The Haftarah selection matched to this week, I Kings 18:46-19:21, tells the story of the prophet Elijah. He flees to the desert after committing some acts of violence, and travels 40 days and nights until he reaches Mount Horeb, aka Mount Sinai. "What are you doing here?" Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, in JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary, suggests that God isn't asking rhetorically, Elijah, what are you doing here? Rather, God is asking, what are you doing HERE, in THIS place, where I revealed my Torah? This place is known for a particular kind of experience. God then puts on a sound and light show for Elijah like the one the Israelites experienced during revelation, but it isn't in the multi-sensory experience that Elijah experiences the divine. Rather, it's in the still, small voice that he senses in the quiet after the experience.

Now, I wouldn't compare RJ on the Go to revelation, but less than two weeks ago we launched a virtual space in which hundreds of people are having multi-sensory experiences. For some, it may be a sound and light show. For others, we hope there maybe a touch of the sacred, or an experience of intimate connection. I think I can safely say that all of us here in THIS virtual space hope that the virtual space of RJ on the Go becomes known for both kinds of experiences.
This week's parasha is filled with headline events: Pinchas has an extreme and violent reaction to the behavior of other community members; the daughters of Zelophehad successfully petition for inheritance rights; Moses sees the Land he will not live to set foot into; God chooses Joshua as the next leader of the Israelite community. In each of these instances, there is a plot twist - something does not go as expected. In our own story, there have been plot twists and things that have not gone as expected. When Moses learns that he will not lead our people into the Promised Land, the next thing he does is ask God to appoint new leadership. I think that we can learn something from this interaction that will speak to our own leadership journey.

Rashi comments twice on this passage. What's bothering Rashi?

• Why does Moses open the conversation with God at this moment?
• Why does Moses use the phrase source of the spirits of all flesh? Wouldn't source of all flesh suffice?

Just like God was looking for a leader who would tolerate each person according to his individual character, we are building experiences that will meet each person according to their individual character. Likewise, each of us has a unique character.

Rabbi Shammai Engelmayer, Common Ground, pp. 288-289
To begin with, just as we do not know why someone is chosen by God, we also do not know for what purpose that person actually has been chosen. When we first learn that God has chosen Moshe, we assume it was because Moshe had the qualities needed to lead Israel from Egypt to Canaan. As the story unfolds, however, we realize that Moshe has trouble leading his way out of a paper bag. He cannot convince the pharaoh to let Israel go (God does that); and, in forty years of trying, he cannot convince Israel that God is God and must be obeyed. His leadership qualities were not why God chose Moshe.
In Yehoshua's case, of course, a fair case can be made that he was chosen because God knew he would be an excellent military commander, thus leading Israel to the Promised Land. After all, is that not precisely what Yehoshua does? No, it is not. Yehoshua dies before the conquest is complete (and, indeed, it is never completed the way the Torah had outlined it.)