What if in between the two courtyards was a haystack with the minimum height to count as a wall?  The courtyards would be legally separated as long as the haystack was not diminished to less than that height. The Mishnah stated that men on both sides can feed their animals from the haystack.  In the Gemara, Rav Human qualifies this allowance that men can let their animals eat but cannot put hay into their basket to bring to their animals.  The men would take more hay than the animals would eat on their own.  Rashi explains that animals, left to themselves, eat slowly and there is no concern they will reduce the haystack to below effective height.  But men take more and may indeed reduce it.

When you do for others, give your time and effort, don’t go overboard.  Never do more than others actually need.  Don’t make a show of helping out extra to get appreciation or to create a covert contract, expecting reciprocation . Just do what is appropriate, not more.

There is another level, that animals eat only what they need, while men take extra.  If you are accustomed to taking only the minimal necessities in life, you won’t have to work as hard to afford what you think you need.  When you simplify and downsize your life and possessions, you will find more time for intellectual and spiritual pursuits.

The Talmud is on the topic of two courtyards separated by a wall or ditch, examining when these two areas could join in a common Eruv.  If the wall is too high or the ditch too deep, they cannot join.  If there is a breach in the wall up to a certain size, they may join if they wish, but a large enough breach requires them to join.

If both sides leaned ladders against the wall, this makes the wall inconsequential and they can join together since now they have access.  However, the Gemara is particular about the type of ladder.  An Egyptian ladder can be moved on the Sabbath, so it does not neutralize the wall since someone might just walk off with it.  A Tyrian ladder (more of a step stool) does neutralize the wall.  Even though it is movable, it is quite heavy, so people don’t think of it as movable.  Therefore the Tyrian ladder placed at the wall is considered as part of the wall.

If you contemplate your own life, you will find that there are things you had assumed were permanent and unmovable, which in fact did change and are no longer part of your life.  What you assume is a fixed part of your existence may turn out to be only temporary.  However, keeping it fixed in your mind will make it a part of you forever.  This can be beneficial, if you are recalling an event that gave you inspiration and energy.  However, it can be dangerous for a man to dwell on past items that are now gone.  Sometimes you need to gather the resolve to move the ladder that you had thought would always be there.

We continue discussing two courtyards with a wall between; yesterday we learned that placing ladders by the wall neutralizes the dividing effects of the wall.  It is as if there is an opening in the wall so the two yards are linked and can join in one Eruv.  What if you did not have ladders, but had a tree that could function as a ladder?  That would be effective, but our ancient rabbis decreed that Jews not climb trees on Shabbat, since it was common to break of branches in the process, which is a Biblical prohibition.  The rabbis have the power to enact additional restrictions to prevent men from committing Biblical prohibitions.

So in physical reality, the tree is there by the wall, serving as an effective ladder.  But in the reality of Jewish law, Jews cannot use the tree on the Sabbath, so perhaps it doesn’t work.  The rabbis explain that we view this situation as if there is an opening there, but a lion is crouched there waiting to attack.  The tree counts as a valid opening in the wall, even though Jewish law forbids using the tree as a ladder on Shabbat.

This is an interesting concept to keep in mind:  many people inhabit the same physical reality you do, but they experience the world differently because of their emotions, thought processes and interpretations of reality.  You can see the differences by how they act.  Both a Jew and non-Jew would see the tree as a convenient way over that wall, but on Shabbat the Jew acts as if there was a lion in the tree.

Religious Jews are well aware that we see the actual world through the lens of the Bible and Jewish law, we know our handicap.  However, most men are blissfully or miserably unaware of the lens through which they experience the world.  Many don’t even know why they act the way they do; it is the result off never questioning the default framework of life they were raised within.

In Chanukah and the Red Pill we discussed being aware of and choosing the framework through which you wish to live life

The Talmud notes that an adjoining house or apartment may serve as a “gatehouse” for another residence.  This was more common in ancient times, when many families lived around one courtyard, and sometimes the only access one house had to the yard was through another.  In that instance the outer residence serves as a gatehouse for the inner.

