Thirty-eight years before the Torah declared, “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moshe, whom Hashem knew face to face” (Devarim 34:10), Hashem had already identified Moshe Rabbeinu’s unique stature in his reproof to Aharon and Miriam at the end of this week’s parsha: “Hear My words: when a prophet of the Lord arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moshe; in My entire household he is most faithful. I speak with him mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he apprehends the image of God…” (Bamidbar 12:7-8). Moshe is more than a man; he is an intimate of God. And yet, in our parsha, the Torah also emphasizes: “The man Moshe was very humble – anav me’od, more so than any other person on the face of the earth” (Bamidbar 12:3). Moshe was both a supra-human navi and a super-human anav – humble man. Might the path to gadlus be charted through katnus (smallness)?
In Pirkei Avos (4:4), perhaps taking inspiration from Moshe, Rabi Levitas of Yavne doubles up on the superlative “me’od – very” and says: “Be very, very lowly of spirit, for the hope of humanity is the worm.” Rambam explains in his commentary on the Mishnah that while moderation is usually the golden rule, “with regard to this attribute alone among all the rest, i.e., with regard to pride, the rabbis tended all the way to the extreme of deficiency; that is, they inclined completely to humbleness of spirit in order that they would not leave any room for pride in their souls.” In Hilchot De’ot, the laws of moral dispositions (Mishneh Torah 2:3), Rambam explicitly draws a connection between Rabi Levitas’s mishnah and the pasuk in our parsha about Moshe’s extraordinary humility. He writes: “There are some dispositions in regard to which it is forbidden merely to keep to the middle path. They must be shunned to the extreme. Such a disposition is pride. The right way in this regard is not to be merely humble, but to be humble-minded and lowly of spirit to the utmost. And therefore was it said of Moshe that he was ‘very humble’ (Bamidbar 12:3), not merely that he was ‘humble.’ Hence, our Sages exhorted us: ‘Be very, very lowly of spirit’ (Avot 4:4).” However, Rambam then adds one last important component: “The Sages also said that anyone who permits his heart to swell with haughtiness has denied the essential principle of our religion, as it is said, ‘And your heart will be proud and you will forget the Lord your God’” (Devarim 8:14).
How does haughtiness lead to a loss of faith? Pride to the eclipse of God? Each of us has been created in the image of God (Sanhedrin 4:5), but remarkably none of us is identical: “[Humanity was created through a single creation] to declare the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be God, for one stamps out many coins with one die, and they are all alike, but the King, the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be God, stamped each person with the seal of Adam, and not one of them is like his or her fellow.” We have been blessed with individuality, each of us with an independent mind and unique likeness, everyone having his or her own sacred purpose. While the Mishnah counsels that every person has the obligation to say, “The world was created for me,” what this means is that each person must recognize that he or she has something unique to contribute to the klal – to the whole. Each of us constitutes a world, but not our own world, rather a world within worlds. The more we think only of ourselves, the less space we reserve for God. The less room we make for our concern for others, the more we live in a world apart. As the Kotzker Rebbe taught, Hashem may be everywhere – Kevodo maleh olam, but Hashem only truly resides where we let Him in. Moshe Rabbeinu may have been complete and full, but he wasn’t completely full of himself. He concerned himself with Bnei Yisrael and strove for a personal connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. He was able to see past his own likeness and behold the image of God in every person. He was able to create a place for the Omnipresent amidst the people of Israel. Moshe Rabbeinu’s katnus (smallness, i.e., humility) led to his gadlus (greatness). May we follow in his example!