Book: Garments of Light – 5760

 A. Introduction

There is an intuitive sense that there is a great affinity, if not identity, between modesty and humility. In these pages I would like to touch on the relationship between these two traits and examine that intuition. As background, I will try to characterize each of these two traits on its own, although, as stated, the main goal is to discuss the mutual relation between them. We will want, on the one hand, to sharpen the differences between these two traits, and on the other hand, to try to clarify why there is nevertheless a sense that these two traits are indeed close to one another, and in what respects.

Let us begin with the words of Maimonides at the beginning of the Laws of Character Traits:

Each and every human being has many dispositions, each different from the other and far removed from it. There is a person who is hot-tempered and constantly angry, and there is a person of settled mind who never becomes angry, or, if he does become angry, becomes angry only slightly once in several years. There is one who is exceedingly arrogant, and one who is exceedingly humble. There is one driven by desire, whose appetite is never satisfied as he pursues it. And there is one of very pure heart who does not desire even the few things the body needs. There is one of expansive appetite whose soul is never satisfied with all the wealth in the world, as it is said: ‘He who loves money will never be satisfied with money.’ And there is one of constricted appetite who is content even with a very little that is not enough for him, and does not chase after all his needs. There is one who afflicts himself with hunger and hoards his means and does not spend a penny of his own except with great pain. And there is one who squanders all his wealth with his own hand, knowingly. And along these lines are all the other dispositions, such as the cheerful and the mournful, the miserly and the lavish, the cruel and the compassionate, the soft-hearted and the courageous, and the like (Maimonides, beginning of the Laws of Character Traits).

A common mistake is made in understanding the term ‘de’ot’ in the language of the Sages. In modern usage this term means opinions, or worldviews. In the language of the Sages, and likewise in Maimonides, this term means traits, psychic powers, character tendencies, or forms of behavior.[1]

As we see from these words of Maimonides, there are many traits in the human soul. His words reflect that some of them are positive and some negative. The main point in Maimonides’ ruling is that different people differ from one another in their ‘traits.’ Our concern here is not a comparison between people, but a comparison and determination of the relations between different traits. In principle, it seems that several such different traits can exist within one soul. Some of them are opposites of one another, and that opposition seems not to allow their simultaneous existence in the same soul. Clearly, the same person can sometimes be angry and sometimes calm, but when we speak of anger or calmness as traits, it seems that their mutual coexistence is impossible. There are calm people, and there are irascible people, but a given person must be characterized by only one of these two traits.

To sharpen this distinction, let us now consider several examples from the words of Maimonides quoted above. The word ‘anger’ indicates a form of behavior, but primarily an inner feeling or a psychic state. With ‘anger’ it is actually less likely that we mean a psychic trait, although such a trait does exist. ‘Afflicting oneself through hunger’ is already actual behavior, not a psychic state, and certainly not a psychic trait. True, such behavior certainly stems from traits and psychic states, but ‘afflicting oneself’ is a term that describes behavior. By contrast, the simple meaning of the term ‘haughty-hearted’ describes a psychic state, and more than that a character type, or a trait in the soul, rather than a form of behavior.

It therefore seems that when we speak of any trait, we must distinguish among three different levels of reference:

1. A character tendency, which from here on we will refer to as a ‘trait.’
2. A psychic state or feeling at a given moment.[2]
3. Behavior that is derived from the psychic state and the inner tendency.

Our conclusion is that every human activity that has a dimension of character can be described by an ordered three-stage chain representing these three levels: a character tendency, which in given circumstances leads to certain psychic states (emotions). These psychic states then lead to behavior, which is the expression of the trait in the external physical world.

Words belonging to the world of traits are used in different contexts to describe each of these three stages or levels. We saw that the word ‘anger’ is usually interpreted as a psychic state or a form of behavior. From the claim above we learn that there is apparently also a psychic tendency underlying that feeling or behavior, and that is what is called the ‘trait of anger,’ or the tendency to become angry (perhaps one could say ‘irascibility’).[3] This psychic tendency is part of a person’s very structure, whereas the feeling, like the specific behavior, are descriptions of a person’s condition at a certain moment that will pass.[4] They are not part of the person himself.