What about when there are two adjoining homes situated between two courtyards, and the owner of each places his Eruv in the other, since it also serves as his gatehouse.  The problem is that if both places are homes, neither are gatehouses, and cannot be a valid place for the Eruv of the other residence.  The Gemara notes that even though we are lenient when resolving doubts in the status of an Eruv, that is only when the doubts do not create a contradiction.  Here you cannot look at the situation and say one is a home and the other a gatehouse, then reverse yourself and say no this is the gatehouse and that is the home.

The lesson is to be consistent.  If you allow certain behaviors from certain people, others will see this and assume they can get away with the same thing.  Don’t allow a situation where you serve in one role while also trying to serve another role to make someone else happy.

This week we study Noah, Genesis 6:9–11:32.  Last year, based on the events that happened after the flood, we explored the deeper meaning of abortion and castration, and the larger question of who controls birth and human reproduction.

We all know the story of Noah’s Ark.  What many of us forget is the reasons behind God’s decision to send the epic flood to wipe out almost all of mankind (our sages bring an ancient tradition that there was a partial flood already in the generation of Enosh).

In our reading we see that the world was corrupt due to becoming full of extortion (Gen 6:11) and all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth (6:12).  “Corruption”, typically means sexual perversion, and extortion is corruption in the financial or business arena.

When God speaks to Noah, He states: “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth has become full of robbery because of them” (6:13).  This word robbery “hamas” can also connote extortion, kidnapping, murder and racketeering.

So which was the root cause of the flood, the robbery or the “corruption”?

The Bible, 6:11, links them: “Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth became full of robbery”.  This hints that the corruption came before the robbery and caused it.  The sexual corruption is described at the end of the reading for Genesis, chapter 6:

1 And it came to pass when man commenced to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them.
2 That the sons of the powerful saw the daughters of man when they were beautifying themselves, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose.
3 And the Lord said, “Let My spirit not quarrel forever concerning man, because he is also flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the nobles would come to the daughters of man, and they would bear for them; they are the mighty men, who were of old, the men of renown.
5 And the Lord saw that the evil of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil all the time.

The rich and powerful men were seeing attractive women and taking wives “from whomever they chose”.  That doesn’t sound so terrible, we generally expect the rich and powerful to be able to attract a beautiful wife.  However, these men would even choose married women, other men, children and animals.  

Our ancient sages explain what was going on, based on the ancient Medrash.  Medrash are collections of traditions that provide context and background to the Bible, they were passed down orally for generations and eventually written.  Rashi (a great sage in France 1000 years ago) brings these explanations from Medrash:

“sons of nobles” The sons of princes and rulers (Genesis Rabbah 26:15).  Another explanation of בני האלהים is that these were princely angels who came as messengers from God: they, too, intermingled with them (the daughters of men).

“when they were beautifying themselves” Rabbi Judan said: “It is written here טבת, for when they were being made to appear especially “good” by being decked out to be taken beneath the marriage canopy, one of the powerful would come and carry her off first (Genesis Rabbah 26:5).
“from whomever they chose” even if it were a married woman, or a man or an animal (Genesis Rabbah 26:5).

It appears that the rich and powerful started off by taking women on their wedding day, when they were literally about to marry another man.  Then, bored of that public conquest, they started into seducing or raping already married women, then moved onto intimacy with other men, then even with animals.  When the Bible says the “entire” earth was corrupt, it includes the animals, who had learned from the human depravity to mate with other species.

Not only did the nobles and leaders engage in sexual relations with anyone and anything, they also contracted marriages between men and animals – “they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose“.  “Took” implies a marriage, meaning that these men would write a marriage contract to put a false stamp of dignity and propriety on their lust.

Rashi brings the alternate explanation these “sons of nobles” were angels, this is a bit odd since angels only do the will of God and shouldn’t be a source of corruption.  Another ancient Medrash, Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer (22), brings a tradition that the humans were publicly engaging in illicit relations, and angels that had fallen from their holy place saw the human behaviors and the women made up like harlots and strayed after them.

