This is a story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.
We read this week how Avraham comes to Chevron to buy The Cave of Machpelah – already the burial place of Adam and Eve – in order to bury his wife Sarah. First he approaches the “Bnei Ches” with his appeal to be able to buy a final resting place for Sarah. The “Bnei Ches” consented to his request, “Hear us, my master, you are a prince of the G-d in our midst. In the best of our burial places bury your dead, none of the men among us will deny you his burial site to bury your dead”. However Avraham then proceeds to ask for a burial plot belonging to Efron.
The question arises, if the “Bnei Ches” had consented for him to bury Sarah wherever he wanted, why did he not just proceed to bury her. Why did he have to approach the owner of the land? The Netziv makes the question stronger by telling us that the ‘Bnei Ches’ were the ‘macher’s’ of the town, the politicians etc and amongst this elite group of decision makers was Efron himself!
The Chafetz Chaim suggests an idea. Avraham understood all too well the grandiose offer of “Bnei Ches”. As a group they all nodded in agreement – but when it would come down to the actual deed, each one will refer you to someone else to implement their lofty words! Avraham therefore persisted in wanting to speak specifically to one individual in order to make sure a man was actually delegated from the group to do the job. Meetings with unanimous decisions are great, but unless someone steps forward to actually execute the deal – then nothing has been achieved. Avraham thanked the group for their generous offer and then proceed to isolate the man he needed for the job – Efron.
How often are we like the ‘Bnei Ches’? As a group, we decide something knowing deep down that nothing is going to be done about the matter. Often as a group we witness some atrocity, we tut away in disagreement over what we have seen, but no one steps up to the plate to actually do anything about it. “We all condemned the behaviour at the meeting”. Great but who did anything about it? ‘Everybody’ is in agreement as to how inappropriate it is. But ‘nobody’ thinks that ‘somebody’ is going to speak up, because in truth ‘anybody’ could have done so.
In Ethics of our Fathers we are told, “in a place where there are no leaders, strive to be a leader”. A wonderful example of that can be seen with Moshe. In virtually the only incident we are told about Moshe prior to him being handpicked by Hashem to lead the Jewish People out of Egypt, we read how he witnessed an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew ‘of his brethren’. “He turned this way and that way and saw that there was no man, so he struck down the Egyptian”.
One Medresh explains that, he looked this way and that way and saw that no one else was going to do the job. Yes there were other Jews present, who may have even shaken their heads in disgust but Moshe saw “there was no man”, no leader, no one to take responsibility. Up stepped Moshe to become that leader, that man who shouldered responsibility when all others passed the buck. This explains the importance of this incident. Through it Moshe defined for himself his role as leader of the Yidden – a job title Hashem conferred upon him some twenty verses later.
Good Shabbos, Yaakov.