In what follows, when we describe and compare modesty and humility, we will do so on these three planes: as character tendencies, as feelings, and as forms of behavior.

In the next chapter we will discuss humility, and try to characterize those aspects of it that come to expression in the relations we will present between it and modesty. Chapter C will discuss modesty from those same perspectives, and Chapter D will deal with the relation between the traits, a relation that exists, as will become clear below, on all three of the planes mentioned above. We will see that the root of the relation between these traits is anchored in a deeper stratum than the three planes of the chain of traits presented here.

B. Humility

In this chapter we will focus mainly on describing and characterizing humility on the plane of traits and behavior, and not on the plane of purposes and metaphysical meanings, which many have already discussed.[5]

The only appearance of the trait of humility in the Torah is in Numbers 12:3: And the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth. In the other books of Scripture humility appears, and humble people are mentioned, many times.

Usually, humility in Scripture is a condition of a person, and only in a few appearances is it entirely clear that it is a character trait. Several examples in which humility clearly appears as a trait or quality are Numbers 12:3: And the man Moses was humble, Psalms 45:5: for the sake of truth and humility, Proverbs 15:33: The fear of the Lord is the discipline of wisdom, and before honor comes humility, Proverbs 18:12: and before honor comes humility, and Proverbs 22:4: The reward of humility and fear of the Lord is wealth, honor, and life.

There are several other places where the meaning is not clear. Most appearances of humility in Scripture describe a person’s condition—usually a condition of poverty, and perhaps more generally a condition of misery, of which poverty is a particular case. Interestingly, several times there is even an alternation between the written and read forms, between ‘poor’ and ‘humble.’[6]

Most biblical appearances do not readily allow us to understand the meaning of the trait of humility. In many places the humble person is noted as someone whose voice the Holy One, blessed be He, hears, for whom He cares, and whom He saves. In such cases it is not immediately clear whether the intention is the miserable person, or the one distinguished by humility, or perhaps both. Explicit characterizations of the trait of humility do not appear in Scripture at all.

An initial understanding of the essence of the trait of humility may be learned from the Torah’s testimony about Moses, who is described as more humble than any person on the face of the earth.[7] Moses’ humility is noted there against the complaints of Miriam and Aaron regarding his exaltation over them, for God also spoke with them, and the Lord heard—they too are prophets.

Accordingly, the commentators there explained the trait of humility as lack of self-exaltation (see, for example, Ibn Ezra there), meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, replies to Miriam and Aaron that their complaint has no substance. Nahmanides (and other commentators), after citing Ibn Ezra’s words, adds there that Moses’ humility lay in the fact that he endured even when they spoke before him and did not answer them, and this is his language there:

The meaning of ‘And the man Moses was very humble’ is to tell us that the Lord became jealous for him because of his humility, for he would never answer in a quarrel, even if he knew the truth. Rabbi Abraham [Ibn Ezra] explains and says that he did not seek superiority over any person and was not at all proud of his rank, even over his brothers, though they sinned in speaking against him for no reason. But in Sifrei of Rabbi Nathan it says that they even spoke against him to Moses’ face, as it says, ‘And the Lord heard, and the man Moses was very humble’; rather, Moses suppressed the matter. Scripture mentions his humility, in that he endured it and did not answer them, and the Lord was jealous for him.

This addition of Nahmanides appears elsewhere as a characterization of humility, although its usual classification is ‘one who overlooks personal slights.’ This is the trait about which the Sages said: Those who are insulted and do not insult others, who hear their disgrace and do not respond, who act out of love and rejoice in suffering—of them Scripture says, ‘And those who love Him are like the sun when it goes forth in its might’ (see Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 23a).

