Haftara Toldot: The Gift of Influence

Toldot: The Gift of Influence

How should influence and authority be used to benefit others?

We usually think of tzedakah in material terms. One person has money, food, or another tangible resource and gives some of it to someone who has less. But not every valuable resource can be measured financially. Some people possess knowledge, connections, credibility, professional standing, communal authority, or the ability to make decisions that affect other people’s lives. A recommendation from the right person can create an opportunity, an introduction can open a door, and a teacher’s encouragement can redirect a student’s future. These forms of influence are easy to overlook because they do not feel like possessions, yet the Haftarah of Toldot suggests that influence creates responsibility precisely because other people may depend on how it is used.

The Haftarah begins with the relationship between Yaakov and Esav, the two brothers at the center of Parashat Toldot, but Malachi quickly turns from the history of those brothers to the conduct of the kohanim, the religious leaders responsible for serving in the Temple and teaching the people. Their failure is not simply that they have made mistakes. The deeper problem is that they have failed to understand what their position is for. Malachi contrasts corrupt leadership with an ideal when he says, “For the lips of the priest should guard knowledge, and Torah should be sought from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of Hosts” (Malachi 2:7). The kohen possesses knowledge, standing, and religious authority, but those resources are not presented as private achievements. They exist because other people need what the kohen has been entrusted to provide. That makes the Haftarah a powerful reflection on one of the less obvious forms of generosity: the responsible use of influence.

When Influence Becomes a Private Possession

The central problem in Malachi is not simply ignorance. The kohanim know that they occupy positions of responsibility, but a position of service can easily become something that exists primarily for the person holding it. Malachi accuses the kohanim of dishonoring the service entrusted to them and of failing to teach and guide properly. Immediately after describing the ideal priest, he tells them that they have departed from that path and caused many people to stumble through their teaching (Malachi 2:8). Their failure therefore does not remain personal. It spreads because their influence spreads.

This is one of the difficult realities of influence: the more people who depend on our judgment, the less private our choices become. A teacher who humiliates a student may shape that student’s relationship with learning for years. An employer who consistently notices only people who resemble those already in leadership can quietly determine who receives an opportunity. A donor may influence which communal needs receive attention, while a longstanding member of an institution may determine whether a newcomer feels welcomed or invisible. None of these people need to think of themselves as powerful. The question is simpler: can something I do make it easier or harder for another person to move forward? If the answer is yes, then some degree of influence has been placed in my hands, and the moral question is what I do with it.

Knowledge That Exists for Others

Malachi’s description of the ideal kohen is especially revealing because it describes knowledge as something that must remain available to others. “The lips of the priest should guard knowledge, and Torah should be sought from his mouth.” The kohen certainly has an obligation to know, but knowledge alone is not the completion of his role. Other people must be able to seek Torah from him, which means that his learning carries a public dimension. What he knows is not only for himself.

This principle extends well beyond formal religious leadership. Knowledge is one of the resources human beings accumulate throughout life. A professional spends years learning a field, a parent gains experience that a younger parent does not yet have, and a community member learns how institutions actually function. An older employee knows which mistakes younger colleagues can avoid, while a person who has navigated illness, bureaucracy, immigration, education, or financial difficulty may understand a system that appears impossible to someone encountering it for the first time. The knowledge may have been acquired personally, but its value can become communal. A person can hoard expertise by allowing others to struggle through every difficulty alone, or that same person can turn knowledge into a form of generosity. The difference lies not in what the person knows, but in whether what they know becomes available to someone else.

Tzedakah Beyond Money

This brings the Haftarah directly into the world of tzedakah. Rambam famously describes eight levels of tzedakah, and the highest is not simply giving the largest amount of money. It is strengthening a person before they become dependent on others, including through a gift, a loan, partnership, or helping the person find work (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Matanot Aniyim 10:7). Helping someone find work is particularly significant in this context because it may require money, but often it requires something else: an introduction, a recommendation, a chance to interview, or someone willing to say, “I know this person, and I think you should speak with them.”

In such a case, the resource being given is not primarily financial. It is influence. Seen this way, one of Rambam’s highest forms of tzedakah may involve spending social or professional capital for the benefit of another person. That expands the meaning of generosity considerably. A person may not be able to give a large donation, but may be able to introduce someone to an employer. A senior professional may not be able to solve someone’s financial difficulties directly, but may be able to mentor that person into greater independence. A communal leader may not personally provide every needed service, but may know whom to call. The gift is not always money; sometimes the gift is access, credibility, or simply the willingness to use one’s standing on behalf of someone who does not yet possess the same standing themselves.

Responsibility Follows Influence

The Talmud gives this idea a remarkably direct formulation. In Shabbat 54b, the Sages teach that responsibility corresponds to a person’s sphere of influence. Someone capable of protesting wrongdoing within the household bears responsibility there, someone whose influence extends to the people of the city bears a broader responsibility, and those whose authority extends still farther are held accountable accordingly. The teaching does not say that everyone is responsible for everything. Instead, it suggests that responsibility begins where our ability to affect the situation begins.

