False Humility

Translated by Chana Cohen

I was travelling in the car with my husband when he casually threw out a statement. “I heard something amazing, and also a bit frightening.”

When he said the word frightening, I immediately got nervous. I thought he wanted to share another Jewish Law that he had just learned with me, which would add another terrifying burden on top of all the ones I was already carrying, and which we and our children had  better start keeping or else. I kept quiet and let him continue, trying to fight the panic rising within me.

“I heard”, he continued while keeping his eyes on the road, totally unaware of the small storm raging beside him, “that what we take with us to the Next World is built through our speech with G-d. Do you understand? That’s what it depends on, on our conversations with Him – that is what fuels our future paradise.”

“Amazing”, I replied, and then my mind began to race. ‘How much do I talk to G-d? Is this something that is measured in time? Does every reminder of him count? When I say, “With the help of G-d” and “Thank You G-d”, does that count as talking to Him? When I just think something and don’t say it aloud is that considered talking to Him? Because if we’re only talking about physically talking with G-d then I think I’m in trouble…’

I thought of my good friend who’s been doing at least an hour of Personal Prayer every day for the past few years, as well as other friends and acquaintances who do the same. After a few moments of silence I said, “If what you’re saying is correct, then I’m in big trouble. My friend who dedicates an hour every day to Personal Prayer is so lucky. She definitely has bulging sacks to bring with her to the World to Come,” and with that I made up my mind to approach this the way I usually approach things.

“Rabbi Nachman of Breslev calls what you’re saying now false humility”, my husband explained to me. You're saying, 'I'm not as good as she is…' Really, you have no idea what or how much other people are doing or not doing. You don’t have the ability to know and compare objectively from one person to another. You automatically put yourself down by thinking that someone else is better than you, which makes you immediately feel that you are at a disadvantage. This is called false humility because you’re pretending to be humble by admitting that others are better than you. However, the outcome of this kind of humility is sadness, loneliness and even despair G-d forbid. You’re actually putting yourself into a harmful mindset, and disguising it as a positive character trait.”

What he was saying was correct.

Over the next few days, I realized that I was repeating this pattern of false humility in all kinds of situations. I realized that my friends do it too, even with small things. For example, my friends were talking about a “woman of valor”. She has many children, she works and studies, and also manages to have a sparkling clean oven at all times. And me? I don’t work, my house is messy and my oven is never clean (except maybe on Passover, when I scrub off as much dirt as I can…).

False humility does nothing to help our character development, and doesn’t help better our personality or our actions in any way. Don't ever say that you're not as good as…

I began thinking about humility and arrogance a lot. I overheard my daughter announce in a loud voice about how beautiful she is. She even composed a song about it and sang it to anyone who would listen (and to everyone who did not want to listen). I spoke to her and tried to explain that no one wants to hear someone talk about how beautiful or successful they are, even if it’s true. I told her that it sounds arrogant and G-d hates arrogance more than anything else.

Afterwards, I realized that I wasn’t so accurate. Even Rabbi Nachman of Breslev said good things about himself like, “I am a wondrous man and my soul is a great wonder”, and “A novelty like me was never in the world before”, and he was most definitely not arrogant.

I started paying attention and I realized that many times what I perceived as arrogance or humility was not truly the essence of the character trait. It was either a counterfeit of the real thing, or just the way we interpret it according to our reality.

No one wants to be arrogant, but we do need to be aware of our strengths and talents in order to encourage ourselves and to be able to find our good points. The line between self-reinforcement (even in front of others) and arrogance is extremely narrow. We need to be very exacting and careful so as not to fall into false humility or arrogance. Why? Because in both instances we forget that there is a G-d in the world. We forget that He runs the world, and we mistakenly believe that everything we have is thanks to our strength and the power of our hands. If we always remember that G-d is the One in charge, then we won’t fall into the traps of false humility or arrogance.