Usually this trait is connected to the prohibition of taking revenge and bearing a grudge, but here we are dealing with the root of the tendency to take revenge and bear a grudge. A humble person does not feel a need—and even if he does, he tries to overcome it—to answer those who insult him, and in any case he does not avenge himself and bear grudges. In the terms of the chain of traits presented in the previous chapter, we would say that humility here appears as the trait, or character quality, underlying the behavior of ‘overlooking personal slights.’

A similar description of humility appears in Sefer Hasidim (p. 185):

There was an incident involving a certain pious man whom someone used to shame and speak evil words to. The community said to him: Let us reprimand him and place him under a ban. He said to them: Do not do so. They said: Let us do it so that he will not do the same to others. He said to them: Learn from me and do the same, for I endure it and do not let you quarrel on my account. Therefore, when you hear your own disgrace from some scoundrel all day long, from the voice of one who reviles and blasphemes, pay no attention to any of his words. For it is written: ‘And the man Moses was very humble, more than any person…’

Here too we see that he interpreted Moses’ humility as that of one who hears his disgrace, restrains himself, and does not respond.

The characteristic of ‘overlooking personal slights’ added by Nahmanides and Rabbi Judah the Pious seems more far-reaching than Ibn Ezra’s. Here greater psychic powers of self-overcoming are required. Yet it seems that humility as the opposite of self-exaltation is more basic. It is the psychic power that also underlies the overlooking of slights. One can overlook slights despite a feeling of deprivation and injury. This is restraint, patience, and passivity existing only on the behavioral plane, perhaps even for pragmatic reasons (for example, someone who does not want to appear insulted, or does not want to ruin his relations with those who insult him, or even someone who does not want to multiply dispute, which appears morally superior). But one who overlooks slights because he lacks self-exaltation and therefore is not hurt at all expresses a deeper psychic quality, or trait. It seems that Nahmanides’ words do indeed add further depth to Ibn Ezra’s interpretation, but the more basic trait is specifically the one described by Ibn Ezra. This is presumably also Rashi’s intention there, where he briefly comments: Humble—that is, lowly and patient.

This description recalls the well-known story of R. Mendele of Kotzk, to whom someone came and complained that he flees from honor and yet honor does not pursue him. R. Mendele answered that apparently, while he is fleeing, he looks back in order to make sure that honor is indeed chasing him. His point was that fleeing from honor is not the highest virtue. Higher than that is the feeling that there is nothing at all from which to flee—to regard honor with complete indifference. In such a case, the one fleeing does not even trouble himself to look back. One who interprets the saying that ‘whoever flees honor, honor pursues him’ as a promise, or as a description of the most effective way to attain honor, may indeed overlook personal slights, but he does so only so that others will esteem him more. In fact, there is here a hidden pursuit of honor, which is the opposite of humility as a trait.

In Moses our teacher, the description of overlooking slights stems from a trait of lack of self-exaltation and lack of regard for honor, not from one pragmatic calculation or another. Here we see a clear implication of the distinction between humble behavior and the trait of humility. Two completely opposite traits in the soul can be expressed in the same form of behavior.

This is stated explicitly in Ruach Chaim by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin on Avot 4:

The essence of humility is not only that a person should accept insults and fulfill ‘and let my soul be silent to those who curse me,’ but also that in his heart he should think that he counts for nothing in comparison with the lowliest of people. And even if he is a person of stature, wise and God-fearing—he should remember that, given his intellect and disposition, he has not served the Lord sufficiently. It may be that the lowliest of people, according to his meager talents and qualities, has labored more than he. But if a person inwardly regards himself as mighty and great, even if in practice he conducts himself in humble ways and endures insult—about him Scripture says: ‘With their mouths they lie, but their heart is not right.’

Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero writes in Tomer Devorah, chapter 2:

The essence of humility is that a person find in himself [in his heart] no worth at all, but think of himself as nothing, until in his own eyes he is the lowliest of all creatures, exceedingly despised and contemptible, and he thinks that his nonexistence would be better than his existence. Then, when people disgrace him, he will feel as though justice is on their side, and he is the contemptible one who is at fault.

