Humble Aspirations
Do you think anybody really wants to be arrogant?
Is there somebody out there who actually aspires to obnoxiousness?
I doubt it.
But, on the other hand, do you really want to be ‘humble’?
Or does the word ‘humble’ conjure up an image of someone lacking presence and self-confidence, an easily manipulated wallflower shyly averting his gaze?
Think about it. Do you picture the ‘humble person’ as ambitious and driven to success?
But think again.
The Torah wants us to live energetically; engaging the world and bringing it to a meaningful place.
But Torah thought also wants us each to be humble, so that can’t mean simple passivity and submissiveness.
So what is humility?
Humility means being honest with yourself, and seeing yourself for who you really are.
Humility isn’t merely a self-effacing attitude, one which denies – to yourself or others – your value, strengths and talents. That’s not humility, it’s [self-] deception.
No, humility means being fully aware of your talents; it means total consciousness of your advantages in life – genetic, familial/societal or financial.
Humility is the attitude which you approach your gifts and talents.
We all need to look at ourselves and take honest stock of our G-d-given ‘toolbox’, the gifts with which we’ve been endowed. Then we need to recognize that each of those life-advantages comes with a responsibility. G-d grants us gifts for a purpose: we need to develop and utilize our ‘tools’, making them into accessories for accomplishing meaningful living.
So I need to look at each of my gifts and ask: Am I doing it justice?
I need to honestly consider the high probability – make that certainty – that others would have accomplished more with my tools.
I also need to consider that people without my specific talents, my tools, have simply been dealt a different tool box. That’s G-d’s business, not mine.
To a humble person, the real measure of life isn’t which tools we’ve each been dealt; it’s what we’re doing with them.
So humility is a sense of responsibility: I need to be who G-d created me to be. Humility is when I’m not competing against others, but against my potential. Humility is a sense of always being conscious for new opportunities to be the best I can be.
Humility. Now there’s an ambition.
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