By Sophie Gordon

On Friday night , I along with two of my fellow cohorts, Micah and Hannah, had the privilege to lead the Friday night Jewish text study. After much thought, we decided on the topic of opposition to leadership. It seemed only fitting as a group of aspiring, young Jewish leaders to introduce such a topic. We began the discussion introducing the group to the episode of Abraham defending the evil city of Sdom. Abraham was a man of great Chesed, even towards those who may not have deserved it; he demonstrated and assumed a tremendous amount of responsibility for humanity and those who surrounded him. When God threatened to destroy the city of Sdom, Abraham immediately tried to negotiate a plea bargain with God. Although his efforts were to no avail, we can learn from the way in which he conducted himself when speaking before God.

The second text we included was the episode of Korach. Unlike Abraham, Korach used his  potential as a leader for a negative and evocative cause. He banned together a group from Bnei Israel to overthrow the leader of God's token leader, Moshe. In the end of this story, Korach and his followers are swallowed by the ground. Following these two text we included an excerpt/pasuk from Pirkei Avot that which speaks about the significance of detesting the authority. The night led to  interesting discussions of the parallel texts and the differences of the main players involved.

It was eye opening to collaborate with other Jews of different religious expressions. Each of us contributed a unique perspective, which allowed for each of our opinions to be heard. This collaboration presented different challenges. For example, i found it difficult to balance the tension of how I envisioned the discussion to look  like versus how my other two fellows thought. Initially I was adamant in including secular/academic sources, which I believed would enhance he text study. However in the end we compromised and agreed that the sources would be discussed  but not explicitly included on the source  sheet.  Each of us shared our opinions and  thoughts regarding how we envisioned the text study. In the end the text study represented a wholesome picture of all of our opinions pieced together. I found it empowering to begin the semester on such a high note. I look forward to more opportunities in which I will be able to facilitate and initiate more group discussions among the cohort.