יהושע בן נון

Every great leader needs an heir, and the heir is not always a son. Moshe did not pass his leadership to his children but to his faithful disciple, Joshua son of Nun, 'a lad who did not depart from the tent,' who served him from his youth. He inherited not by blood but by devotion.

When twelve spies returned from the land of Canaan and ten of them frightened the people, only two stood firm, Joshua and Calev, and called out: 'let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able' (Numbers 14). For that faith the two of them alone merited to enter the land, while the whole generation was decreed to die in the wilderness.

Already in Moshe's lifetime Joshua was ordained to leadership, 'a man in whom there is spirit,' and God commanded Moshe to lay his hand upon him before the entire assembly (Numbers 27). The transmission was done in the open, so all would know that the Torah passes from teacher to student in full measure.

When the people entered the land, the Jordan split before them as the sea had split before Moshe (Joshua 3), and Jericho fell at the sound of the shofars, without a sword (Joshua 6). At Gibeon the sun stood still for him until he defeated the southern kings (Joshua 10), a sign that nature itself was enlisted in the war of God.

At the end of his days Joshua gathered all the tribes to Shechem and made a covenant with them, setting before them the choice: 'but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord' (Joshua 24). He divided the land among the tribes by lot, and rooted in the people the bond between the inheritance and the covenant.

Joshua is the second link in the chain of transmission: 'Moshe received the Torah at Sinai and handed it to Joshua' (Pirkei Avot 1:1). From him we learned that true greatness is not only to lead, but to receive faithfully and to hand on whole, so that the Torah lives in our hands to this day.