Vayikra: Real Humility
Vayikra, our new book of the Torah, opens with a simple sentence:
1 And [God] called to Moses, and the One spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:
This beckoning of Moshe into the Sanctuary is a powerful moment. It is the first time Moshe enters that space, and, according to Rashi, Moshe is the only one that is able to hear God’s voice in this moment from among all the Israelites. It highlights Moshe’s unique, special role among the people.
The plot thickens, however, as the aleph in vayikra (and God called to…) is written much smaller than the rest of the letters. This makes it look like it could be the word vayikar, which means “God happened upon ” According to the Baal HaTurim, Moshe did this purposefully when he wrote down the Torah in order to minimize his chosen-ness. He did this out of his deep humility, as Moshe is described in Numbers 12:3 as “the most humble person on the face of the Earth.”
I used to struggle immensely with the idea of humility. For many years, especially when I was just starting out in my career, “humility” sounded like “be quiet.” Just as I was finding my voice and gathering my courage to come forward in the world, humility seemed to be a retreat back into the shadows and a damper on my creativity and my self-expression. Instead, I tried to coax myself to follow an energy source within myself that seemed to want to build, create, and be in the world in a BIG and AMBITIOUS way.
For many years, this was the right path for me. It led to wonderful projects and programs and a joyful feeling of being in flow with the world with just the right amount of risk.
The challenges started coming when I claimed these projects as a part of myself, with their successes and failures as a reflection back on to ME. The challenges also came when I noticed myself clamoring for praise or recognition rather than focusing on the work that needed to be done for its own sake. I struggled with comparing myself to my peers, judging, “am I better than X at teaching? Am I as successful as Y, when he was my age?” etc. Even when I came out on “top” in these assessments, it
felt shaky. Whenever I tried to build up any type of idea about myself, good or bad, I suffered.
The reason for this is that the “self” – that which I call, “Yael,” is always changing and completely interpenetrated with everything else in the universe. Its very nature is instability. When I recognize this, humility is the only logical response. How can I take credit for the good things “I” do, since “I” am constantly being influenced and changing based on the people and landscape around me? How can I compare myself to anyone else in the world when every force in their universe and every force in my universe came together in very different (and interpenetrated) ways? As Alan Morinis writes, “the inner voice that says, “You’re hot!” and the one that says, “You’re not!” both originate from the same source, and both mislead.” (Everyday Holiness, 53). “Self-ing,” the project of continuing to try and reify a separate, permanent, unchanging self, is a delusional project I find myself back in over and over again.
When I think about the humble people I admire in my life, I see people who hold the concept of their “self” very lightly. I see people who are constantly working for social change or psychological growth, building projects and following their passion, but with an understanding that this work is not solely theirs, doesn’t define them, and will most likely not be finished in their lifetime.
This is Moshe. He leads the people, but he doesn’t buy his own hype. He isn’t invested in himself, he is invested in the project of true liberation and freedom. We know this from the verses that come right before we are told that Moshe is humble in Numbers:
1 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.
2 They said, "Has the Lord spoken only to Moses? Hasn't He spoken to us too?" And the Lord heard.
(Numbers 12:1-2)
Moshe’s brother and sister are slandering him and his wife, and he doesn’t say a word. Ramban says that the Torah mentions Moshe’s humility “in that he endured [the insult] and did not answer them back ”
What is it about not answering them back that indicates Moshe’s humility? It isn’t because he believed his siblings’ slander or thought himself worthy of it. I think it is that he didn’t let the insult “stick” to his ego, so it had nowhere to land. That light investment in the self is an essential part of true humility and is what makes Moshe such a powerful and inspirational leader.
My meditation teacher, Teah Strozer, once said that if someone humiliates us, we should thank them. They have punctured the “us” we thought we were – the shaky, ego-centric, delusion of a separate self that is vulnerable to the slings and arrows of things like insults, praise, or blame. Who we really are – the life and the energy that moves within us – is so much more vast, interconnected and holy than any insult can ever touch.
The Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s mission is to develop and teach Jewish spiritual practices so that individuals and communities may experience greater awareness, purpose, and interconnection.
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