This was written to honor a member of our synagogue who passed away this week, but did not want any eulogies recited, nor any kind of public mourning to be done in the wake of his absence. I did not mention his name out of respect for his wishes.
Parshat B'haalotkha
by Rabbi Avi Billet
One of the more famous statements in the Torah concerns Moshe Rabbenu, and it appears in our parsha in the context of the comments made by Miriam about her youngest brother, in talking, most surely in a concerned manner, with her brother Aharon about their brother Moshe. Without getting into the details, or trying to understand the cryptic nature of her comments, the Torah’s immediate response to what she says is וְהָאִ֥ישׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה עָנָ֣יו מְאֹ֑ד מִכֹּל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָֽה – the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, of all the people on the face of the earth.
In truth, we have seen this to be true not moments earlier in the reading when Yehoshua, in defense of his master, tried to instruct Moshe to imprison or worse to Eldad and Meidad who were prophesying in the camp. Moshe’s response was not only that he felt no slight to his own honor in their prophesying, but he wished more people would prophesy as well. If only that were a more widespread phenomenon among the people of Israel.
It seems clear that the Torah’s depiction of his humility in this space, in the context of the concerned conversation of his siblings, is a demonstration of Moshe’s ability to let even the criticism of those closest to him bounce right off. He was aware of their conversation. He was aware of his own greatness in comparison to theirs, he was aware that part of their greatness could only be attributed to their connection to him, and yet he still said NOTHING.
I’ve been saying for many years, in particular every year in the Pirkei Avos classes between Pesach and Shavuos that humility – which is a very important quality that is emphasized in Pirkei Avos in so many different ways – means to know who you are and not make a big deal about it.
Don’t sit in the corner and think you’re a gornisht who brings no value to the world. Don’t think your life is meaningless or purposeless. And certainly don’t restrain yourself from using your talents to achieve good things! Just don’t make a big deal about all of this.
Moshe Rabbenu, who took the Israelites out of Egypt, confronted the mightiest human king in the world, and later told God Himself that over his own dead body would he ever allow God to destroy the Israelites, doesn't sound so humble, until we accept the going definition. Know who you are, do your job as best as your abilities allow, but don't call attention to yourself and make anything about YOU.
In a sermon on this parsha, Rabbi Norman Lamm offered a suggestion as to what Anivus means, based on a comment of Netziv in his Haamek Davar. After offering that definition, he elaborated more eloquently than I can as to how we can better demonstrate living with Anivut.
“The definition Netziv offers means, in English, not humility but meekness. It refers not to self-deprecation but self-restraint. It involves not an untruthful lack of appreciation of one’s self and one’s attainments, but rather a lack of arrogance a lack of insistence upon kavod, honor. To be an anav means to recognize your true worth, but not to impose the consequences upon your friends and neighbors. It means to appreciate your own talents, neither over-emphasizing nor under-selling them, but at the same time refraining from making others aware of your splendid virtues at all times. Anivut means not to demand that people bow and scrape before you because of your talents, abilities, and achievements. Anivut means to recognize your gifts as just that – gifts granted to you by a Merciful God, and which you possibly did not deserve. Anivut means not to assume that because you have more competence or greater endowments than others that you thereby become more precious an individual and human being. Anivut means a soft answer to a harsh question, silence in the face of abuse, graciousness when receiving honor, dignity in response to humiliation, restraint in the presence of provocation, forbearance and a quiet calm when confronted with calumny and carping criticism.”
Rabbi Lamm was particularly talking to a people in an era when self esteem was in general at an extreme low. I wasn’t alive in June 1963 when he delivered this sermon. But I am a former student of stand up comedy from that era, and have heard many comedians talk about their analysts and how low people’s self-esteem was at that time.
Ironically five or six years ago, Rabbi Sacks reported (in an article on Parshas Vayakhel) about a condition he read about in 2017 called “selfitis” – which was originally a term coined as a joke in 2014 to describe people who feel compelled to keep taking selfies and posting them on social media. Three years later, researchers in Nottingham and India had produced evidence that the condition actually exists. Selfitis sufferers are “attention seekers, often lacking in self confidence” and “hoping to boost their social standing.”
