with them. And so, unfortunately, the the the Jewish men got sucked into this. And because of the immorality, God, created a plague, created a plague. And like tens of thousands of Jews died
in this plague. Now, while this was happening, one of the leaders of one of the Jewish tribes and one of the women from this other nation got together, went to Moses' tent, and entered into sexual relations right in front of Moses' tent. And then, Pincus, who was, one of Aaron's either sons or grandsons, took a spear Oh, yeah. And killed sense. Yep. Mhmm. And killed those 2 individuals. 1 of the 1 of the leaders of 1 of the Jewish
tribes, Mhmm. And also this woman who happened to be like a princess of 1 of the of the king of Midian. Mhmm. Now he By the way, Richard, there's a famous painting. I believe either Rembrandt or Rubens painted that as a subject back in, like, the It's an extraordinary story. Yeah. The reason it's extraordinary is because because he did this, the plague stopped. Mhmm. So pink is he was able to assess. He knew about the plague. He knew he knew what was going on, and he decided
this has to end. I'm gonna end it. And he killed those 2 people. And because he did that, he basically did it because this whole immorality was basically an attack against God. It was an attack against God. So God ended the plague and actually rewarded pancas by making him a priest, a Kohen. And so, the point is, in terms of leadership, this is, this is like a, I think a great example of someone who was, didn't have the title of a leader, right? He wasn't a priest,
he wasn't a king, he wasn't, he didn't have any title. He was just someone who saw what needed to be done, given the circumstances and took the initiative that he took the lead and and did it. And I think leaders need to be able to act like this, need to be able to see what's needed and and and and then provide it provide
what's needed. Now it just so happened that the Jewish a lot of the Jewish people when they saw this happening, they thought that Pincus, you know, should have been tried for murder because, you know, because he was there were laws against murdering people. Right? There were there were actual to Torah laws against murdering people. Right. But but this was an extraordinary situation. And, apparently, you know, he he,
he did the right thing. Yeah. And I believe that this was just after the 10 the second version of the 10 commandments had come down the mountain that, that the the challenge with the Midianite daughters, if I remember correctly. If I'm remembering it in my order correctly in in the book of Exodus, I believe that's where that happens in the, in the narrative. Tom, I don't believe you've ever heard about this before. I'm watching your face. I don't believe you ever heard about this
before. So what are your thoughts here? No. It's not that I have it's not that I've never heard of it. I mean, I I just I'm I'm thinking of it. My whole point to the like, I'm trying to translate this into business for myself. Right? So to to to Richard's point at the end of that where he said, this is an example of where leaders have to kinda take the bull by all the horns
and go do it. Right? Mhmm. If you go back to your original question is, like because your original question was more about vision and how, and how tough it is today. Right? So because things are, in your words, perilous, And I guess that's by definition, depending on who you're talking to. Yes. Yes. I would. But the, you know, when I look at it, and I I think about, like, what what why do why do why do leaders struggle with vision so much? I think it it really is fear.