It could be that the human degradation affected not only animals but even angels sent down to earth.  This explains why they gave birth to giants.  Some speculate that the “Nephilim”, literally fallen, could have been extraterrestrials, and there are tantalizing hints to this in scriptures.  It is not at all certain that even modern men would be able to differentiate between angels and aliens…

Onkelus, a great sage who was the Caesar’s nephew before he converted, translated the Bible into Aramaic, the vernacular 2000 years ago.  His translation is based on the accepted traditions of what the words literally mean, while Rashi’s commentary based on the Medrash often departs from the literal words.  Onkelus translates the Hebrew b’nai Elohim as “bne ravrevaya” sons of nobles or sons of powerful.

Let’s stick with the assumption and the Aramaic that these were human men, the sons of the leaders.  We also know from tradition that this generation was much more rich than previous generations.

The Medrash on 5:29 explains that the curse from Adam’s time was now lifted and the earth gave plentiful crops.  Perhaps these men, having become extremely rich, realized they were able to seduce beautiful women, and developed a voracious appetite for lust.

These “princes” were rich, powerful, politically protected, and began to feel entitled to take women that were supposed to belong to other men.  It could be that they outright stole the women and carried them away.  However, there is a decent chance that a woman pursued by one of the most elite men of her society went along willingly.

Understand: if an average woman, in her wedding dress and makeup with her hair done, is approached by an average man and asked to leave her fiance – really her groom – for him, she would most likely refuse.  Can you imagine the insult?

But if the new man is far from average, but is in fact the very top of his social pyramid, displaying all the trappings of riches and power, she may well say yes.  Or at least not resist his advances as much as a loyal wife should.  After all, she will be moving way up in the world to mate with the greatest man in her world.  She may even collude with the new man to make it appear like she is being abducted so she doesn’t have to look disloyal to the lesser man.

This is an illustration of hypergamy, meaning a woman’s desire to mate with, and if possible marry, the best man she can get.  Or at least a man of higher status than she has now.  If she can marry the prince or the billionaire, you bet she is going to leave the simple farmer waiting at the ancient altar.  This is true even if she will merely be one of the girls in the royal harem.  It gives her more status and security to share the highest level man than to have all the attention of one man who is low on the totem pole.

What does this sexual depravity have to do with robbery and extortion?

I speculate that the average men saw the rich and powerful princes getting their way, taking their brides, then even their wives.  And later their children and animals too.  The normal men wanted some security, so they had to become or at least appear rich and powerful to women.  They wanted to buy female loyalty with status.

So they started to steal wealth from other men to improve their own status, to gain leverage in getting or keeping women.  If they became rich then their wives would be less likely to abandon them for the princes.  They understood the danger of hypergamy combined with the appeal of the rich and powerful men relative to their own.

The word used for robbery, “Hamas” also means extortion.  Extortion typically means taking without paying, by threat of force.  “Hamas” as a term in Jewish law connotes giving money for an item that the owner does not want to part with and taking it.  Even though there was payment or promised  payment, there was no agreement to sell from the seller.

We can speculate that men in Noah’s time, anxious about losing their women, used extortion to obtain items that gave them the appearance of higher status.  A man may have extorted jewelry, fine garments, or whatever passed for a Ferrari back then.  He may even have promised to pay for them, going into massive debt in order to give himself the appearance of being rich and powerful.  A desperate man was willing to steal, cheat, extort and go into debt to try to keep his woman or win other women.  He needed to look rich and powerful to buy female loyalty.

Here is where you, wise reader, will stop and think “Are things so different today?”
We see the rich and powerful, leaders and influencers, engage in sexual perversion and get away with it.  The media is now a well oiled machine for burying scandals that could bring down their anointed sons of princes.  We see women go after rich or powerful men, even if they are already married, and seduce them.  We see many men trying to get rich or at least look rich, so they too can have access to women.

Women only want the most wealthy or attractive men.  A study by OkCupid (an online dating service) reported that women find 80 percent of men unattractive.  This was based on the women seeing pictures of the men.  There is a modern saying that women want a man with “three sixes”: six-pack abs, six plus feet tall, and six figure earnings.  For men not blessed with height and good looks, having the appearance of wealth can offset that issue.

The Bible warns us about the outcome of men trying so hard ape the rich and powerful to win female attention.  When men are desperate to obtain the trappings of luxury in order to get women, they will stoop to theft and extortion, undermining the foundation of society.  They are trying to get rich not by producing something useful, but by cheating or grifting other men out of their wealth.

