Psak and perspectives on Anava

Well when the Igeres HaRamban charts a pattern of Avodas Hashem, so he speaks about speaking softly, וכל אדם לא אכעס and then יעלה על לבך מדת הענוה, indicating very clearly how middas anavah is a foundational middah, not just a middah amongst the constellation of middos, but is a defining foundational middah. That’s true on many levels and perhaps we’ll just take literally a few minutes to discuss one aspect, not the most basic aspect, not the most basic aspect but an important one. Last night I had occasion to be shmoozing with some of the talmidim here and we were talking a little bit about emunas chachamim. And we were talking about the fact that we struggle with emunas chachamim, that there's something, I don’t know, a little bit sometimes a little bit cynical, a cynical voice inside of us in terms of the type of trust and confidence we’re supposed to have in chachmei hamesorah and the source of that struggle, of that sort of little cynical voice within us is that we have a tendency to view everyone in our own image. Dehinu, we have, what should I say, we, I have all kinds of petty negi'os in what I do. I have all kinds of petty considerations in what I do. And because of that, so when you tell me that, you know, emunas chachamim means to believe that chazal were not influenced by personal negi'os, personal biases, so the way that registers upon me is that you’re telling me to believe that they were superhuman. Not just great people, that they were superhuman. But because of that, they weren’t superhuman, they were people, acharei kechol hakol they were people. But the source of that difficulty, and this is a very basic form of ga'avah, basic form of ga'avah is that, is the tendency to see others in the same image as ourselves. And it’s something which is very, very pervasive. It’s a form of ga'avah because if I were more attuned to my own katnus hamoach, to my own shiflus, so I wouldn’t project that onto others. But if I’m less attuned and less aware and less acknowledging of my own shiflus and my own katnus hamoach, so then it becomes more natural to project that onto others. And it’s something which is mamash mamash pervasive. You know, as we’re all aware, there’s the inyana deyoma in the United States in many ways is just a very, very unfortunate and dramatic manifestation of תלמידים שלא הגיעו להוראה who are morim, people who abrogate to themselves the zechus to say this is a... problem that that if if I'm not aware of my own inadequacies I'm not aware of my own deficiencies so then I certainly don't see the difference between myself and between and between chachamim shehigiu lehora'ah. So the problem is that that we I I remember many many years ago gave a talk at the time the issue de jour was the women's tefillah groups. And afterwards a a well-meaning well-intentioned lady came over and she said you know it's so confusing I'll omit one name and she said you know Rabbi so-and-so says that it's totally fine and Rav Schechter says that it's assur. Rabbi so I'm omitting the name but Rabbi so-and-so let's just say wasn't in Rav Schechter's league let's let's put it at that without providing any other biographical information or or details and it's so pervasive it it has more crude manifestations it has more subtle manifestations. To be able to be maseeg who Chazal were even to be able to be maseeg who contemporary Chachmei Yisrael in the past 50 years have been so it also has to be rooted in an eker anavah it has to be rooted in in recognizing that who I am what I am doesn't define what what it means to to have pure character and doesn't define what it means to understand the Torah it just defines who who I am it just doesn't doesn't do anything more than that. The gap that exists and and it's it blurs the line because the again the lack of of awareness of who we are and what we are and mamash the katnus hamochin it it blurs the line between talmidim not just shelo higiu lehora'ah but but who who my present company know very little if anything and chachamim shehigiu lehora'ah it blurs the line and certainly between achronim and rishonim and kal vachomer as you go back in the in the doros. Heard a story once that someone asked Rav Ruderman about making the bracha of shecholak mechochmaso lireiaiv about one of Rav Ruderman's contemporaries and when he asked Rav Ruderman so Rav Ruderman laughed and said we made the bracha on Rav Chaim and the Beis Halevi. So he he had an acute awareness of in those two generations of the yeridas hadoros and and obviously rachmana litzlan that's not a knock on on our chachamim it's not a knock on our gedolim but yeridas hadoros is is something which is a basic part of our understanding Chazal in various places already in their day highlight the yeridas hadoros מה בין דורות הראשונים לדורות האחרונים and the the root of it is to cast and to remake everyone in in our own in our own image. But the truth is that as deeply troubling and ultimately insidious as that is when it's applied, again and it goes all the way back, it goes back to the Avos also, that same katnus hamochin and the same presumptuousness which results from the katnus hamochin, it goes back to the Avos, it goes back to the Shivtei Koh, it goes back to Dovid Hamelech in terms of seeing people, defining people in terms of our own state of our version of being beirei shefeila va'afeila. But the truth is, it goes beyond that also. It goes beyond that also. A long, long time ago when, I don't