Right? That fear of failure. They don't wanna make the the the vision too big or we were talking the other day, Hassan, about that that big, hairy, audacious goal. Right? Like that, you know, that pine in the sky kind of mentality. And I think I think I think I think leaders to today have a tendency to be shortsighted. Right? They're looking they're and they're worried more about survival than they are about visionary,
visionary visionary aspirations. Like but but what I don't understand is why is it so difficult to under like, to to go shoot for that that star? Go shoot for the sky. Go shoot for the moon. Whatever the heck the, you know, that you're trying to shoot for. Because the the worst the absolute worst thing that can happen is that you
fail. That's the worst thing that that happens. And to Richard's point a couple of, you know, a couple of times, if you're listening to this well enough and you're hearing some of the some of the things that Richard's talking about, the lessons that you learn in those failures can be very valuable from a business perspective. You know, you're not talking about life and death in the case that you're you're you're talking about the the story that you
just told here, Richard, where he kills the 2 people. In today's world, we're not talking about life and death here. We're talking about the survival or or ending of a business. And I guess to your point with the story, if you're not willing to go above and beyond what that or or that or to do what's expected or to to go outside the box, all of those lessons are
in there. If you're listening to this and you're and you're trying to interpret this in your in your brain as to how it relates to today's business world, It's it's all of those things that we hear and we talk about all the time. He's just giving you a visit a visualization of it in a in a biblical sense. But but in the in the in the modern day translation, it's really fear of failure, not willing to go outside the box, not willing to to think of yourself of, you know, in a sense of
we're all we all have, you know, aspirations. But if you're not willing to go above and beyond your day to day operational thought process in order to gain those aspirations, then maybe you shouldn't be a leader. Maybe you shouldn't be the person somebody's following. So, you know, being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be honest with yourself could probably be step number 1, really. I mean, are you that
person? I mean, it I again, when we're talking about the the Torah and the biblical sense of these, these people supposedly were getting messages directly from God. So you don't really have a choice in that whether you listen to that or not, in my opinion. Like, you just you listen to it. It's the voice of God. You gotta go do it. Right? Well, God didn't tell God didn't tell Pincus to do this. God didn't tell Pincus to people. He made that decision on his own. Well, we could we could debate
that in a different way. I'm just saying that's the story. I'm just saying the story is that I understand. I understand. But I'm saying do it, but but you're right. If God does speak to you Right. And tells you to do something, gotta do it. Pincus could make the argument that god didn't necessarily tell him to do it, but there was an an an innate something inside of him that told him it was the right thing to do because of x. Right. To me to me, that's the same thing. That's god telling you.
Okay. So anyway, again, that's debatable. We could debate that another time. But, again, to bring this to pull this back into today's business world, all of those stories have lessons in them, that are translatable to doesn't even matter what you're doing in the world today. And, again, I I it doesn't matter to me whether you're Jewish or not. I mean, we're the 3 of us here think about the the 3 of us all 3 of us have 3 completely different religious backgrounds. Right.
Completely different. So Right. And if if the 3 of us can sit on the same Zoom and learn lessons from this, then any then anybody can. No. No. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. No. No question. By the way, there are many, many references in Judaism that, you know, that that the temple was not just for the Jewish people. It was for the whole world. Yeah. The whole world. So this is not this is just about humanity. This is about the human condition. It's not about just the Jewish people. Right.
Right. I understand that. But I'm saying that that's why I point out the lessons to be learned, not necessarily that it's from the Torah or that it's from Exodus, that I don't think that's the most relevant part to what to to why we're talking about it. I think the lessons to be learned are are the most valuable port Yeah. Portion of it. Yeah. Right. We're not we're not here to promote we're not here promoting the the bible. Right. We're here Exactly.
Exactly. This is this is not this is not a course on religion. No, it is not. Go ahead. I just wanted to say that, the other thing that Rabbi Sacks says explicitly in his book is that leaders have to be able to do what's not popular. Mhmm. That's a key attribute of a leader. If he doesn't have the courage to do what's not popular, in order to do what's right even though it's not popular, he's not a leader. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we see a
lot of that. And this is part of the reason why I believe we are in perilous times because we are living through a particular historic historical cultural moment in the United States where it appears at all levels that well, no, I shouldn't say at all levels. It appears at many levels. I will frame it that way, because there are still levels where the opposite is true of what I'm about to say. It appears that at many levels, we are being led by
individuals, not merely politicians. Those are easy targets, but civic leaders, CEOs, and others who are unserious people. Now, that doesn't mean I don't mean to say that they are incompetent at the particular narrow skill set of specialization that they may have. Right? So, for instance, if you run a bank, you may be very, very good at reading an Excel spreadsheet. Cool. That's awesome. That doesn't
mean that you need to be in a leadership position. But the way our times have currently run-in our present historical cultural moment, because you're good at reading an Excel spreadsheet, congratulations, nobody else was good at reading the spreadsheet, and now you're the leader. Well, that's a fundamentally unserious way, at least in my opinion, of picking a leader. That's number 1. Because how do we know if that individual has courage? Has that individual been tested? How do
we know if that person has vision? Has that person even been asked? How do we know? We don't is the answer to a lot of those questions or rhetorical. And on any of the levels, even the ones that Rabbi Sacks talks about, righteousness, moral responsibility, vision, just the ones we've gone through, ethics. Right? If you are asking, has the person who knows how to read a spreadsheet well been tested in all those areas?
