Know When to Fold 'Em: Moses, Aging Leaders and Each of Us

This year is concluding, appropriately enough, with a strange political story. Kay Granger, who had represented the 17th Congressional District in Texas since 1997, had missed every vote since July. Seemingly, no one even knew where she was – until the Dallas Express found out: she was in a home for people with impaired memories – suffering from a condition that likely pre-dated her re-election in 2022.

Of course, Kay Granger is not the only national political figure who insisted on staying in office past her point of competency. A remarkable expose in the Wall Street Journal published last week disclosed that President Biden did not enter a memory care facility – because he, essentially, turned the White House into one. In the mid 2010s, numerous Democrats called upon Ruth Bader Ginsberg to retire when Barack Obama was still President – given that she was an elderly person in a vulnerable health condition. She died in office, at age 87, in 2020 – enabling President Trump to appoint Amy Coney Barrett, and secure the court for conservatives for a generation. Diane Feinstein passed away in 2023 as the Senior Senator from California – a full three years after it was readily and publicly apparent that she was experiencing significant cognitive decline.

Recent history has shown that this choice was not inevitable. Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, strategically clearing the way for President Trump to nominate a successor. Justice Stephen Breyer retired in 2022, strategically enabling President Biden to appoint his replacement.

We did not need these recent examples to know that – to quote Kenny Rogers – “know[ing] when to walk away” is both difficult and possible. King George III told the American artist Benjamin West that if George Washington actually stepped down, he would be “the greatest man in the world.” George Washington did, and his having done so is widely acknowledged as an aspect of his greatness.

We can go back even further – to the source of wisdom and truth, the Torah. In Numbers 20, God tells Moses to speak to the rock and draw water from it. Moses instead strikes the rock. God responds by telling Moses that he will not be able to enter the Promised Land.

Here, Moses’s response is instructive. Although he is very comfortable challenging God, he does not do so here. Instead, he sends emissaries to the King of Edom to procure safe passage for the people en route to the Promised Land.

A lot happens between God telling Moses that he will retire and Moses doing so. In Numbers 27, God tells Moses to go up the mountain to see the Land – and reminds him that he will not enter it, as a result of his striking the rock. The mountain has an interesting name: Abarim – which means transition. Moses is given another opportunity to challenge God. But he knows where he is on the mountain of transition, and is perfectly prepared for the moment. He asks God to appoint his successor – and suggests characteristics that this leader will have.

God tells Moses that his successor will be Joshua – and instructs Moses to “lay your hand upon him,” thus granting him the authority. Moses complies – and then some. He lays his “hands” (plural) on Joshua.

Yes – Moses “beseeches” God in Deuteronomy to let him enter the Promised Land. But he never asks to do so as the leader. He seemingly wants to do so as a citizen – like George Washington, a farmer in Virginia during the Presidency of John Adams.

(‘Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar’ by James Tissot, 1836-1902)

As always, each Torah story teaches us many lessons. The first here concerns the measure of a leader. A true leader serves a mission – and realizes that, at a certain point, the mission will continue best under the leadership of someone younger. Therefore, it should be easy for a leader – as it seemingly was for Moses, George Washington, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer – to step away. It is just another thing the leader has to do for his people and their cause. Indeed, the willingness of an aging leader to step away might be a failsafe test as to whether he is fundamentally serving the people or himself.

A leader always gains in the process. Everyone who has stepped aside acknowledging the truths of aging has retired or died with an enhanced reputation. Everyone who has not done so has died with a diminished reputation. Just as King George’s line about George Washington is properly immortalized, we have the case of President Biden. He could have been remembered by Democrats as an old warrior who stepped up to win an important election and succeeded in his critical duty of cultivating and preparing the next generation to lead the country into the future. Instead, he will be remembered by Democrats as a stubborn old man whose short-sighted selfishness drove the party to ruin.

But few people have to make this decision. It does not come up in sports, a pure meritocracy (pre-emptive answer: in his final season, Michael Jordan was in the top 50 in scoring, top 20 in assists and top 10 in steals). It does not come up much in corporations and professional services firms, where mandatory retirement ages are normative – and do not generate much objection. Aging business owners generally decide whether to sell or pass it onto their children – but seldom hang on past their point of effectiveness.

Yet, the lesson of Moses – seen so clearly in our day politically – elicits eternal and universal questions that each of us should be asking. The main one: Am I preparing my mission and/or my enterprise for the inevitable day when I will not be able to lead it? The enterprise could be a family, an enterprise or a political seat – but the question will remain the same. And so will the timing. The preparation, as Moses demonstrated, takes time.

In asking this question, we can be guided by the wisdom of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes which reminds us that we are always “walk[ing] to our Eternal Home.” This journey, like all important ones, elicits the words of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchek: “Everything holy requires preparation.”