Leviticus 25:1-27:34
Very, Very Much Humble
This week’s reading mostly consists of a long list of misfortunes that will befall the people of Israel if they fail to keep God’s commandments. This list is so terrible that we tend to forget the rather positive note on which it begins: if Israel faithfully keeps God’s commandments, God says,
“I will place My dwelling in your midst and not be put off by you, but I will walk about in your midst and be your God, while you will be My people. I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk komemiyyut.” (Lev 26:11-13)
This last word occurs only once in the whole Bible, in this particular verse, but its meaning is not particularly obscure. It comes from the common root k-w-m, “rise up” or “stand.” In this form, and following the previous clause’s mention of being bowed down under a yoke, komemiyyut seems to mean standing up straight and tall. (That is why, in Modern Hebrew, komemiyyut has acquired the meaning of “independence,” or “self-rule, sovereignty.”)
It is interesting, however, that the Torah here asserts the very opposite of what is prescribed elsewhere for Israel:
Rabbi Joshua b. Levi said: “It is forbidden to walk for four cubits (about six feet) with an upright posture, as it is written ‘the world is full of his glory’ [Isa 6:3;].” R. Huna, the son of Rabbi Joshua [said]: “Let no one go more than four cubits with head uncovered.” (b. Talmud, Qiddushin 31a)
The idea is that walking with an arrogant, ramrod posture is a kind of self-glorification, so that if, as the prophet Isaiah said, the whole world is full of God’s glory, then there is no room for your own. In other words, don’t walk komemiyyut. By the same token, don’t go more than a few feet with your head uncovered, because that too was considered to be a sign of arrogance in rabbinic times.
It’s not clear why our ancient sages should have gone out of their way to urge people to be humble, but perhaps it had something to do with Israel’s special connection with God. The fact that we had agreed to keep God’s commandments, along with the accompanying theme of Israel as God’s chosen people, might easily have led us to become puffed up with pride—and to walk about arrogantly, with upright posture and head uncovered.
“Very, very much humble your pride, for what awaits humanity is a worm.” So wrote Jeshua ben Sira, the Jewish sage of the early second century BCE. It is difficult to miss (in either Hebrew or English) the awkward phrasing of his words. The author really ought to have written, “Humble your pride very, very much…” or something similar. But the reason for this awkwardness was clear: it was intended to get the reader to really-really-really think about the point he was making.
In fact, it seems to have been worth saying twice, since nearly the same advice appears some four centuries later in the tractate “Sayings of the Fathers” (Pirqei Avot) of the Mishnah 4:4, attributed there to a different man, Rabbi Levitas of Yavneh. Rabbi Levitas is a somewhat mysterious figure, otherwise quite unknown in rabbinic literature; his odd name—levitas means “lightmindedness” or “fickleness” in Latin—only adds to the mystery, since it is hardly the sort of name that a Jewish parent would choose for his or her newborn son.* In any case, Rabbi Levitas’ version differs only slightly from Ben Sira’s: “Very, very much be of a humble spirit, for what awaits humans is a worm.”
Why did these two authors, apparently separated by four centuries, find it necessary to tell their Jewish audience in such emphatic language to be humble? In general, books of good advice rarely tell people not to do what they probably wouldn’t do in any case. So one might well conclude that these two Jewish sages saw their coreligionists as not a particularly humble crowd.
And what of us today?
I sometimes wish that the little head covering that observant Jewish males wear today, the kippah, was still a sign of humility, but sometimes it seems to signify just the opposite. Perhaps the temptation to arrogance was dyed in the wool. In any case, now as before, the advice of our ancient sages still rings true: “Very, very much humble your pride.”
Shabbat shalom!