To even ask that question is considered to be being too serious about leadership, which is weird, by the way, because leadership is such a serious act, which, of course, by not asking that question leads to a fundamental unseriousness in leaders that is being replicated. And I don't
necessarily believe that it is those leaders' faults. I do believe it is the fault of the system that we are currently in, multiple systems that we are currently in, across the, as someone would say in the past, across the fruit plain of the United States. I believe it is the fault of some of those systems. And of course, those systems become self replicating over the course of time, leading to further unseriousness.
That's a real challenge, and that creates perilous times because when a serious challenge comes up and Tom and I have talked about this on the podcast before in the context of different books. When a serious challenge comes up and it always does, for example, Russia moving the Overton window. Let's just use them as an example. Great. Now we're all going to talk about nuclear war.
We haven't talked about nuclear war in 25 years, but we're gonna have unserious people talking about nuclear war and tweeting about it. Give me a break. But the reason they're unserious is because the system requires them to be so, and it's self replicating. That creates perilous times. That does that stuff. I call I call that a chronic human problem. Oh, absolutely.
But there is a way out of the chronic problem. And and one of the challenges on our podcast this year that I've placed in front of us, myself included, is to now no longer talk about problems because we know what problems are. Let's talk about solutions to the problem. Because So I'm curious. You you just I'm
just curious. I I don't wanna change the trajectory of the theme of the podcast, but, do you have a just some, like can you throw out an idea of how to what kind of a solution would would turn this around? Oh, yeah. I've got I've got solutions. We need to update it. Alright. I I don't wanna I don't I don't really wanna hijack the the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Want me to be I was told I was told earlier today that that the identifying the solution to the
problem is the easiest part. Yeah. That was told to me today. The Selling it selling it to everybody. That's the hard part. It's telling you. Implementing it. Implementing it. Implementing it and getting And then implementing it. Yeah. Is the hardest part. So More than 70% of all change managements and engagements fail. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a fact. Oh, yeah. That's a fact. Well, you could start by and, okay, here's a simple solution to the unseriousness problem.
Pick a system, whichever one you want to pick, let's say the educational system, and go in and look at who are in those leadership positions, look at their track records and then start firing people with the last name of A. Just go every other number in the alphabet, a, c, f. Your name begins with any of those letters, you're fired. Fire 15% of the people and cut their budgets by 25%, and all of a sudden, everybody all gets here. So what does the
Bible say about this? That's why don't we why don't we why don't we talk about, why don't we talk about what, you know, what what, Rabbi Sacks and the Bible what does the Bible show us to teach us about this problem, this problem of recurring failed leadership? Yes. Recurring failed leadership. Well, in general, in the Bible, not specifically Rabbi Sacks' focus on the Torah, but in general in the Bible overall, leaders wind up in terrible
places. I mean, if you read in the Christianized Bible, you'll read 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, 1 Kings, 2nd Kings. I mean, this is just a parade of, pardon my French, but piss poor Israelite leadership. Just a parade of bad kings, hideously bad kings. And so what does the spirit of God do? What does that spirit do? Well, it sends a prophet into the world to judge those individuals. Usually, those individuals are, to paraphrase from the book of Daniel, judged and
found wanting. Right? And then they are eliminated. Now I'm not advocating for killing people. I am merely saying that that is what is the biblical solution to that to to that problem. Right? And usually behind that individual, because this is an issue of succession as well, the sons and daughters, if you read through 1st Chronicles, 2nd Chronicles, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings, particularly the sons of these kings, either sinned worse than their fathers. Right? And very few of them corrected any of
the problems. Or if they did correct them, I'm thinking of Hezekiah now, even if they did correct them, the corrections only went so far because, talk about courage, they weren't willing to go all the way to the end. They weren't willing to do the thing all the way down to the bottom that was necessary. Right. In the United States of America, where we live underneath a different system, I do think that you get everybody behaving more seriously if you fire 15% of people and cut a budget by
25% in a particular system. I think everybody all of a sudden straightens up and becomes serious because it's heads and money that are driving the idea. We talked about capitalism already. That's a beginning beginning of a solution to the problem. And that was just my answer