This may be outright theft, or more subtle like selling other men schemes to get rich or get girls, or setting themselves up as an influencer and promoter.  A man can made a fortune selling other men empty ideas that they could become greater, richer, and more successful.  When the seller is invested in making his own fortune, not in the actual growth of his buyers, this is a form of extortion.

An even more virulent idea hucksters can sell gullible men is “you are fine the way you are, you don’t need to change”.  This is even worse than selling a man a false plan to change himself.  Men need to change, to become something (see Gen 2:24); selling the comfortable lie that they are okay as they are destroys a man’s potential.  It closes his eyes to the possibility that there may be a new way to see the world and act on it, it neuters him.

You have to be aware of the motivations of people who are trying to sell you ideas, plans, and success.  There are many grifters out there, and the internet makes it easy and convenient for them.  We have discussed the need to Vet your guru:

…don’t try to get personal guidance have someone who is not properly guiding himself.  Choose your guru or rabbi carefully.  These days many people have a public persona they use to sell their product or their advice.  They look great, from the outside. However, that is not always consistent with their real private life.  If someone is selling you a path to the perfect life since their life is perfect, don’t believe it.

One of the benefits of going back to the Bible for wisdom to use in your life is that there is no profit motive.  God doesn’t make any money when you buy or read a Bible, Jews don’t have a copyright, I don’t see a penny.  God wants you to be the best man you can be, which takes your hard work on yourself.  It can’t be done with any six week course or secret guide sold online.  The Bible is the guide to life and it’s free, but it takes a lifetime of study and application to gain the benefits.

Social buffers

Back to the sex and violence.  In Noah’s generation the powerful men took women, then men, children and animals too.  They even wrote marriage contracts to pretend these relationships were “kosher”.

The regular men wanted to protect their own access to women, so they had to appear rich as well.  So they resorted to theft, extortion, and grift to get rich.  Both groups were crashing through vital social buffers.  Social buffers are expectations on behavior that keep society humming along.  For example, if you see a woman in her wedding dress about to get married, you don’t try to seduce her.  But the “sons of powerful” did exactly that.

If you see a brick maker drying his bricks in the sun, you don’t steal a brick.  Sure, he had thousands of bricks laying there and won’t miss one, but there are social conventions that such a thing simply isn’t done.  Our sages bring an ancient tradition that the men of Noah’s time did that, justifying this theft since each item stolen was worth only a tiny amount of money.  A man would put out his produce to dry, and other men would come and take one.  The owner couldn’t possibly pursue every thief. 

The thieves justified their acts, feeling they were doing nothing wrong since the owner had thousands of bricks.  They were eroding the social buffers against theft.  Eventually, even murder, racketeering, kidnapping and extortion were normalized.  Removing the stigma against evil reduces the social cost of committing evil.  Then you get more of it.

The generation of Noah, decadent and perverted, destroyed by their own hand the social buffers that were protecting society.  God decided to start over with Noah, a righteous man, and his family.  And even that family had it’s own share of issues, as we saw after the flood.  We can only imagine how depraved the men were before the flood, writing up marriage contracts to children and animals.

In our own generation, many social buffers that kept mainstream culture working for centuries are long gone.  A famous example is hormonal birth control, which allows women to engage in premarital relations without fear of pregnancy.  Before reliable birth control, an unmarried woman had to be concerned that she would get pregnant and then be abandoned by the man, putting herself at serious risk.

Getting pregnant by the wrong man could be a death sentence, or get her kicked out of her tribe or village.  There was a buffer in society, in her mind and feelings, that made her reluctant to engage in premarital sex.  She was aware of the consequences.  This was the biological reality and social norm.  It longer exists, except for girls growing up in a very religious subculture, and even then, some choose to leave that setting and the buffers it maintains.

It would be a mistake for men, for anyone, to assume we still have effective social buffers and to rely on them.  You can no longer assume “society” or “culture” will to the work of enforcing certain behaviors on other people, especially on young women.  They will behave the way God (or evolution if you want to believe in that) programmed their biology: through the lens of hypergamy.