To sharpen the point, it is worth noting that some have explained that this trait can be acquired by understanding that even insults come from the Holy One, blessed be He, and that no person can harm me if I do not truly deserve it. This makes the trait of overlooking personal slights depend on faith in God’s providence. Our conclusion here is that one who needs this argument at all is still not humble. He is a great believer, but not humble. From the standpoint of the humble person, there is no injury here at all, and therefore he does not wonder who sent him this injury.[8]

Perhaps this is the meaning of the biblical interchange between humility and poverty. The humble person must live with the awareness that he is poor and lacks everything—poor in spiritual assets and in qualities worthy of honor. He must live with the awareness of one who possesses no such ‘assets,’ who is empty of all such things.

So far we have discussed the trait of overlooking personal slights as an expression of humility. Clearly, even one to whom honor is accorded can relate to it on those same planes. A person can protest it out of a genuine lack of recognition of his own worth, or out of false humility, which also has value. It establishes a proper norm in society, just as does the passivity we described earlier, but this is still not true humility, and perhaps to a large extent it is the opposite of it.

Against all this, many point to the fact that a person must recognize his own worth, and specifically from that be humble. Thus the Netziv of Volozhin writes in Ha’amek Davar on that passage in Numbers:

Not because he was lowly in his own eyes and did not recognize that he was not deserving of this suffering and lack of honor. Rather, the meaning of ‘humble’ is that he conducts himself without concern for his honor.

The masters of Musar elaborated at length to sharpen this point. In Lev Eliyahu, part I, p. 294, a proof is brought from Moses our teacher himself, about whom the Torah writes (which, as noted, he himself wrote): ‘Not so My servant Moses; in all My house he is trusted. Mouth to mouth I speak with him, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord.’ See also Or Yahel, part III, parashat Shemini, and in the name of Rabbi Yerucham of Mir in Marbitzei Torah U’Musar, chapter 13, who writes:

Woe to a person who does not recognize the defects and shortcomings of his soul, for he does not know what he must correct. But woe to him sevenfold if a person does not recognize the powers of his soul and its virtues, for then he does not even know the tools of his service.

It is interesting to note R. Mendele of Kotzk’s comment on the question why the Holy One, blessed be He, chose Mount Sinai for giving the Torah. If He was looking for a low place (a humble place), He could have given it in a valley or on a plain. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in Likkutei Torah on parashat Bemidbar, proves from here that a person must have a little loftiness of heart and not only lowliness and humility, for otherwise he will be unable to continue serving God. R. Mendele, by contrast, argued that there is nothing remarkable about a plain being humble, since it has nothing with which to be proud. The Holy One, blessed be He, sought a mountain that would nevertheless be humble. God does not seek a person without virtues, but a person with virtues who nevertheless preserves his humility and does not grow proud.

In many respects this is a general feature of many traits. For example, the trait of tolerance and openness deserves no particular praise if the tolerant person does not actually believe in a different position. There is nothing remarkable about being tolerant and open when you yourself have no position at all. The same is true of humility: it has no value when there is nothing of which to be proud. The humility of a person devoid of virtues—one who is all deficiencies—contains nothing noteworthy.[9]

This is why the figures the Sages chose to note as symbols of humility were generally people who possessed both Torah and greatness: Abraham (see Berakhot 6b), Moses, Ezra, and Hillel (see Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 11a and Sotah 48b), and Rabbi Judah the Patriarch (ibid. 49a).

From these remarks there seems, at first glance, to emerge the exact opposite of the demand of Tomer Devorah and Ruach Chaim cited above. We see that a person is specifically commanded to recognize his own greatness and advantages. It therefore seems that humility and overlooking personal slights cannot stem from inner character, but can exist only at the level of external behavior. This also seems to follow from the Netziv’s formulation above, that the essence of humility is only to conduct oneself without concern for one’s honor. From this description it appears that, in the terminology we defined in the previous chapter, humility is only behavior and not a trait.

