Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2013 | Page 28

SERIES

THINGS I LEARNED…

WHILE TEACHING EVERYONE ELSE
BY RABBI YOSSY GOLDMAN

MY MADIBA MOMENT
THESE DAYS, EVERYONE AND THEIR SISTER-IN-LAW
seem to have their own “Madiba moment”. But I still think our family story
is quite unique. So here goes.
Once upon a time, to be exact, it was
Sunday afternoon on 26 June 1994 (17
Tammuz), and I was on my way home from
a meeting. As I was about to turn from African Street into Trilby Street, Oaklands,
where we live, there – walking down the
road was the tall, stately and unmistakable
figure of the then newly elected President
Nelson Mandela.
Madiba was taking a
Sunday stroll, accompanied
by only two uniformed policemen (I remember thinking that the security was
unusually weak). I quickly
pulled into my driveway,
ran into the house, and told
my kids to hurry outside so
they could have a chance to
meet Mandela. We all ran
back to African Street and
there he was.
My son Mendel, (then a teenager and
today a property developer in Johannesburg), had the presence of mind and political astuteness to quickly find an ANC
badge and pin it to his chest!
The president gave the impression
that he had all the time in the world.
He stopped to greet every child, asking
their names, and which school they attended. When my son Yisroel gave his
name, and I translated it as “Israel”,
Madiba said he would soon be going to
Israel with his friend, the late Chief
Rabbi Cyril Harris (indeed, that visit
eventually did take place). When my
then baby son Nissen (today a married

26 JEWISH LIFE

ISSUE 67

MOSHE TAUGHT US THAT
ONE CAN BE A MAN OF
IMMENSE TALENT,
STRENGTH, ACHIEVEMENT
AND PHENOMENAL
SUCCESS AND STILL NOT
LET IT GO TO HIS HEAD.
man) wouldn’t turn around to talk to
the president, Mandela quipped: “This
one is still fighting old battles!”
Madiba then carried on walking up African Street, only now he had a little entourage with him, and he was holding the
hands of my children Sarah (today the
rebbetzin of Gardens Shul, Cape Town)
and Yisroel, (today a photographer in the
USA). He walked with them, hand-inhand, all the way to the Cheltondale
Park, a few blocks away.
For me, it was an amazing insight into
what true leadership was all about. Here
was the president of our country, and an
international icon, spending an inordi-

nate amount of time with ordinary people and taking a keen interest in small
children. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine
PW Botha or even FW De Klerk (or, for
that matter, even Barack Obama!) doing
the same.
It reinforced the principle taught in
the Torah about Moses. The great Moshe,
who took us out of Egypt, who split the
sea, and who gave us Hashem’s Torah, is
described in the Bible as “the humblest
man on the face of the earth”. But how
can it be possible, we all wonder, for such
a powerful leader to be humble at all?
Moses, who stared down Pharaoh himself, who fought the mightiest warriors