Absent effective social buffers, women will try to lock down the best man they can get, even if it means cheating or taking the husband of another woman.  No, I’m not saying every woman will, but any woman could, if she had the ability and did not feel constrained by social buffers.  Yes, there are exceptions in religious groups, and some women in mainstream society even buy into the old rules, but this is rare.  I am speaking in general, not about your specific case.

What a man must do today is to become aware that he cannot rely on social buffers anymore.  A man must instead make and enforce his own boundaries in relationships.  The hard work has to come for you, developing your sense of self worth and living the life you want to lead.  You must decide your own personal boundaries.  Yes, the Bible has some non negotiable requirements, such as avoiding adultery and cuckoldry.

But most of your life is spent in the day to day grind, you need to work to understand you own needs, what you want out of life, your mission.  Then you make the commitment to be intolerant of behaviors from others that undermine your needs and your mission.  Boundaries have to come from you, not an appeal to the Book, or to a woman’s morals.

If men had firm boundaries and clear expectations of female behavior, this would change the world.  Women would slowly become aware that they had to conform to these expectations or they would not be eligible to get with high value men.  If the majority of men in a society have strict boundaries, the women understand what to do to get along with the men and change their behavior.  This recreates the social buffer that washed away in the flood of decadence and sexual corruption.

The Talmud debates if making a partnership in a shared alley requires more than one courtyard opening on the alley.

Shmuel said only one yard was needed, and his student Rav Beruna recited this in his name. Rabbi Elazar asked: Did Shmuel really say this? Rav Beruna said to him: Yes. He said to him: Show me his lodging and I will go and ask him myself, and he showed him. Rabbi Elazar came before Shmuel and said to him: Did the Master actually say this? Shmuel said to him: Yes, I did.  Rabbi Elazar then contrasts: Wasn’t it the Master himself who said: With regard to the halakhot of Eruv, we have only the wording of our mishna. The mishna states that an alleyway is to its courtyards like a courtyard is to its houses, which indicates that an alleyway must have at least two courtyards in order to be considered an alleyway and be rendered permitted for carrying through a side post or cross beam. Shmuel was silent and did not answer him.

The Gemara asks: Did Shmuel’s silence indicate that he accepted Rabbi Elazar’s objection and retracted his statement, or did he not accept it from him? The Gemara attempts to bring a proof, but concludes that episode did not prove the intent of Shmuel’s silence.

However, another Gemara in Brakhot 27b explains that you should not try to defend yourself after you contradicted yourself:

Rabban Gamliel said to Rabbi Yehoshua: Yehoshua, stand on your feet and they will testify against you. Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: If I were alive and the student were dead, the living can contradict the dead, and I could deny issuing that ruling. Now that I am alive and he is alive, how can the living contradict the living? 

Yehoshua admits he was contradicted but does not try to defend or explain himself.

Shmuel gives another approach, he doesn’t even address the contradiction.  Either he accepted the fact that his earlier statement contradicted his ruling and retracted, or he did not, and his actual opinion would be shown in his legal rulings.

Neither sage tried to explain or justify their contradiction.  Men are allowed to change their minds, you don’t have to act like a deer in headlights when someone calls you out on it.  Admit it, or just let your behavior speak for itself and show the world what you ultimately decided.  People will try to shame you for changing your mind, in order to get you to go along with their plan.  In fact, if your mind never changed based on new information or thinking over the issues, that would be something to be truly ashamed of.

The Talmud is discussing if related people in different houses are one unit to contribute to the Eruv for their courtyard.  For example, the sons of one man who eat with their father but sleep in their own apartments in the same courtyard.

The Gemara brings a debate about a man with five wives, each having her own house in the same courtyard:

The Sages taught in a baraita: With regard to one who has five wives who receive a portion from their husband while each living in her own quarters in the courtyard, or five servants who receive a portion from their master while living in their own lodgings in the courtyard, Rabbi Yehuda ben Beteira permits in the case of the wives, i.e., they do not each have to contribute separately to the Eruv, they are all considered to be residing with their husband.  And he prohibits in the case of the servants, meaning that he holds that as they live in separate houses, each is considered as residing on his own.

Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava permits in the case of the servants, as a servant necessarily follows his master, and he prohibits in the case of the wives, as each woman is significant in her own right, and not totally dependent on her husband.