Despite all this, there is no contradiction here at all. In order to be hurt and insulted, a person must recognize his virtues, but that is not enough. He must also value them and insist that others treat them with honor. Only if both conditions are present can a person be hurt by his fellow. It seems, then, that a person must know very well his status, advantages, and wisdom, even in comparison with those around him. All this is on the factual plane; otherwise he is simply a fool. What a person is commanded regarding the trait of humility is not to relate to these things as a distinction by virtue of which he deserves honor. In other words, what must disappear is his valuation of these merits, not the very recognition of them.[10]

The comparison between humility and poverty here acquires a hue that has implications also for our conception of poverty. A poor person is one who feels himself poor. Just as a rich person is one who rejoices in his portion and not necessarily one who owns assets, so a poor person is one who feels lack, and not necessarily one who objectively lacks. We know many examples from life of this distinction. There are families whose objective condition is no better than that of distressed families, and yet they are not defined as such, but this is not the place to elaborate.

Humility too is the feeling that the qualities one possesses are not worthy of honor, and not the actual absence of those qualities, and not even the absence of awareness that they exist. Only a mountain can be humble, if it lives with the consciousness of a plain. A real plain is not humble, and cannot be such.[11]

Our conclusion up to this point is that a person must know very well his advantages and deficiencies, and the demand of humility from him exists only on the plane of evaluating the facts, not on the plane of knowing the facts themselves, and not even on the plane of being aware of their positive value.

At first glance, we arrive here at the trait called by the Hasidim ‘equanimity.’ A characteristic description of this trait is found in Likkutim Yekarim (57a):

‘I have set the Lord always before me’—’shiviti’ connotes equanimity: in everything that happens to a person, everything should be equal in his eyes, whether people praise him or despise him, and likewise in all other matters; and likewise with all foods, whether he eats delicacies or other foods, everything should be the same in his eyes, once the evil inclination has been completely removed from him.

The trait of equanimity as described here is broader than the trait of humility. Here there is equanimity with respect to every instinct and feeling. In many respects this is the death of the instinctive emotional world of man, and indifference to everything that is not relevant to the service of God. This is the service of God of one who has reached equanimity. Here, by contrast, we are describing humility as equanimity only with respect to feelings of pride, anger, or insult.

It seems to me that humility actually contains the opposite of the trait of equanimity. A person whose emotional world is dead does not need to cease valuing his merits in order not to be hurt. He has blocked his capacity to be hurt. Here we are speaking about an entirely opposite labor. One must not tamper with the impulse to be hurt and with that power in the soul. It is a creation of the Holy One, blessed be He, and we may not kill it. What we must do is understand that there is nothing from which to be hurt. It is our valuation of our own merits that must change. Again, I do not mean that we should not value our merits, but that we should not demand for them honor and esteem from ourselves or from others. Clearly, we must be aware that these are merits and not deficiencies, and know that this is what a correctly constituted human being ought to look like. Our valuation should concentrate on the moral-value plane, not on the plane of pride. We must be aware of our moral worth and value in being constituted this way, and nevertheless not take credit for it ourselves—or demand that others do so. This is a kind of equanimity, but one that takes place only on the mental plane, not the emotional. This is indeed a most delicate spiritual labor.

Only in light of this distinction can we understand Rav Yosef and Rav Nahman in Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 49b:

When Rabbi died, humility and fear of sin ceased. Rabbi Yosef said to the tanna: Do not teach ‘humility,’ for I am here. Rabbi Nahman said to the tanna: Do not teach ‘fear of sin,’ for I am here.

Rav Nahman and Rav Yosef knew their virtues very well, and nevertheless did not take credit for themselves. They had reached the level of equanimity in these areas. For Rav Yosef, in the discussion of humility, it is no obstacle at all to point out that he himself excels in this trait. His relation is factual and moral, not prideful.[12] Most people would not say such a sentence. This does not necessarily stem from their being extremely humble, but simply from embarrassment. We still do not stand in a relation of equanimity toward pride, even when we manage to overcome it to some degree. In R. Mendele’s terms, Rav Yosef and Rav Nahman do not even trouble themselves to flee from honor.

