Rosh Chodesh Nisan is around the corner, and it carries significance in and of itself. On the first of Nisan, Israel inaugurated Aaron’s family as priests and the Tabernacle, the Mishkan, as holy space.  But it is also on the first of Nisan that two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, perish suddenly for bringing strange fire before God.

While the priesthood designates a societal hierarchy within Israel, it does not represent absolute power. The tragic reality of Nadav and Avihu is that they did not adhere to the strict laws of ritual. A priest, facilitating the spiritual ritual of someone from Israel, cannot get creative. The ritual is a dialogue between a person and God. The priest is there to know the laws and perform the ritual meticulously, but he must never overstep.

One of the challenges of Jewish leadership is to continuously value the congregation of Israel. That does not mean value them in a conceptual way but in a very real way. In other words, you cannot spend every day studying the laws and values of the Torah and scorn the Jewish community that tries to live them.

All too often in today’s world we encounter someone who makes a derogatory remark about Jews and then follows it with: ‘It’s okay, I’m Jewish’. Somehow self-mocking is acceptable, while the same statement said of another would be deemed racist.

The Jewish model is to value both the leader and the society as needing each other. People are likely to forget what was learned by rote but will remember what they did or where they were when they learned it. It’s known as the “tip of my tongue” phenomenon. I remember everything but what I need.

The great sages of Israel show us examples of this symbiotic relationship. In the Talmud, it speaks of an event in Nisan. The leadership of that time couldn’t remember a detail of the law and were told of this great scholar named Hillel. Hillel was brought to them and remembered not only the law but also how to have deduced that law if he weren’t there. As Hillel is speaking with everyone, he begins to scold the people for not learning enough from their leaders.

No sooner does Hillel finish berating the community when he is asked whether or not a person can carry a knife on Shabbat if he forgot to bring it in the night before. Hillel responds by saying he remembers learning that law, but he cannot now remember what it says. His solution is to go outside and watch the people, the everyman. He instructs the leaders to always depend on the people who may not have studied the law but have devoted themselves to shaping their lives around it.

It is easy for leaders of a people to feel disconnected from the people themselves. As one rabbi once mentioned, it’s hard for rabbis to make friends. And yet our texts tell us that the connection between the leaders and the people is crucial to the process.

In the month of Nisan, we inaugurate our priesthood and we lose two young priests who overstepped. We need our ritual leaders to be strict in their facilitation and they need us to make our Judaism a natural part of our actions. It is that mutual need and respect that should define every Jewish community.