We discussed that polygyny, a man with multiple wives, was normal and good for women and men.  The issue is here how linked is each wife to the husband with respect to residency for the Eruv.  Are they all considered as one resident of this courtyard?  Here, they are all supported by the husband but each sleeps in her individual apartment.  That is the ideal situation for a polygynous family, and tells us that in such a relationship each woman should have her own space.  The Gemara concludes and the Shulchan Aruch rules that your home, for Eruv purposes, is defined by where you actually eat.  So it would actually depend if the wives eat with the husband or merely take food to their own apartments.

Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava seems to referencing the point that under Jewish law, whatever a wife earns goes to her husband, and he must provide her food, clothing, shelter, and intimacy.  However, they can agree that she will keep her earnings and feed herself.  This reminds us that in some situations, separating finances is ideal.  Still, the obligation for man and wife to be intimate cannot be stipulated away, it is the crucial element of marriage per Jewish law.

Bonus: ayen Pirke Avot 1:3 אַנְטִיגְנוֹס אִישׁ סוֹכוֹ קִבֵּל מִשִּׁמְעוֹן הַצַּדִּיק. הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, וִיהִי מוֹרָא שָׁמַיִם עֲלֵיכֶם:

The Gemara asks about a case with multiple yards on a shared alley.  If the residents make a “Shituf” a partnership on the alley, they can carry in the alley as well (if it is properly demarcated from the actual public street).  But do the residents need an Eruv for their own yards as well?  Rabbi Meir insists that we do, since the children living in each courtyard won’t see the men making the Shituf, they won’t see any collection of food allowing them to carry on Shabbat.

Shulchan Aruch rules like Rabbi Meir that although we do not really need a Eruv when they made a Shituf to link courtyards, we do make an Eruv anyway.  This is so the children living in that yard see we are doing something to allow carrying in the yard on Shabbat.

The wisdom here is people don’t always see the larger picture, what is going on outside their own backyard. Sometimes people need a reminder to look beyond their own limited scope.

The Gemara asks if a man can nullify his property rights in the courtyard after Shabbat starts.  We compare this to a case where one man took tithes for another’s produce.  Now, the tithes are only valid if the owner acquiesced after the fact.  If the owner says “you could have used the nicer produce” then we need to determine his intent.  If he indeed has nicer produce then he was saying you did fine and could even have used the nicer stuff.  But if he lacks superior produce, then he was sarcastic, saying who told you to use my very best?  (Ideally when we take tithes the produce should be of the same quality, but it was still effective if he used high quality fresh produce as tithe for lesser).

The practical wisdom here is that when you do someone a favor, make sure they will really appreciate it.  Don’t bother if they won’t.  Some people simply lack gratitude.  Don’t do them any favors, they will find reasons to hate you for it.

The other aspect is to take people’s statements within the context of the situation.  Someone can say the same words and mean them literally on one context and as a joke somewhere else.  Be aware of what is going on and orient your interactions accordingly.  Our sages tell us to carefully attune yourself to the situation in order to figure out the real intention.  This wisdom is very useful in social settings where people may say one thing with their words while their body language communicates something else.

Today the Talmud continues discussing situations where some residents of a shared courtyard did not join the Eruv with the rest, and how we mitigate the problems that creates by having some residents give up their rights to others.

וְאֵין נוֹטְלִין רְשׁוּת. לְמָה לִי? לָא צְרִיכָא, אַף עַל גַּב דְּאָמְרִי לֵיהּ: קְנִי עַל מְנָת לְהַקְנוֹת.

We learned in the Mishna: But two residents may not receive rights in a domain (only one). The Gemara asks: Why do I need to say this?  The Gemara answers: No, it is necessary to teach that rights may not be acquired even if the other residents of the courtyard say to one of the two who did not establish an eiruv: Acquire our rights in the courtyard on condition that you transfer them in turn to your friend, the other one who did not establish an eiruv.

You may  be in a situation where you are given authority or leadership but it is on condition or intended to benefit a third party.  Be aware this is not real leadership.  Sometimes it may be appropriate to take temporary authority of your organization even though you won’t get credit, because the organization itself needs guidance.  But don’t expect this to be a lasting situation, do your best and move on.  Don’t give all your energy into a sinking ship.