We Don't Need Pied Pipers

When schools or houses of worship are looking for someone to work with their children – teachers or principals, for example  - you’ll hear people say, “We want to find a pied piper.”  

What they usually mean by that is, someone charismatic who will inspire children.   When we think of the “pied piper,” we imagine someone playing a flute and all the children are mesmerized and following behind.

The actual story is quite a bit darker.  There are several versions of it that originate in medieval Germany but the gist of the story is that a man is hired by a village that is overrun by rats to get rid of the rats.  He starts to play the flute, all the rats are attracted and mesmerized by the sound of the music, they follow behind the man.  He leads them to a river where they all drown.

The mayor of the village doesn’t "pay the piper."  He reneges on the original agreement.  So the piper seeks revenge.  He plays a different tune on his flute which attracts all of the children, who line up behind him and skip along.  In one version he leads them to a cave, in another into a river, but they are never heard from again.

Charisma is a quality that we often associate with leadership and a quality that we like to see in our leaders whether they are working with adults or children – who wants a shleppy leader?   Appropriately channeled, it can be a positive part of successful leadership.  But charisma can be dangerous.  And I would argue that it should not be the primary quality we look for when we consider leadership.

Online and print media have been abuzz with discussion about Marc Gafni, a spiritual leader who first received Orthodox ordination and subsequently was ordained by the Renewal movement. 

Changing Unhealthy Patterns

I imagine you have heard the joke I’m about to share, but please bear with me since I’m sharing it for a higher purpose...

Joan lives at home and has been looking for the right man to marry, but time after time it doesn’t work out because her parents don’t approve of whomever she brings home.  She goes to her friend for advice, the friend says – “Joan, find someone just like your father and bring him home for dinner.”  Which Joan does.

The next day, Joan’s friend asks how it went and Joan says,  “It was terrible.”  “What happened?”  “Well,” Joan says, “My father loved him.”  “So what was the problem?” her friend wonders.  And Joan says, “Unfortunately, my mother couldn’t stand him.”

In case you were wondering what happens when you Google “marrying someone like you father,” now you know...

To a large extent, for a host of reasons, we tend to maintain the same patterns of behavior, generation after generation.  Even when we want to act differently, even when we are convinced that we should make changes, we tend to replicate certain patterns. 

Suppose we truly want to make progress?  Suppose we recognize that we absolutely must address areas that are problematic?

The extended narrative we’ve been reading in the Book of Genesis about several generations in the life of a family may be instructive.  This is a family has had its share of tsorres, its share of aggravation.  

Murillo, "Joseph and his Brethren," c. 1670

And it also has an array of interesting personality traits and patterns.

This is a family that keeps secrets, where people aren’t always truthful to one another, where people keep animosity inside until it ruptures and causes them to act in treacherous ways, where siblings compete with one another with results that are often tragic.

That’s certainly true of the generation of Jacob.  And what about the children, Joseph and company?  Perhaps not surprisingly, you see some of the same traits.

But the book of Genesis offers the possibility that the current generation can break free of some of the negative patterns of the previous generation and also maintain the positive.