to Tom's question of what the solution to the problem is. It's funny it's funny that you say that because we had a governor here in Massachusetts at one point that when he became when he his first act as the governor was basically to tell everybody to cut their budgets by I think he was used 15%, not 25. But he said, I I don't care. Whatever you submitted and straight across the board, by the way, no
favoritism to any one department or another. Everybody's cutting their budget by 15%, and you're laying off x number oh, I forget what the number was. And everybody thought he was crazy. And the first thing, they didn't think he was serious. And he went, no. No. No. People, I'm serious. You are cutting your budget by 15%, and you are reducing your staff by whatever it was. I think 10% on the staff. And he goes
and if and if if you don't do it, I'm gonna do it. And if I do it, it's gonna be cut by 25% 20%. So you find that the whatever, however he worded it. And sure enough, it all happened, and Massachusetts has been in the black forever. Like like, he like, we we're not, we're not, we're we are a tax heavy state. Yes. I do understand that part. But but we are a tax heavy in in in doing so, our state is never in the red. We're we're never in a deficit. We don't have a a a debt, a
state debt, which most states do. So to your point, Hassan, even in and by the way, that that governor was a business person that took over. It was he had run his own businesses for a long time. And so he looked at the state budget as a business decision, not as a like a a, you know, a good old boys club for for state, you know, you know, for for government, officials. So it was very it was a very different it was a very different vibe when he was
governor. And, and it's been it's been it's even and I'm I'm regardless of your political party, and I won't even specify what political party it was, but even other the other political parties that have taken control have maintained his his some of his thing, like some of his programs, because it just made sense. Right? So to your point, it was bold. It was fearless. He didn't care if people liked him or didn't like him. It was like to
your point earlier, Richard, too, he didn't care it was unpopular. He just did it. And he just and it and everybody everybody hated it until it was all said and done, it was over with, and then all of a sudden, he everyone loved him when he left. It was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not running? You're not running for governor again? You're just leaving? What? Wait. Where are you going? Like, everyone was
up in arms. Like, so to your point a second ago, it's like, you just you you it there there the solution the solution is disruption. The solution is innovative disruption. Like, you you've got to put a kink in the chain, and you gotta stop you gotta stop the rotation of whatever people think is normal or common or status quo or whatever the whatever terminology you wanna use about it. You've gotta stick remember when you were kids and one of your friends thought they were funny and they stuck
the stick in your front wheel of your tire in your bike? Yes. Alright. Maybe that didn't happen to you, but it happened to me a few times. It that even though they thought it was funny, like, it it taught you a lot more lessons than if they just watched you drive by. Right? That's true. And then and then usually those people caught a punch in the mouth from me, but they they also learned something from
there too. But but anyway, my point. But they learned lessons too. And, you know, it but, again, you know Oh, and it's it's unfortunate. That's I think when god when when when god decides to, you know, create a plague Yeah. Create a plague Yeah. You know, he's he's he's trying to wake people up. That's the stick in the bicycle. That's the stick in the tire. That's the stick in the tire. Exactly. Exactly. So All I'm saying is you gotta switch people from being, unserious
or not taking things seriously. But people said that I but but but but you people don't even know they're not serious, though. They don't even realize they're not. Right. And that's that's what cutting that's what the the solution of cutting the number of people are trimming the fat such as at work, even from a business perspective does. Is it it Wakes them up. It wakes them up. Right. It challenges them to wonder, am I what's the
value of my role here? Am I actually living up to the value of my role, or am I living below my potential in this role? Do I deserve to be in this role? And now all of a sudden, when you're thinking of those kinds of questions and, by the way, coming up with the answers to that, now you're not just happy go lucky, to Tom's point, happy go lucky state worker. Now you are a serious person doing a serious
job in a serious place. Very good. That way, when perilous times show up and by the way, whether you're serious or not, they will you're going to behave differently towards that particular, event, even if it's something as circumspect as, like I said, Russia invading the Ukraine or
or at a state level, you know, a natural disaster shows up. I mean, imagine a natural disaster shows up after you've cut 15% of the people or 10% of the people and 50% of the budget, and now you've got serious people showing up actually doing actually doing a storm recovery. Man, they are on it, and they're efficient, and they're focused. Right. That's a solution to the problem. If you don't if you don't if you don't train yourself, the world's gonna train you. There you go. Yeah.
