Humble Pie

The story is told of two fellows watching a third one swaying over a Mesillas Yesharim as he repeats to himself over and over, “I’m a gornisht (a nobody), I’m a gornisht…” As they take in the scene, one of the observers turns to the other and says with a smirk, “Ha! Look who thinks he’s a gornisht.”

That’s not a scenario one is likely to witness at mussar seder in yeshivos, but nevertheless, it makes an important point: Even the most worthwhile and noble things in This World can be perverted, and even the exalted trait of anavah, humility, can be turned into a caricature of itself.

Even someone who professes to believe in the importance of humility can miss the point of that trait entirely and thereby corrupt it beyond recognition. He can turn the possession of anavah itself into just another feather in the cap of arrogance adorning his expanding head. He’s a gornisht?! I’m the real gornisht!

It is in this vein that Rav Meir Simchah of Dvinsk offers a scintillating interpretation in Meshech Chochmah (Bamidbar 16:15) of Moshe Rabbeinu’s words, “V’lo harei’osi es achad meihem — I never harmed one of them,” in countering the claim of Korach’s group that he had sought to use his position of leadership to lord it over the Jewish People. The Meshech Chochmah explains that the use of the unusual term “achad meihem” means “even the greatest of them,” and that Moshe was saying he never sought to undermine or harm even the very greatest among the Jewish People.