That principle is both demanding and practical. We are not asked to solve every social problem, rescue every struggling person, or repair every institution, but we are asked to notice the places where our particular position gives us unusual ability to help. One person may have money, another may have information, another may know the decision-maker, and another may have enough authority to challenge a harmful policy. Someone else may simply be the person whose invitation determines whether a person standing at the edge of the room feels that they belong. Different people possess different forms of influence, and the obligation is not identical for everyone because the resource is not identical. The Talmud’s principle is therefore deeply consistent with Malachi’s criticism of the kohanim: they are held responsible precisely because people depend upon them.

The Difference Between Status and Stewardship

The Haftarah also forces us to distinguish between two very different ways of understanding leadership: status and stewardship. Status asks what a position says about the person who holds it, while stewardship asks what the person is now able to do because they hold that position. The distinction is easy to miss because leadership often comes with visible forms of honor. A title, office, expertise, seniority, reputation, or communal role can all increase a person’s standing, and there is nothing inherently wrong with honor. The danger begins when honor becomes the purpose of the position.

Malachi’s ideal kohen is not praised merely for being important. He is praised because truth is in his mouth, he walks uprightly, and people are able to seek Torah from him. His value as a leader is measured by what others receive through him. That may offer a useful test for leadership generally. If a person leaves a position having accumulated prestige but having strengthened no one else, something important has been missed. If, however, people become wiser, more capable, more secure, more confident, or more able to contribute because of that person’s leadership, then influence has been transformed into service. That is stewardship: treating authority not as something owned, but as something entrusted.

The Opportunities We Can Give

This way of thinking makes everyday forms of tzedakah easier to notice. A young person may be trying to enter your profession, and you can explain how the field actually works. Someone may be searching for employment, and you know a person who is hiring. A new family may join the community, and you can make sure they are invited rather than waiting for them to find their own way in. Someone quieter than the usual voices may have a valuable idea, and you can create the space for that person to be heard. A colleague may have done good work, and you can mention their contribution when they are not in the room. Someone may be ready for greater responsibility, and you can give them an opportunity rather than continuing to do everything yourself.

These acts may appear small to the person performing them, but they may not appear small to the recipient. A five-minute introduction can alter a career, a word of support from a respected person can overcome another person’s hesitation, and an invitation into responsibility can change someone from a passive participant into a future leader. This is one reason influence is such an important moral resource. Its cost to the giver may be relatively small while its value to the recipient may be enormous. Financial generosity transfers something we possess; generous leadership sometimes does something different by using what we possess to increase what another person is able to become.

Leadership Without a Title

One danger in speaking about leadership is that many people immediately exclude themselves because they are not rabbis, executives, elected officials, teachers, or board members. But formal authority is only one kind of influence. Within a family, one person may set the emotional tone. Within a group of friends, one person’s approval may carry unusual weight. Within a synagogue, an established member may have more power to create belonging than anyone listed on the organizational chart. Within a workplace, a respected employee may influence younger colleagues despite having no formal managerial authority.

A person does not need a title in order for someone else’s welfare to be affected by their choices. The better question is not simply, “Am I a leader?” It is to ask where my word carries weight, who listens when I speak, whose opportunities I can expand, whom I can recommend, who might benefit from something I know, and where I can make another person more visible. Those questions reveal forms of influence that are otherwise easy to overlook, and they also reveal forms of tzedakah that cost no money at all.

What Are We Doing With What We Have Been Given?

The Haftarah of Toldot asks how influence and authority should be used to benefit others, and its answer begins with the kohen. His knowledge, position, and religious authority are not merely markers of distinction. They exist because people need guidance from him. When he uses that role properly, he helps others walk uprightly; when he corrupts it, others stumble. Rambam expands the idea through his description of tzedakah that helps another person become independent. Sometimes that strengthening requires money, and sometimes it requires opportunity. The Talmud then gives us the broader principle that responsibility grows wherever influence grows.

Together, these sources ask us to recognize a form of wealth that rarely appears in discussions of charity. Some people possess financial capital, while others also possess social capital, professional capital, intellectual capital, institutional knowledge, credibility, access, or authority. These resources create possibilities, and possibilities can be shared. The practical challenge of the Haftarah is therefore not simply to ask what we can give away, but what we can make possible. Who could benefit from an introduction? Who needs someone to speak on their behalf? Who could move forward if given information we already possess? Who is waiting for an opportunity that we have the ability to create?

We often imagine generosity as giving something from our hands into someone else’s. Toldot asks us to consider another form of giving: sometimes the most important thing we can give another person is the opportunity that becomes possible because we chose to use our influence well.