I mean, you know, I raised my kids, and, yes, I mean, I talk to my children. Spanking is not the first thing. But you know what? If I have to spank my kids, it keeps them from getting arrested. Please, I'll spank my kids all day. Right. Now you can interpret that as what any way you want as you're listening to the podcast. That's fine. Interpret it however you want. My point is and Chris Rock even made a joke
about this years ago. He said, you know, the comedian Chris Rock, he said, you know, your only job as a father is to keep your daughter off the stripper pole. That's your only job. That's it. And he's exactly right. That's your job. My job is to create tax paying members of society that know how to be orderly, be leaders, be dependable, be stable, and by the way, be serious. That's my job at the family level. And if all of us are doing that at the family
level, by the way, that's a deeper solution. But if all of us are doing that at a family level, now all of a sudden we have a more serious society. Doesn't mean we can't have fun, doesn't mean we can't let our hair down, but it means that we understand when there's a time to be serious and when there's a time to not be serious. And we have critical thinking about how to cut that, how to slice that cake, which I think we're
lacking right now. In certain respects in certain respects, the world itself, if, you know, if you don't know how the world works, you know, and you're you all of a sudden, you find yourself, you know, you have to you can't pay your mortgage anymore. You can't pay your rent. You know, you get real serious. You start getting real serious. Right. And and you know what? By the way, economic times will do
this. I mean, this is part of one of the challenges that we've seen, at a nation state level in the United States, ever since, well, just before COVID and then of course, ever all after 2020. We've been seeing, I think, a subtle shift. And remember I said this isn't at all levels. I think it's at certain levels that are very high profile, like politics, entertainment, law. I think those areas, there's a lot of fundamental
and seriousness. But when I go on and talk to a small business owner these days, or when I talk to a medium sized person who's running an organization or a manager in a medium sized organization, these people are very serious. When I talk to somebody in, local government, not state level government, but local government, these people are very serious. And my line is very serious about the preservation of America and
very serious about their role in that. And I do believe fundamentally that right now, that's the structure that's holding up all of the other nonsense that we see going on in the United States. Because if those people stop being serious, we're done as a nation state. We're just done. If you wanna see if you wanna see something really serious Yeah. Walk into an Orthodox synagogue during a prayer service. K? Yeah. You'll see something very serious going on there.
I would hope so. Just like when I walk in This morning, this this morning, I went to the early service. Mhmm. And I walked into the the sanctuary. There was one guy there at the time. Just one guy that got there early. One guy there. I walked into the sanctuary with another guy who was who I never met before. I started talking to him. And the guy who was there praying, that's like I'm telling you. It's Oh, yeah. Serious over here. Oh, yeah.
I used to get that in. I used to get that when I would walk into old school Catholic churches back in the day. Like, Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City used to be just But my point is my point is, and this is just this is I'm not saying this in order to, you know, convince people they should become religious or believe in god. I mean, they but if if someone believes that there was a god Yeah.
