Confidence and Humility

My friend DAS gave a sermon / led a discussion in shul about humility and confidence.  He began with a text from Vayiqra Rabbah (5th century Palestine) that describes Moses's humility:

At the burning bush, Moses felt unworthy and hid his face and said that someone else should go.  And God said, "No.  It's you.  If you don't do it, no one will."

At the Sea, Moses stood off to the side.  And God said, "No.  It's you.  If you don't do it, no one will."

At Mt. Sinai, Moses stood off to the side.  And God said, "No.  It's you.  If you don't do it, no one will."

And finally, the midrash reaches our parshah: At the Tent of Meeting, when it was time for God to deliver the instructions for all the sacrifices and rituals, Moses stood off to the side.  And God said, "Moses, how long will you humble yourself, while the moment is waiting only for you!"  

Of course, God loves Moses's humility.  So do the rabbis, who talk constantly about the importance of humility.  But God - and they - are exasperated by excessive humility.  He thinks so lowly of himself that he is in danger of neglecting tasks that only he can do.  

DAS read another text, this one from an 11th century Spanish text, חובות הלבבות (Duties of the Heart), which said we should acknowledge and be thankful for the talents that God gave us, and that far from being a mark of arrogance, this will actually increase our humility.

It's a fine line, but a terribly important one to work out for ourselves.  Confidence - and gratitude - can so easily lead to arrogance.  And excessive humility can so easily lead to inaction and indeed a whole range of problems, quite wisely pointed out by DAS's congregants.  There is no erring on one side or another.  We must delineate the line.  We must keep our eyes on the line.

DAS is an incredible model of doing that, and I am lucky to know him.  

But that's actually not the main thing I wanted to write.  I wanted to write about something J said to me right afterwards.  DAS ended our learning in shul by having everyone close their eyes (somehow, he managed to do this in a totally un-corny way - another great talent of his), and to think of something in our lives that we're too humble about - something that we need to increase our confidence about, so that we can appreciate and use that gift, and of something in our lives that we're arrogant about.  While we closed our eyes and thought of those things, we sang (though I just listened) the melody of b'shem hashem, which was very soothing and nice.

Afterwards, J turned to me and said, "You know, it's funny; my thing that I was too humble about and my thing that I was too arrogant about were the same thing."  And I said, "You know, mine started out different, but then as kept thinking about other things, also for me - they were the same thing."  And I guessed that that was probably the case for a lot of people.  

It's quite striking, and I'm not sure really why that happens, but it was unmistakeable for me, and apparently for J.

Anyway, I don't really have a closing thought.  But there ya' have it.

שבוע טוב