think this shiur really exists anymore, but in YU there used to be an early admissions shiur. So for a few years I taught that shiur. Remember once that Rav Meir Schlesinger, who was then the Rosh Yeshiva of Sha'alvim, came and gave a shmuze and he quoted something on this week's parsha from the hakdama of the Zohar. And just last night I saw from some other sefer, I don't know what sefer it was, a Xerox, I was reminded of it because the mechaber of that sefer quotes the same passage from the Zohar. And the Zohar says: what was the terrible cheit of the egel? When they said eileh elohecha Yisrael, the cheit was that they took the sheim Hashem of Elokim and they omitted the yud mem or mem yud as the case may be and just took the eileh. So what that really means, basically, and presumably what the nigleh shebenigleh shebenigleh that I'm about to repeat to you is not what it really, really means on any ultimate level. But what it sort of means on a very, very exoteric level is that eileh is something defined. These. Something defined, something concrete. These. The mi of—I remember him writing on the board then—so he wrote the eileh elohecha Yisrael, then he referred to the pasuk in the Navi Yeshayahu: שאו מרום עיניכם וראו מי ברא אלה. And the cheit of the egel was that they mekatzeitz—was that they couldn't or didn't bring themselves to be able to relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in His infinitude, in His greatness which is beyond comprehension. And that was also a form of the same phenomenon. Coming obviously from on the one hand a different place, on the other hand the same place. Coming from Torah, so the Rambam writes that people have a corporeal conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu because, again, that's what we are, so we don't relate to other realities. And when you look, one way to grossly oversimplify the main thrust of what the Rambam is trying to impress upon us is not to think of Hakadosh Baruch Hu as a super-super-person, but as being altogether different and unique. And he comes back to that time and time again. In the very beginning, when the Rambam says how all metzius is through Hakadosh Baruch Hu, because only He, only He exists, and everything else is mikoach amittaso. So then the Rambam writes, Lefichach... Right here in Halacha Gimmel אין אמיתתו כאמיתת אחד מהם. It's not pshat, not trying to say, not trying to get it out of your head, it's not pshat that you live so long but Hakadosh Baruch Hu in both directions backwards and forwards lives forever and that you have so much koach and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omnipotent and that you know so much but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is omniscient. No, because even those conceptions basically we're again defining Hakadosh Baruch Hu in terms of ourselves. And it's not altogether different than the same issue lehavdil, lehavdil, lehavdil obviously as many havdalos as is possible but in terms of where it's coming from within us, it's the same issue as not recognizing the difference between ourselves and people whether contemporary or past generations who were giants of spirit. Rambam comes back to it again when he talks about הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה. So Rambam says ultimately we don't understand it. So the Ravad says so if we don't understand it, if you can't answer the question so why ask the question for? So the Ravad himself says what the Rambam was saying is he was showing that the whole question is based on a mistake, that the whole question of how can bechirah chofshis and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's foreknowledge coexist is projects onto Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he knows the way we know. And that yediah by Hashem is the same process and basically means the same thing as yediah for us. So how do we know? So how do I know that there's a Gemara Shabbos on the table? Because there's a Gemara Shabbos on the table, right? It is, so that's how I know it. And how do I know that it's daylight and that there are buildings there within our view? Because they're there. Okay, so if I would know the future, so that would mean that the future would have to be there. It would have to mean that the future is already set and determined if I know what's going to be in an hour from now and a hundred years from now the way we know is because what is. Rambam explains that's not what yediah means for Hakadosh Baruch Hu so mimeila ein hachi nami we don't understand but the point is the whole question is an absurd question because the question just results from projecting onto Hakadosh Baruch Hu again something human. And that was the Rambam's again in Rav Saadia Gaon waged the same battle is not to mistake and misinterpret all the anthropomorphic expressions into just making Hakadosh Baruch Hu into a super person. But again fundamentally it's on the one hand easier to recognize obviously the unbridgeable and undefinable gap between a person and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's easier than recognizing the gap between one person and another person, but me'idach gisa it's harder in the sense that with enough thought we can understand somewhat who the hachamei hamesorah were and obviously ultimately we don't understand Hakadosh Baruch Hu but it's the same yesod, the same yesod is not to make and construe everything within our own image. Maybe some other time we will learn. Thank you.