Podcasts about nedarim

Daf Hashavuah

Daf Hashavuah

Welcome to our humility series. I want to share a beautiful piece from the sefer Amud Avoda/Pillar of Service to Hashem, written by Rav Baruch of Kosov, a great Hasidic Rabbi, in his essay on Anava . He brings up a question based on the Gemara in Nedarim in 38A which says, Hashem only rests His Shechina on someone who is strong, smart, wealthy, and humble. The Rambam, in his commentary Shemonah Perakim , explains that smart means obviously someone wise in knowledge, and strong doesn't mean he has muscles, it means he overcomes his Yetzer Hara. And he says wealthy means that he's happy with less. The Rambam is obviously coming to answer the question that's asked by the Alshich, which is, " I understand why I need wisdom and humility. But why do I need wealth and strength (for the Shechina to dwell on me) ? He quotes this question from Maram Alshech in Vayikra 21,9 and his answer is, If a person is very weak and very poor and doesn't have any great speaking skills, am I going to say that this person is humble?? What does he have to be proud of? Conversely, if somebody is powerful, influential, wealthy and can do whatever he wants, and still he doesn't respond when he's insulted, that person can be referred to as humble. You need to first have the ability to stand up for yourself. Therefore, he says, in truth, humility is enough to bring Hashem's Shechina down on a person. As we've seen in the past, Moshe Rabbenu had the highest level of Nevuah because he was humble. But if a person is not smart, powerful and wealthy, there's no way for that humility to be expressed. True humility is when the person that has all of those qualities and realizes that the qualities that he has, he received from Hashem. As we know in all Middot, we emulate Hashem. The Gemara in Megila 31A says that Rav Yochanan says, Wherever you find God's greatness, there, you find His humility . The Gemara says this is said in the Torah, repeated in the Navi, and tripled in the Ketuvim . For example, the pasuk says, God is all powerful and He takes care of the widow and the orphan. So we talk about His greatness, and with that always comes His humility. Why is that the package? He explains that it's because that's the point. Humility is only humility when we first see the greatness. And only because God is so great and so powerful, is His humility that much greater. The greatest thing it says about Hashem, says the Tomar Devorah, is Mi El Kamocha/who is a God like You? Which means, Who is like God that is so powerful and yet holds back from letting out His anger . God should stop the world based on what's going on. But God tolerates, and the Tomar Devorah quotes that God has referred to as the God that takes insult. So God is so humble because He's so great. With this, the Noda B'Yehuda, in his second volume of Or HaChaim (siman כ )says, that's why we read in the Shacharit of YomKippurim , the Haftara of Yeshaya 57:15 that talks about God as כֹ֨ה אָמַ֜ר רָ֣ם וְנִשָּׂ֗א so says the High and the Lofty. And then it says, What do I look at? I look at the humble person. He says we read this on Yom Kippur because we want to say how great and powerful God is. And yet we ask Hashem, Please have that trait of humility. Yes, You can destroy and wipe us out, but have mercy. Take a little bit more insult (as if to say) and give us another good year. The Amud Avoda quotes a song called HaAderet V'Emuna, which goes through different qualities of God. One of the lines says, Strength and humility is to the God Who is the life of all worlds . Why the strength and humility packaged together? And again, it's the same point. The Amud Avoda goes on to explain another beautiful point: We say about Moshe Rabbenu two interesting things: first in Devarim 34 10, וְלֹא־קָ֨ם נָבִ֥יא ע֛וֹד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל כְּמֹשֶׁ֑ה There is no prophet that is like Moshe Rabbenu Then, in Bamidbar 12,3, it says וְהָאִ֥ישׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה עָנָ֣ו מְאֹ֑ד מִכֹּל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם Moshe was the most humble of people He says the two hinge on each other. Because Moshe Rabbenu was such a great prophet, his humility was true humility because he has so much to be proud of. And it goes both ways. Not only was he a great prophet because he was humble, but he was also the ultimate humble person because he was the greatest of prophets. He says it's a constant cycle. Moshe Rabbenu, because he recognized how great Hashem was, further humbled himself. The greater that he realized God was, the more humble he became himself. The more a person understands God, the more humble he becomes. So it ends up that something very counterintuitive is going on here. The people that have so many qualities- he's a hacham/wise he's gibbor/strong he's an ashir / wealthy- Yet he could be an Anav . Why? Because he realizes at the end of the day, these are all gifts from God. Beautiful. On the other hand, a person could be a Baal Ga'ava without having any qualities. What a paradox- the person that has all the qualities is humble, and the person without any qualities can be arrogant! There's a beautiful story told of the Chatam Sofer. A young man once came to him for advice, " How do I deal with my arrogance? How do I deal with my Ga'ava?" The Chatam Sofer replied, " Good question, please sit in my my room for a few minutes and I'll think of an answer for you." So the young man sat there watching, as people came to the Chatam Sofer with their questions. The first fellow said, " Rabbi, I need help. My daughter is of age. She needs to get married. I don't have any money for the wedding. I need a hundred thousand dollars ." The Chatam Sofer said, " Go ask that young man over there at the other end of the room. " So the man asked, and the young man answered, " I don't have any money. How can I help you?" The next man walked in with a very difficult, intricate halachic question. The Chatam Sofer again told him to go ask that young man at the other end of the room. So the man started asking the question and the boy said, " This is way too complex. I can't answer that question. " A third man walked in, looking for advice on a certain business challenge from the Chatam Sofer, who was brilliant, and had help from above. Again he said, " Ask that young boy at the other end of the room." And again, the boy said, " I don't know anything about business." After they left, the Chatam Sofer called the boy over and said, " Young man, you don't have money. You couldn't help that fellow. You don't really know that much Gemara, because you couldn't answer the question. You don't have much business acumen because you couldn't help that man either. What are you arrogant about?" And the answer is, like we've quoted from the Steipler, Arrogance doesn't make any sense. Middot don't necessarily make sense. It's just built into the person-whoever you are and whatever you have, you can become a Baal Ga'ava. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz once said he was watching a garbage truck go by with a driver, and a guy standing on the back- to put the trash in. He heard the driver say, " Ha! I'm not the guy in the back putting the garbage in. I'm driving the garbage truck! " The Rabbi said to himself, That's what you're arrogant about? You're the driver of the garbage truck! He says, that's all you need. Arrogance can grab onto anything. So you can be arrogant with nothing and you could be humble with having everything in the world. It's an interesting way of looking at it.

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