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Rav Kook (Midot ha’Reiah, ערך גאוה, ערך עינוה)
Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only to Moses? Hasn’t He spoken to us too?” And the Lord heard. Now this man Moses was exceedingly humble, more so than any person on the face of the earth. (Bamidbar 12:1-3)
The Danger of Arrogance
No negative trait comes close to arrogance (lit. גאוה) in its ability to deaden one’s religious personality, in its power to foreclose spiritual elevation and refinement.
Arrogance is bad character trait, but it is also a terrible punishment.
Humility and Willpower
Arrogance blemishes one’s willpower, and without willpower, Divine goodness can find no place to rest.
Humility deepens the power of the will, which makes it singularly important in shaping a person to be a vessel for all blessing and all goodness.
True and False Humility
Foolish is the person who allows concern for arrogance to hold him back from righteous conduct, Torah study, or developing his own Torah thoughts. A person must involve himself vigorously in every good pursuit and strive to elevate all of his thoughts. As he rises upward, the problem of arrogance will rectify itself – either by being cast aside, by being sanctified and elevated to its supernal source, or through a process of teshuva.
Our sages (see Bereishit 22:1 with Rashi) teach that הנני, the declaration “Here I am!” is an expression of humility and vigor (lit. לשון ענוה וזריזות). These two traits are not opposites. On the contrary, a truly humble person is full of determination and holy dynamism.
Any humility that leads to depression is spurious and illegitimate. True humility brings one to a state ofsimchah, gevurahand inner dignity.
A person who detects ga’avah within his personality must undertake an exceedingly thorough investigation. He must distinguish between (i) the terrible malady of arrogance that undermines a person’s clarity of consciousness and awareness of the Divine, and (ii) the refined sensitivity to one’s own spiritual potential, which broadens a person’s mind, girds him with a sense of confidence and fills his spiritual world with strength and splendor. Many times, what a person initially judges to be prideful conceit is really the vigorous expression of the Divine light that flows within his soul. He sees the greatness of G-d (lit. גאות ה׳) that streams through all of reality, and this fills him with a sense of vigor and self-worth. If someone in this state of being forces himself to constrict his sense of pride, no good will come about. The opposite is true – his spiritual stamina will be smothered and he will live out his days as a broken, timid and listless shadow of his full self. He will delude himself into thinking that his meekness brings him close to G-d, when in truth, it is a retreat from His presence.
Sometimes, it is hard for a person to grow and develop linearly, in gradual steps. He must leap upwards by making use of the trait of Holy pride (lit. גאוה של קדושה) and judge himself in an exceedingly favorable manner. He must find the points of goodness that remain within himself despite his many shortcomings. When a person exerts himself to find these points, he discovers a wealth of good within him. Through teshuva, even his shortcomings become transformed into fuel for spiritual improvement. And each day, he can advance in righteousness and good deeds, with a pure heart and full of confidence in his unfolding rehabilitation.
Food for Thought
Rav Moshe Weinberger (Song of Teshuva Vol. 4): [In the second excerpt above, Rav Kook writes that arrogance can be more than just a bad character trait – it is also a punishment.] Great rabbis such as the Ari and R. Chaim Vital teach that the essence of a Jew is holy and pure. Where then do a Jew’s bad traits come from? The Mussar literature answers that these traits come not from his essence but from his nefesh, his animal soul, and are superimposed upon his intrinsic goodness. Typically, a person’s bad traits are congenitally or environmentally shaped. But sometimes, Rav Kook states — in line with teachings of the Zohar and the Ari — G-d punishes a person for his sins by afflicting him with bad traits, in particular with a stubbornness of heart, as was the case with Pharaoh (Shemos 7:3). That is the worst punishment of all.
Thus, there are some people who stubbornly refuse to follow a halachah found in the Shulchan Aruch. Someone could speak to them day and night but they will not accept it. They will not listen to criticism, or agree to bind themselves to the most straightforward of Torah laws. This has nothing to do with intellectual differences or with an inability to subject themselves to the discipline that would be involved. It is due only to their having a hardened, stubborn heart. Even if someone demonstrates to them that their stubbornness is destroying their lives, they do not hear. They prefer to watch their entire kingdom, everything they have lived for, crumble before their eyes rather than comply.
In the yearly cycle of the Torah reading, every time we come to the Parshiyos that tell about the Exodus, we think that Pharaoh was a fool for having contested G-d. But if Pharaoh could look at us, he would say, “What makes you any smarter? Aren’t you ruining your children and yourself with gossip, slander, looking at immodest sights and all kinds of filth? Isn’t your own life crumbling before your eyes? You make fun of me, yet although you constantly hear words of reproof, the words of the living G-d, from holy books, you still sin. You’re still destroying your life.”
Typically, when a person wants to rid himself of a bad trait that hurts him and others, he studies Mussar texts or follows the suggestions found in self-help literature. However, that approach may not help. And if so, it is possible that this trait has come as a punishment for his sins. Therefore, the way for him to rectify that bad trait is to do teshuvah for his sins, even though he may not see any connection between the two.
Rav Soloveitchik (Days of Deliverance, pg. 8-9): The vulnerability of man is more than just a tragic truth; it is an ethical – halakhic postulate. The awareness of vulnerability, of being exposed, engenders many ethical virtues, among which the most important is humility. Man must practice humility; pride and vanity are both degrading and corrupting. Humility is perhaps the highest ethical virtue – Maimonides even suspended the rule of the golden mean vis-à-vis humility, writing that one must be “of exceeding humble and lowly spirit.”
Why should man be modest, shy, humble? Particularly, why should successful man be humble? He has the right, prima facie, to be proud of himself, to be arrogant toward those who have failed in life. In fact, man is inclined to be arrogant, to be impudent and aggressive. He is inclined to reach for things that are above and beyond his legitimate reach. Human arrogance, is of course, the consequence of victory; the feelings of self-assurance and self-righteousness that accompany success result in pride and arrogance. However, human pride and arrogance disappear the very moment man becomes aware of his vulnerability and of the suddenness with which fortune changes. In other words, the awareness of human vulnerability is cathartic, cleansing, it is an awareness that ennobles man and has a redemptive impact upon him. Humility is the expression of that awareness.
Questions for Discussion/Further Thought
- We usually think that punishment involves pain and suffering. How can a bad character trait be a punishment?
- Rav Mordechai Willig writes that “Self-centered modern society promotes self-fulfillment, gratification of one’s physical and psychological needs and wants, and self-actualization, the maximum fulfillment of one’s potential. The Torah teaches that these two goals are contradictory. Moshe reached the highest level of self-actualization precisely because he humbly negated his sense of self, and lived as an absolute servant of his Master. May all of us learn from his example and attempt to understand the Torah without a personal agenda. Paradoxically, by this self-negation we will be enabled to narrow the line between who we can be and who we are.” Do you think Rav Kook would agree? Why or why not?
- How does humility make a person closer to G-d? How does it make his or her life better?
- What does Rav Kook say about how to distinguish between true and false humility? Can you think of any other ways?
- What is the relationship between willpower and humility?
- How does Rav Kook’s understanding of humility differ from that of Rav Soloveitchik, quoted above?
- What are ways that a person can acquire humility?
