Sources from essay by Rabbi Max Weiss in The Mussar Torah Commentary
"Humility can be a difficult word in a society like ours, which values individualism over community. It sticks in the throat. To be humble is seen as to be less-than, to be small, to take a step on the road that leads to obscurity. The Mussar definition of "humility" (anavah, אנוה) is different. In Hebrew, the word for self-abasement is sh'filah, שפילה. Maimonides places anavah, "humility," as the center point between self-abasement (sh'filah) and arrogance (gaavah, גאוה). Humility, properly conceived, is a state of being that places individuals into a social structure that allows both them and the society
around them to thrive.
-Rabbi Max Weiss
(3) Now Moses himself was very humble, more so than any other human being on earth.
What does humility mean in the context of leadership?
How can one be both humble and powerful?
Moses stands at the center of the Torah. He, more than any other person, connects heaven and earth. He is the translator, interpreter, and messenger of God's word. He is judge, builder, arbiter, and community organizer. Moses mediates between God and the people of Israel, even as he stands in the midst of his people, working among them as a connector. With all of his incredible skill, Moses is caled "very humble" (Numbers 12:3). Moses's humility is based on his recognition that he lives his life among and with his people, not at the center and not above them. His humility flows from his knowledge
of his proper place in the world. This awareness allows him both to lead and to follow, to be in front and to be behind, to know his power and to know his limits. Moses is humble. He possesses anavah; he is not self-abasing, nor does his power lead to arrogance.
-Rabbi Max Weiss
(4) Moses instructed the Israelites to offer the passover sacrifice; (5) and they offered the passover sacrifice in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai. Just as יהוה had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did. (6) But there were some householders who were impure by reason of a corpse and could not offer the passover sacrifice on that day. Appearing that same day before Moses and Aaron, (7) those householders said to them, “Impure though we are by reason of a corpse, why must we be debarred from presenting יהוה’s offering at its set time with the rest of the Israelites?” (8) Moses said to them, “Stand by, and let me hear what instructions יהוה gives about you.”
While the men approach Moses in his role of expert and decision-maker, he acknowledges that he is not in charge. Instead, he embraces his role as mediator between God and the people. Moses acknowledges his limitations. A mark of humility is the ability to recognize and act from the limits of one's knowledge and sphere of control.
Humility is the public acknowledgment of one's limited place inthe world. Moses claims exactly the space he needs to in order to serve God's will and his community's needs.
-Rabbi Max Weiss
(4) The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! (5) We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. (6) Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (7) Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium. (8) The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream. (9) When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall upon it. (10) Moses heard the people weeping, every clan apart, at the entrance of each tent. יהוה was very angry, and Moses was distressed. (11) And Moses said to יהוה, “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? (12) Did I produce all these people, did I engender them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a caregiver carries an infant,’ to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers? (13) Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, when they whine before me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ (14) I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me.
God responds to Moses's complaint by helping him to share the burden of leadership. God tells Moses to appoint seventy elders as leaders: "Then, after coming down in a cloud and speaking to him, the Eternal drew upon the spirit that was on him and put it upon the seventy elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they spoke in ecstasy, but did not continue" (Numbers 11:25).
The anavah that Moses possesses enables him to share leadership. He is humble enough not only to recognize his limits, but to accept what is best for his community, even if that diminishes his personal authority. Moses allows himself to be smaller so that others
larger. Arrogance would have pushed Moses to do it all by himself; self-abasement would have made him think himself incapable of doing anything. Humility helps him recognize a solution that works. Moses understands, despite a moment of despair, that sharing the
leadership is ultimately best for his community and for himself.
-Rabbi Max Weiss
The leadership that Moses lives, a leadership of humility, balanced between arrogance and self-abasement, is a model sorely needed in our fame-obsessed and self-obsessed modern world, where the scale has tipped too far in favor of arrogance. In a seminal work on Mussar, Ms'ilat Yesharim, Moshe Chayim Luzzato suggests that a curative is needed to bring the arrogant individual back to the center point, the point that Moses occupies. Luzzato argues, "The general mater of humility is for a person not to attribute importance to himself for any reason whatsoever?" Luzzato's suggestion is that we
who are too arogant need to practice self-abasement so that we can occupy the of
center space, the true space of humility.
Moses' life offers a model of leadership that is worth emulating, a leadership rooted in humility. Utilizing this model, goal-oriented leaders do not place themselves first, but place the goal first and create the space for other leaders to work with them, just as Moses works toward his goal alongside the elders in the wilderness.
-Rabbi Max Weiss
Questions to Ask
-
How do our own gender and our gendered expectations impact our individual and societal definitions of humility?
-
How can one practice anavah while executing leadership?