Humility

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, June 2, 2007

In general in Jewish life we are encourage towards a middle road, what Maimonides called the shviel hazahav, the golden mean, an avoidance of extremes of any sort. But there is one example of a character trait in which we are urged, not to aim for some ideal middle, but to lean heavily in one direction. That quality is humility. In the Yad, for example, Maimonides explains: “ It is wrong for a man to follow the middle way in connection with some character traits, but he should go to extremes. The reference is to pride. It is not a good way that a man should merely be humble, but he should be lowly of spirit and his spirit exceedingly humble.” This is supported, of course, by reference to Moses, in the Torah portion we read this morning, “The man Moses was very humble, more than any man on earth.”

But what is meant by humility in this passage? What does Moses being very humble have to do with the rest of the story? Humility here seems to relate to Moses’s willingness to allow the criticism of his brother and sister just to roll right off him, and not to get caught up in a defensive reaction. The Torah text seems to imply that this comes out of his very close relationship with God, speaking with God “mouth to mouth” and “beholding God’s likeness”, but Bachya Ben Asher, a medieval moralist, suggests that it was something more human. For him, Moses’s humility was evident in the way that Moses kept his attention on his main goal, in this case Shalom Bayit, a peaceful and productive family life, and did not get drawn into petty disagreements because of his own ego. Bachya disagrees as to whether this humility is really veering so far to one side. He expresses the balance differently. Humility, in Bachya’s opinion, is the intermediate quality between arrogance and self-effacement. Being humble is not an extreme in which we disgrace ourselves or allow others to tread on us. Interestingly this is also the position that Maimonides takes in Shemoneh Perakim, where he advocates a balance between pride and self- abnegation, quoting Hillel’s famous challenge,” If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

It seems to me that this type of balanced humility can be very helpful in the rabbinate and in marriage.

In the rabbinate, maintaining a realistic sense of self can be a major challenge. At one moment you may hear yourself praised with the most eloquent superlatives, you see yourself reflected in others eyes with all the stature of the symbolic power of the rabbinate- yet within a week, a day or sometimes even an hour, you may be criticized with vehement passion, for some way in which you missed the mark, for some failing of the institution with which you are associated, or for the pain which God or the universe inflicted on the person you are speaking with. Without a strong inner rudder, our self image can bounce around from seeing ourselves as third in line after Mosheh Rabbeinu (Moses) and Mosheh Ben Maimon (Maimonides), to being a failure of Biblical proportions.

For rabbis, along with everyone else, the advice of the Hasidic sage Rabbi Simchah Bunim is helpful, “Every person should have two pockets, so he can reach into one or the other according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: ”For my sake was the world created” and in his left, “I am but dust and ashes.””

Like the King in Biblical times, who read from a scroll of the Torah, so that his heart not be lifted up, our study of classical texts, should help us maintain this balance. We learn humility from God, who according to the midrashic understanding of the words, naaseh adam, let us make man, was willing to consult the angels in creating Adam. We learn humility from our awareness of the great sea of Torah learning, which helps us acknowledge both our own limitations and the honor we have in being part of the enterprise. These traditional texts also remind us that when we do have power, its use is for very particular purposes. That is our tradition’s reading of God’s greatness, so that, in the view of Rabbi Yochanan, wherever we are reminded of God’s exaltation, the next verse, or even the second part of that same verse, tells us that God is to use that power “to execute justice for the fatherless or widow,” or to “refresh the spirits of the lowly, and revive the hearts of the contrite”

What about in marriage? Humility is about forbearance, about the way we handle anger, and about the ways that we appreciate our blessings and honor others. Anger so often is about ego, ‘this shouldn’t happen to me’, ‘I shouldn’t have to put up with this’, while humility, in the words of the Hasidim talking about shiflut, is “not so much of a man thinking little of himself, but about thinking of himself just a little”. If we feel less of a sense of entitlement, our relationship with our partner, can be more like the relationship that the psalmists suggests we have with God, a relationship in which we are aware that the other does not owe us the goodness we receive. In that way we will notice more often and experience more fully, the infinite kindnesses that are a part of our everyday lives.

Kate and Ilan, we wish you much joy in your future together. As today, you are surrounded by family and friends, so may you always be supported by a loving community. And may your sense of your selves always be secure and balanced, so that you can experience and appreciate all the good that you receive.