The Shelah, on parashat Ekev, p. 371, under the heading on humility, brought proof from this Talmudic passage for equanimity, that praise and blame were equal in their eyes. So too it appears from Duties of the Heart, Gate of the Unity of Action, which tells of a pious man who asked his friend: have you reached equanimity, meaning, have you attained the level at which praise and blame are equal in your soul? He answered, no. The first replied: if so, you have still not reached the level of humility. It seems, however, that this is the equanimity we defined here—the mental sort—and not the emotional equanimity of the author of Likkutim Yekarim.

If indeed we recognize our virtues and advantages, and also do not fundamentally break the tendency in our feeling to be hurt when we are hurt—as those Hasidic adepts of equanimity do—how are we to explain to ourselves why we should not take credit for this? After all, we not only recognize the merits we have, but also that those merits are good, as explained above.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, whom we cited above, justified this demand by saying that a person never does all that he could have attained with his qualities and intellect, and therefore has no reason to be proud of his achievements. This is also implied by Rabbenu Yonah (Sha’arei Teshuvah 1:24), who writes:

In a person’s eyes, everything should be small in comparison with what he owes in the service of the Lord; therefore he should humble himself and serve in secrecy, and not crave honor for his noble deeds, nor seek that people glorify him for his actions, but conceal them from people’s knowledge as much as he can.

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai says in chapter 2 of Avot: If you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, for that is what you were created for. Here there is an even more far-reaching statement than that of Rabbenu Yonah and Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin above. Rabbi Chaim wrote that humility is based on the fact that each person has still not reached the level he could have reached in accordance with his qualities and talents. Here we see that even if, theoretically, a person reaches everything he could have reached, he still should not take credit for himself, since that is what he was created for. This is natural and required with respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, who created in him these qualities and this intellect. You do not demand gratitude for yourself when you are merely paying back a debt you owe. Gratitude is due and required only for a person who has done more than what was imposed upon him by strict law. That is, humility is based on the recognition that a person who performs his moral-religious duties is doing nothing beyond the most basic obligation imposed upon him. The fact that others do not always stand up to this task at the same level as I do does not detract from the fact that this task remains a simple and natural obligation toward myself and toward the Holy One, blessed be He, who created me.

In Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 5a, it is written:

Rabbi Hiyya bar Ashi said in the name of Rav: A Torah scholar should have one-eighth of an eighth [of pride], and it crowns him like the awn crowns the ear of grain. Rava said: Under a ban is one who has it, and under a ban is one who lacks it. [under a ban is one who has pride, and under a ban is one who lacks it]. Rabbi Nahman bar Yitzhak said: Not it, and not part of it. Is it a small matter, that it is written, ‘Everyone who is proud of heart is an abomination to the Lord’?

It is well known that Maimonides, Laws of Character Traits 2:3, Rabbenu Yonah on Avot 1:13, and the Rosh in Orchot Chaim 1 ruled in accordance with Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak. And in the name of the Vilna Gaon, in Kol Eliyahu there, it is brought that ‘an eighth of an eighth’ refers to the eighth section of the Torah (Vayishlach), verse eight: I am unworthy of all the kindnesses. That is, a Torah scholar must remember that even if he has many merits, he has already consumed their reward through the abundance of God’s kindness to him, and in any case he has nothing at all with which to be proud. This interpretation of the Vilna Gaon is very close to our definition above of the root of the trait of humility.

