The most underrated quality

Rabbi Aharon Rose

I have always referred to the umbilical cord as the humbilical cord, because the character trait of humility connects us with G-d, with others and with our true self, like the umbilical cord connects us with our mother.

You don’t often hear people describe someone as humble anymore. We don’t seem to value it much as a character trait. It has gone out of fashion.

This lack of humility and our focus on what we mistakenly think is the opposite, feeling superior to others, destroys us and our relationships with others, and especially with G-d. Of the arrogant man, G-d says: “He and I cannot live in the same world.” And I don’t think G-d is planning on leaving…

In our parsha, Korach leads a rebellion against Moshe. Korach’s wife told him: “Kenny my dear, (that was his English name) you have many talents and great blessings, just like Moshe. You should be a leader like he is! But he has taken all the honoured positions for himself and for his pals!” (Sound familiar?)

Ohn ben Peles was also dragged into the dispute, but his wife convinced him to withdraw from the fight and rather to use his G-d-given talents in a way that would serve G-d and give G-d pleasure. She told him not to seek high office, because, when the goal you seek is against the will of G-d, nothing good will come of it. The story of Korach ends when his talents and blessings bring disaster upon himself and his followers – but not upon Ohn!

What is humility? Well, what isn’t it? It isn’t a feeling of inferiority, where one can only see the bad in oneself, leading to anxiety and possibly depression. That is terrible, but striving for the opposite of that is just as bad: a feeling of superiority, where one can only see the good in oneself, which leads to arrogance, selfishness, boasting, and, in the end, also to anxiety and possibly depression.

Humility is the awareness that I have certain talents and blessings (resulting in a sense of self-esteem and confidence), given to me by G-d. Denying those talents and blessings is false and delusional – and one will end up wasting them.

Humility means that I know I have them and, because they have been given to me by G-d, there is no reason to boast of them. On the contrary, if G-d had given the same gifts to someone else, that other person might have made more of them than I have. Humility means using what G-d has given me in the way G-d wants me to use them – sometimes to lead and sometimes to follow.

We need to keep our humbilical cord intact, always.