And there's something called sin, which means that you're doing something that is inconsistent with God's will that he doesn't want us to do, you get real serious. You believe that stuff, it gets serious. Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
Alright. We're out of the corner here. Back to the book. By the way, I would recommend, just based on our conversation, if you're listening to this conversation, I would recommend you picking up a copy of Lessons in Leadership, a weekly reading of the Jewish Bible, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. My copy has a forward by professor Ronald Heifetz. And, if you're watching this on video, Richard's holding up his his
copy of his cover. It's the same copy that I've got. As I say as he already mentioned, his is a little more dog eared than mine. There's a lot of good stuff in here. I've marked up my book, my copy, and I'll go going back and reading it again. A lot of it reflects again things that we cover on this podcast all the time, things we talk about on this podcast all the time. And, so we're gonna round the corner here because, Tom has to run, and we do
wanna be cognizant of everybody's time today. And so I'm not going to read through the whole book nor am I going to read through the back half of the book and say, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna summarize a couple of different ideas that I think are incredibly important. So, Rabbi Sacks talks about, a couple of different ideas from the books of from book of Leviticus, in particular, of an idea that struck me, that I think is important for leaders called
the price of free speech. Now he makes the point, in referencing, from not only Isaiah, but also from, Deuteronomy and from Exodus that one of the signs of how seriously Judaism, in particular the Torah, takes speech is one of the prayers, that is is said. He he quotes the prayer here in the book. My god, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from deceitful speech. To those who curse me, let my soul be silent. May my soul be to all like the dust.
Now that's really interesting because one of the things that we are challenged with in our social media culture is malicious speech. Okay? And as leaders, we feel the impact of malicious speech, not only speech that is intended to deceive about our motives, not just in an online context, but also in person, but also the kind of speech that's designed to impugn
our character. Okay? Now, in America, we have a right, unlike most other countries in the West, I'm thinking particularly of England and Canada that come out of a more Royalist English tradition, British common law tradition. In a British common law tradition, there is no protection, explicit protection for free speech. However, in the United States of America, there is explicit protection for free
speech. Matter of fact, the founding fathers, in particular, Patrick Henry and others, were insistent that that be delineated in the Bill of Rights for good reason, by the way. Okay? Because when you delineate it, when you say the government cannot take this thing away because it is given to you by, as the founding fathers believed, God.
Well, guess what? They had some biblical backup for this. And one of the points that Rabbi Sacks makes at the back of his chapter on the price of free speech for leaders is this, The Torah is telling us, and I underline this, that malicious speech uttered in private is to be stigmatized in public, and those who engage in it are to be openly shamed. To put it at its simplest, as we behave to others so God behaves to us, Do not expect God to be kind to those who are unkind to
their fellow humans. Leaders have a responsibility to reflect those values, to react appropriately to lashan harah, and create environments in which malicious speech is not tolerated. Malicious speech doesn't mean you don't have a right to a freedom of speech. Of course you do. You can speak maliciously if you would like, but it does not mean that you are free from, as some folks politically have said in the last few
years, the consequences of that speech. Now that can get us into cancel culture and a bunch of other different things, which is beyond the ken of this particular podcast to discuss. But just know leaders should know that their speech has ethical implications. To paraphrase from, William Shakespeare in the play, Julius Caesar, the line that he puts in Julius Caesar's mouth before he goes to the senate and and is killed when he's speaking to Calpurnia. In the play, Caesar because
Calpurnia is trying to get him to not go. Caesar says, of course, I'm gonna go to the senate. I'm paraphrasing here. Of course, I'm gonna go to the senate. Always, everywhere, all the time, I am Caesar. Why are we questioning this? Leaders, when they behave unseriously, when they do not understand the weight of their speech, may fall into malicious speech accidentally,
but they may also fall into deceitful speech accidentally. It is not only the responsibility of leaders to watch out for their own speech and watch out for the speech of others, but it is the responsibility of leaders, I fundamentally believe, to understand what the price of free speech actually is and to weigh their words carefully. A core idea from rabbi Jonathan Sacks that comes out of the book of Leviticus.
Yes, Richard. I just want to make a I just want to make clear about this issue of of evil speech in in in traditional Judaism. Lush and hara, which is the Hebrew term for this. Lushan meaning language, hara means means evil. The what this is essentially about is saying anything that kiss a negative light on somebody else's reputation or character. In in traditional Judaism, it's taught that this is equivalent to murder. Mhmm. Yep. Why? Because if you damage someone's reputation, that person may
eventually be unable to earn a living. And if he can't earn a living, he may die of starvation. So it's it's that serious. And so it's all I just just to share with you. This this is one of the most difficult human inclinations to master. We're inclined to say negative things about other people for various reasons. And so, you know, in the secular world, we call it gossip. You can destroy an organization. You want to destroy the culture of an organization?