It follows that the basis for a person’s demanding humility of himself has two stages: 1. If he has still not exhausted all his capacities and talents, he has nothing of which to be proud. 2. Even if some of his talents have been fully realized, this is a natural duty that he owes to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to himself as one created in the divine image.[13]

One should note that there is no purpose or rationale given here for why the trait of humility is excellent. There is only a statement of why it is right for every person to be humble. The question why humility is a good trait of soul is another question. One might have said that even if there is nothing of which to be proud, after all, what can be bad about a little pride? We accept that humility as a trait is an excellent trait in itself, but these are not necessarily the reasons for that. Here we are only pointing out that a person has nothing about which to be proud. This is also the kind of feeling a person ought to feel, which will lead him to humble behavior. A person should feel that he is merely fulfilling a simple duty, and in any case he will not grow proud.

It follows that humble behavior finds full expression when a person restrains himself and does not answer those who hurt him—when he overlooks personal slights—and certainly when he does not demand honor for himself. True, such behavior can also stem from motives other than humility. Such behavior expresses true humility only when it comes from the feeling of ‘what are we?’[14] Here there is no forbearance, but absence of the impulse to react. Yet the absence of this impulse does not stem from lack of recognition of a person’s merits, and certainly not from killing his emotional world and natural tendencies (extreme equanimity), but from restraining them through the understanding that one is merely fulfilling a simple obligation.

Perhaps this explains why humility is presented as a foundation for fear of Heaven and fear of sin in Scripture and in many passages of the Sages. In Proverbs 22:4: The reward of humility is fear of the Lord, wealth, honor, and life. Following this, the baraita of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair states that humility leads to fear of sin (see Maharal, Netiv Ha-Anavah). If the humble person has a sense of simple obligation in all that he does, it is clear that he will have no desire to sin. Thus humility at its root indeed leads to fear of sin.

We have seen here a description of the chain of traits defined in the introduction: the trait in the soul that leads to a feeling, which comes to expression in an act or behavior.

Let us note here, continuing the remarks of the previous chapter, that this chain is bidirectional. Just as the trait determines the feeling and the behavior, so too the way to attain and internalize this trait in a person’s soul and character is by developing a consciousness and feeling that achievements are merely the fulfillment of a natural obligation, and this, among other things, through acts of humble behavior.

Many excellent people have elaborated at length on the plane of the purpose and value of humility, and therefore I wish here to be brief.

In Duties of the Heart, humility is assigned to the Gate of Submission. From the very terminology of ‘submission’ one may learn that Rabbenu Bahya there emphasizes humility as man’s duty toward the Omnipresent. Out of submission to the Creator and understanding of his own lowliness in comparison with the greatness of the Creator, a person comes to closeness to the Creator, and from that also to humble behavior toward those around him. There is here an additional emphasis on humility as the mode in which a person stands, or conceives himself, when standing before the Creator.

It seems that here there is a different starting point from the two we raised earlier. We saw approaches according to which a person does not exhaust his talents and abilities, and we saw that even when he does exhaust them he still should not glorify himself because of that, since this is his simple duty. Here, by contrast, we find reference to those very abilities and skills themselves, which in comparison with the Creator appear lowly and valueless.

At first glance it is difficult to identify with such a feeling, for I do not compare myself to the Creator but to people like me. There is no point in measuring my abilities against the Creator of the world. For the same reason it is very difficult, out of such a comparison, to arrive at a feeling of lowliness that would be meaningful in a person’s relation to the people around him. It seems that here one can find the fact that the abilities found in me were implanted in me by my Creator, and therefore I have nothing with which to be proud. Their utilization and realization, as stated, is my elementary duty, and therefore here too there is no reason for pride. We have therefore returned to the same starting point.

Jewish thought later in history placed increasing emphasis on humility as a mode of standing before the Creator, but that already touches on the metaphysical meanings of humility (as a basis for the indwelling of the Divine Presence, for the acquisition of wisdom, Torah, and fear of Heaven), and these are not our subject here.[15]

Let us now summarize the present chapter on humility. The trait of humility exists only in one who possesses advantages and abilities, and who also recognizes their value, even if he has a strong human emotion that tends to be hurt and to demand honor for itself. The demand of humility is that despite all this, a person should not attribute a value of importance or honor to these abilities and achievements. This is our basic definition of the essence of the trait of humility. Following such a trait in the soul, a person lives with the feeling that his achievements contain nothing beyond the fulfillment of his elementary duty toward his Creator, and therefore on the behavioral plane he does not demand honor for himself, he overlooks personal slights, he does not become angry or hurt, and so on.

