"How privileged you are to be chosen to serve the children of Avrohom, Yitzchak and Ya'akov, the people [that G-d has] described in such loving terms as as friends and brothers." With this stirring call to his newly appointed aides, according to Rashi(1:15), Moshe successfully enticed his newly appointed aides into service. Ever since then, this sentiment has been and should be a source of pride and encouragement to all those entering mileches hakodesh - the holy work of Jewish communal service.
It may even be that Moshe himself found great strength in this sense of privilege that he presented to his students, enough to compensate for the very aggravation that brought about the new appointments. Indeed just a few pesukim earlier, Moshe poignantly beseeches(1:12), "How can I myself alone bear your care and your burden and your strife". Here Rashi indicates that Moshe was gently referring to several of the sacrifices that public office demands of its occupants. As a judge he was often bothered by the tenacity of Jewish litigants to never let go in court. Second, he did not take kindly to the national pastime of watching his every move and then speculating about their meaning. He was pained by the knowledge that people were unfairly and irreverently talking about his private affairs. Finally, there were always his detractors who described him as scheming and plotting against the very individuals that in fact were often protected through Moshe's passionate concern for every Jew.
It has often bothered me that if Moshe found these aspects of public service intolerable, why was he directed to solve it by inviting so many more into the very service that gave his so much grief. If Moshe found the scrutiny under which he was placed and the lack of privacy so upsetting, then why involve others? It does not seem that increasing the echelons of leadership, and thus spreading the targets of people would make it any easier?
Among the many phrases that the saintly chief Rabbi, Rav Kook, gave the Jewish people one stands out in my mind and can give us insight here too as well. He was known to have said and lived, "Those of absolute righteousness do not curse the wickedness [they witness], rather they add righteousness; they do not curse the heresy [they witness], rather they add faith; they do not curse the ignorance [they witness], rather they add wisdom." Perhaps Moshe believed that these poor traits of Hashem's people could be eradicated, not by criticism but rather by increasing the number of teachers, and giving higher profile and greater responsible to those who were accomplished in their wisdom and behavior.
We may now be able to appreciate the flow of ideas in the haftoroh, chazon Yeshayahu (1:21-31). The litany of Yeshayahu's criticism is nothing short of depressing, "How is the faithful city become a zonah.... now [full of] murderers... your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves... they don't judge the orphans and the cause of the widow does not reach them. Therefore Hashem proclaims... I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as in earlier times and afterward you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city." Just as we expect Hashem to announce the futility of our very existence and threaten our destruction, the navi turns around, saying "therefore" G-d will restore us to our spiritual heights, all be it with pain and difficulty, but fully restored we will become. How? By adding, adding numbers and focus, through more counselors and more judges.
Perhaps here too Hashem is setting an agenda for us. When confronted with baseness that defies all solutions, add more learning, insist on greater spirituality and growing gentility.