Gossip. Generate gossip about other people inside the company and and encourage it and, you know, you could destroy the company this way. So, it's this is very serious. Oh, yeah. The well, that's the where the responsibility and the ethic, around that's where the price of free speech is. Right? Again, you are free to engage in gossip. Sure. Go ahead. But you're not free from the consequences of that. Exactly. Exactly. And the consequences of Very good. Very good. Material, right, for
that. All right. Let's, let's close out this, this conversation today. And again, I would encourage you to pick this book up. It's deep. It's got a lot of stuff in it. We just barely scratch the surface. It'll be a 6 hour long conversation. We can't do that today. If you're a serious leader, you should read this book. Absolutely. I would strongly recommend it. Absolutely. By the way, it also has some excellent stuff in
there about followership. What is the role of following? Which, again, this struck me quite deeply because most books on leadership do not talk about what it means to be a good follower. They don't even touch on that topic. And, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in Lessons in Leadership talks very deeply about what is the idea behind followership that is reflected not only in the book of Leviticus, but also in Numbers and in Deuteronomy. How can you be a great
leader if you don't know how to be a great follower? Because you have to be able to teach your followers how to be great followers. So it's interesting. I'm actually writing I'm batting around in my head the idea of writing a second book on leadership, but about followership. And and this You wanna co you wanna co
write it? Well, this book sort of gave me an idea, gave me some thoughts, because I've been having trouble kind of finding a door into the idea, because a lot of different places to go around it, and the way that we frame this is is very structured. But I wanted to find the right door. And I usually spend a lot of time thinking about a book before I write it, before I find the right door to to get in, but I I sure. I would love to have a conversation
with you offline about that. I I I suggest you talk to Harvey Seifter about this because, he led an he was the general manager of the of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which had no leader. In other words, every every musician had to be a leader and a follower and had to be able to shift them between those two roles. Yep. Alright. We gotta let Tom go. So I wanna get Tom's last thoughts before we let Tom go. So, Tom, thoughts on the book that we just skimmed through here and didn't even get to the
whole thing. I mean, we barely covered a third of it. But thoughts on what you can learn maybe as a leader for lessons in leadership before I let you go here. And thank you, by the way, for showing up today. I appreciate it. I've been on the podcast in, like, a month. I don't know where you've been. You haven't been around in, like, a month. So Something happened. We had to cancel
one last month or something like that. I forget what I forget what happened. But, anyway Next month is, science fiction, so you'll be here for that. Yeah. I I think I think, you know, like I said, you know, if you if you I I I think it's
irrelevant what his role in in society was. Like, the fact I mean, I I don't take away from his his his title of a rabbi, but that coming from the leadership perspective, it I think his title not not that it's irrelevant, but the the the lessons and the words and the and the in in the things that you take out of the book are going to be, you know, transcendent of any religious in this particulars. I and we've mentioned that earlier
in this podcast. So I think I think for me, the the biggest takeaway is and and and by the way, I I I've I've said this many times too. It's, you know, it's it's okay. I'm giving everybody permission. It's okay to learn lessons from people that you didn't expect to learn lessons from. I think that's that's probably the most important thing that again, for for people who are looking at this and saying, oh, this is written by a rabbi. I'm not Jewish. I'm not gonna
get it. That's not that you you you gotta stop that closed mindedness when you're thinking about where you can learn lessons
from. And and, you know, hey, Sam. We've talked about this many times where I've been doing what I'm what I do for 25 years, and sometimes hiring brand new people right out of college is the best thing I could do because I'm learning different ways of looking at things, different perspectives, things that, you know, maybe I something I did I maybe something I did when I was 25 years old that I don't do anymore because I think it's irrelevant or it
doesn't matter, and they're teaching me that they are still doing those things, so why am I not still doing it anyway? The the the point is you can learn these lessons from multitude multiple people, multiple layers of people, and and, you know, the fact that they are either religious in nature to begin with is not relevant. You should just be open and and, you know, I I said something earlier about, you know and and I wanna go back to this for just a half a second because you were talking
about solutions, a little while ago. And I still say that the the the the starting point of any one of these solutions is to look at yourself in the mirror and make sure that you're that you're being honest with yourself, that you're open with yourself, that you're open to improvement, that you're willing to take criticisms and critiques, and you're not and and
you're not gonna close off because of them. I think that's the start of all of this when it comes to either good leadership or solutions to world problems or solutions to your own internal struggles to if you're if you're not willing and, again, I don't care who you call your god, but if you're not willing to look internal into that extra, you know, that extra force, there's a problem there. There's a problem there if you're not willing to do that.
