Mindfulness and Leadership

 At the end of the Tanach, or the Five Books of Moses, HaShem through Moses gives his parting advice to the Children of Israel as Moses ascends to Mount Nebo.  Moses reminds the children of Israel that freedom from Egypt has given then free will to chose for themselves the path of righteousness or immorality.  The children of Israel are told that they must pay attention to the choices they make because they are responsible to each other, not to HaShem, for their behaviour and their choices. Rabbinic Judaism embellished on this and taught how Yom Kippur provides us with an opportunity to amend our ways and atone for those sins we have committed to each other primarily.  We are told that treating each other properly is the essence of the 613 Mitzvot and essentially, as the Christ taught, do unto others as you would have them do on to  you. At the same time that I was reading over various commentaries on the week's Parsha, I also read some articles in Educational Leadership that referred to the concept of Mindfulness.  This concept advocates for the idea that we need to, as educators, be ever-mindful of the needs of our students and who they are as people.  In my mind, the mindfulness that we need to employ in the classroom is no different than the respect we need to give to others so that we can be respected back and it is the same as the mindfulness leaders must employ if they want others to follow them.  In each of these three situations, we must acknowledge and act on that acknowledgement, not just pay lip service, to the idea that each of us is a person in our own right and we have needs that are no different than those of the next person or student or follower.  It requires, as I often told my students, the disposition to others of empathy.  No one walks in our shoes but no one can walk in any one else's shoes and all we can do is try to understand what the other person is thinking or feeling or needing so that we show them the respect and the esteem that they deserve. Mindfulness is an approach to the world that more of us need to practice, day in and day out.