Last month I became the new president of the local rabbinical association. Don’t congratulate me. I accepted the role grumbling, slightly under duress, and very reluctantly.

This is my second time serving as president. My first two-year term began in May 2020, just months after the pandemic started and while all hell was breaking loose.

Like everyone else, I was trying to figure out how to get through each day in a rapidly changing world. And lead a congregation. And serve a motley crew of rabbis who were all freaking out, just like everyone else.

It was hard. Much harder than it will be this time. But leading any group of people is hard work, especially when you’re doing it off the corner of your desk while also taking care of everything else that your job and your life throw at you.

Today, when I had carved out time to set up the email list and send a schedule of meetings for the year, I instead found myself sitting on the floor of the veterinarian’s office, working out a hospice plan for my elderly dog.

Given my own experience with a simple little job, I don’t know why Korach thought he wanted Moses’ position in this week’s Torah portion. Anyone could see that Moses had an insanely difficult job. Even God seemed to have trouble leading the Children of Israel. Did Korach truly think he could do better?

But doing a better job than Moses wasn’t his goal. As Rabbi Evan Krame writes, “On the surface, Korach speaks the language of justice and equality. ‘All the community is holy,’ he declares, as though he were defending the dignity of every individual. Yet the tradition unmasks his rebellion as one driven less by service than by ego. The problem is not that Korach asks difficult questions; the problem is that his questions become instruments of self-elevation rather than pathways toward communal responsibility.”

I doubt that Moses felt compelled to keep his position because he enjoyed the accolades or power. He continued to serve the community—even when they were at their most contentious—because by serving them he was serving God.

Korach looked at leadership and saw status. Moses saw leadership as service.

This is true leadership. And it is demanding. Draining. Exhausting. Nearly impossible to sustain over long periods of time.

Leaders always surround themselves with advisors to help accomplish the myriad tasks of leadership. But it also helps to have someone by your side who knows you better than anyone else and, more important, loves you.

At the beginning of this Torah portion, Korach has three collaborators. But one of them disappears immediately after the introduction. We don’t see his name again.

What happened to On son of Peleth? The Bible doesn’t say, but there is a story told elsewhere that says his wife intervened, thus saving him from standing with Korach and suffering the same fate.

Perhaps that is one of the lessons of successful leadership. No one carries the burden alone. Moses had siblings Aaron and Miriam. The son of Peleth had his wife.

Adoration and power are heady things. Good for the ego. But devotion to community and the love of family and friends are what leaders need to survive and succeed.