So I I think, again, I I just think that it's being open, being honest with yourself, and being willing to learn from anybody that's willing to teach is the is the three foundations of it. Awesome. Totally agree. I totally agree. Very nice. Yeah. Thanks. Really nice. Yeah. Well Yep. Tom Libby is getting ready to, wander away. Believe he's gonna flap his wings at 5. I'm leaving on a jet plane. He's literally leaving on a jet plane. So we'll see Tom, around the horn,
here next month. So with that, Tom's out. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you for having me. Richard, very nice seeing you again, sir. Good to see you, Tom. And there goes Tom Libby. He is getting on he is literally getting on a jet plane and flying to another state. So we had to we had to let him go. Richard, final thoughts on Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' lessons in leadership. You said it obviously it's been a very impactful book for you, influenced how you think about
leadership. But what can a leader, in your opinion, take from this book? Wow. It's it's just, it's it's so all encompassing. Mhmm. Now the leadership the the thing about leadership is it's it's one of those things. It's it's it's it's so hard to pin down. It's it's almost like it's his own category. Mhmm. And so, I think the most important thing for a leader to do is is to make a decision about who they are.
You need to decide who you are, and what you stand for, what you believe in, and live true to that. And, and if you do that, you will acquire the leadership skills that are required, that are needed, in order to bring that whatever that is into the world, whatever you stand for. And so, I certainly was not a born leader. I didn't have any leadership skills when I was in high school or college or in my early adult life. I never considered myself a leader. And I never,
sought to become a leader. I just, I think that I personally acquired some leadership skills just because I needed to in order to accomplish, you know, this project that I set myself on, you know, having to do with ethics and, you know, what it takes to make life meaningful. And, which, I think boils down to living a life of ethics, living a life of service, serving other people for their sake, not for my sake, becoming that kind of a person, and, and then to, help other people do
the same. And that does, that requires leadership. And so, I think that, if you wanna be a leader because you want the limelight, you want the fame, you want the fortune, you wanna be the center of attention, it's gonna be really it's gonna be a rough road. It's gonna be really, really rough. But if you're doing it for the right reasons, because you wanna contribute, be of service, and, help the world become more ethical,
then you will become a leader. And it doesn't mean you'll have a title, but you will have an a tremendous influence on the people around you. And a tremendous amount of responsibility for the outcomes and accountability, quite frankly. Yeah. For the outcomes, that of of of what you are doing and of how you are leading those people. Exactly. Moses said to God at the burning bush, he said to God, he said, who am I? He asked God, who am I? That's that's you have to decide who you are.
And then and then live and then live that live that out. You know? You have to go all in and and and and then, you know, you you come you bump up against, you know, your your shortcomings and, you know, and the world would teach you, you know, how to change. And, I think that's the path of leadership. The path of leadership is being able to go into the unknown. Abraham but is that what Abraham did? God just told him to leave. He said, leave your half father's house. Leave
town. He didn't tell him where to go. Stop peeling grapes and hanging out when you're 70. It's time to get out on the road. Exactly. Exactly. Get out on the road. Well, getting out on the road is part of staying on the path of leadership and one of the best ways to figure out what the map is of the territory, well, the map is not territory, is through the reading of great books like Lessons in Leadership by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, as well as all the other books that we cover on this podcast.
So I'd like to thank Richard Messing for coming on the podcast day. Also, Tom Libby for joining us. And with that, well, we're out.