I remember reading a report once about a difference of 30 years, how students were once upon a time much more sucessful in their academics while many suffered from low self-esteem. But with the participation trophy generation, many students (and athletes) who have no accomplishments to write home about, are reported to have GREAT self esteem. They think very highly of themselves and their abilities, and therefore their worth in terms of what they contribute to society, even if their contributions are objectively worth very little, if not nothing at all at this time.
A recent insight I came across was “Once upon a time people kept a private diary and got upset when people read it. Now people post everything on social media, and get upset when no one reads it, clicks on it, or comments on it.”
Obviously our general society is not suffering from too much humility.
In a different essay on this Parsha, Rabbis Sacks compared Moshe’s boldness in defending God’s honor when people complained, while he sat back and said nothing in response to his siblings:
The people’s challenge was directed against God – or fate or circumstance – not against him. That is why he cared. Miriam and Aaron’s challenge was directed against him. It was personal.
That is why he was serene. Moses did not care about himself. If he had, he would not have been able to survive a single day as leader of this fractious, unstable people. He cared about the cause, about God and freedom and responsibility. That was what made him humble.
Humility is not what it is sometimes taken to be – a low estimate of oneself. That is false or counterfeit humility. True humility is mindlessness of self. An anav (the biblical word used in this chapter) is one who never thinks about himself because he has more important things to think about. I once heard someone say about a religious leader: “He took God so seriously that he didn’t need to take himself seriously at all.” That is biblical humility.
He goes on to say
Humility is not self-abasement. It is not self- anything. It is the ability to stand in silent awe in the presence of otherness – the Thou of God, the otherness of other people, the majesty of creation, the beauty of the world, the power of great ideas, the call of great ideals. Humility is the silence of the self in the presence of that which is greater than the self.
Another quote from the article:
Humility, then, is more than just a virtue: it is a form of perception, a language in which the ‘I’ is silent so that I can hear the ‘Thou’, the unspoken call beneath human speech, the Divine whisper within all that moves, the voice of otherness that calls me to redeem its loneliness with the touch of love. Humility is what opens us to the world.
Nor is it as rare as we think. Time and again when someone died and I conducted the funeral or visited the mourners, I discovered that the deceased had led a life of generosity and kindness unknown to even close relatives. I came to the conclusion – one I did not fully understand before I was given this window into private worlds – that the vast majority of saintly or generous acts are done quietly with no desire for public recognition. That is humility, and what a glorious revelation it is of the human spirit.
Rabbi Avraham Leib Scheinbaum shared the following insight in one of his articles on this parsha (Peninim Al HaTorah vol 19) – actually addressing Aharon’s humility in not changing anything from what he was instructed to do when it came to setting up the Menorah. Noting that Aharon didn’t change AS A PERSON even after he was granted the status and title of Kohen Gadol, he concluded his essay on humility by quoting Horav Yechiel Michel Z’L m’Zlotchev, who was asked to explain why, if all of the mitzvos are clearly written in the Torah, and anavah, humility, is equal to all of the character traits that one should possess, it is not a mitzvah! If humility is so significant, why is it only alluded to by remarking that Moshe exemplified humility?
The Rebbe explained that if a person were to act with humility because he is seeking to fulfill a mitzvah, then he would never achieve true humility. The concept of acting modestly in order to perform a mitzvah is part of the yetzer hara’s arsenal of crafty lies to convince us to sin. Thus if a person endeavors to be humble because it is a mitzvah to do so, he will never achieve true humility. The yetzer hara would convince him that he is saintly and virtuous, indeed more exalted than the average person. In reality, he should expect honor and undivided respect from the common man. After all, he is on a more elevated, spiritual plane than they are, but he is not permitted to be arrogant. Therefore he will act modestly, because this is a mitzvah. One who performs such a mitzvah is only satisfying his arrogant nature. In a way, this type of modesty is nothing more than a subtle form of arrogance.
Moshe exemplified true humility because he had every opportunity to recognize his own importance. But he never used his position to personal advantage, and did everything he did as leader either to defend others, provide for others, or sacrifice himself.
This is humility - when a person accomplishes amazing things but does not seek or desire attention for whatever a person has achieved or accomplished in this world.
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