Humility

There's a paradox: being humble requires an ego. Let me explain. We're all familiar with the phrase, "The 'meek' shall inherit the earth" (Psalms 37:11). But 'meek' is a bad translation. Meek means submissive, easily imposed on. The Hebrew word is 'anav' - humble. How are we to understand this word? For it is used to describe Moses - the redeemer, the law-giver, the greatest of prophets. Moses is described as the most humble - 'anav' - of all.

Yet when we consider how Moses stood before Pharaoh, how he led the people and railed at their complaints and cowardice, how he destroyed the tablets, etc., we would hardly describe him as 'meek.' And another point: Moses had to know who he was. He couldn't lie to himself and say he wasn't a prophet, that he didn't speak to G-d directly, etc. So how does all this work?

The Talmud offers an insight: to be an 'anav,' to be humble, you first have to be honest. Honest with yourself. You have to assess your strengths and weaknesses, acknowledge your accomplishments as well as your failures. In other words, you have to have an ego - a sense of self. You have to know who you are. 

But then must come a recognition: if someone else had been given the opportunities and talent that I have, would they not have accomplished more, failed less?

This is not a false humility, an ego-game play. It can be, of course. But if the self-examination is honest, then so is the recognition: each of us has a Divine mission, a unique task. We each have a segment of the world to transform, through acts of goodness and kindness. 

When we make a difference, when we transform someone else's life for the better, even a little, spiritually or materially, we naturally feel good about ourselves. And that's when we need to become humble, become an anav. For really, we've only done our job, we've only completed a small part of the task entrusted to us. And there's so much more we could have done, and so much more we still need to do.

And if you're going to transform your part of the world, you can't be meek about performing acts of goodness and kindness. But humility - that's part of the job description.