C. Modesty

The trait of modesty is the subject of this book, and therefore I will suffice here with a more concise discussion, which will serve as an introduction to the next chapter.

Modesty is barely mentioned in Scripture. In Micah 6:8: He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord your God demands of you: only to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk modestly with your God. And also in Proverbs 11:2: When arrogance comes, disgrace comes; but with the modest is wisdom. In contrast to the concept of ‘humility’ discussed in the previous chapter, in both these appearances in Scripture it is fairly clear that the term ‘modesty’ denotes a trait and not a condition.

In rabbinic literature we also encounter this term as denoting a condition. Many times a modest thing means a hidden thing; to be ‘matznia’ means to conceal (see, for example, Mishnah Shabbat, chapter ‘One Who Stores Away,’ and very many others). Concealment is mentioned regarding Torah study and performance of commandments in secret, modest conduct in the lavatory, conduct between man and woman, covering parts of the body that should be covered, and much else.

‘Modest people’ are also those who restrain their appetite and gluttony. See Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39a: The modest would withdraw their hands, while the gluttonous would take and eat.

Modesty also appears in the context of refraining from ostentation. See, for example, Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 49b: They decreed that a bride should not go out in a litter, etc. Why? Because of modesty. So too regarding the ruling that a woman should not go out in red garments. In this context modesty is the opposite of brazenness. See, for example, Bava Batra 58a and Rashi there, who explains that a modest person is one who lacks the brazenness to strike upon his father’s grave.

Modesty is required of a person even within the home. See Tanhuma, Vayishlach, section 6, s.v. ‘Vatetze Dina’: Rabbi Pinhas the priest, son of Hama, said: When she is modest within the home, just as the altar atones, so she atones for her household, etc. Also well known are the rulings relevant to this matter regarding head covering and the covering of body parts for men and women within the home. See further Shabbat 53b: There was an incident involving a certain man who married a woman with an amputated hand and did not notice it until the day of her death. Rav said: Come and see how modest this woman was, that her husband did not notice her. Rabbi Hiyya said to him: That was simply her way; rather, come and see how modest this man was, that he did not notice his wife.

It is clear that all these are descriptions of behavior, and not definitions and characterizations of the trait itself. Naturally, in the words of the Sages there is no direct treatment of the psychic roots of the trait, or of the feeling that accompanies the modest act.

When one tries to examine what all these meanings have in common, and descend to their root as a trait, it seems that modesty has two opposite roots. On the one hand, it appears to be a restraining trait, whose purpose is that a person not bring outward things that ought not to be brought out. The restraint of appetite and gluttony, or the prevention of ostentation, is likewise the concealment of a power that ought to be stored within. That is, this is a trait parallel to shame. We saw that it also appears as the opposite of brazenness. This is in fact behavior dictated by the other. The other must not see various things, and I must feel shame before him. In this picture the modest person is acted upon rather than acting. Therefore Maharal, at the beginning of Netiv Ha-Tzeni’ut, writes:

In the book of Proverbs: ‘When arrogance comes, disgrace comes; but with the modest is wisdom.’ King Solomon meant to say that with arrogance—that is, one who is not modest, and is called arrogant because he has no shame to be affected by other people, and this is called arrogance of heart—when a person is like that, disgrace and reproach come upon him in accordance with his measure, for what follows after him is distance from honor; therefore, ‘disgrace comes.’ ‘But with the modest is wisdom,’ because wisdom follows one who possesses modesty, for wisdom is fitting to modesty.

We see here that modesty means ‘to be affected by other people.’ Opposed to it is insolence, which is lack of shame, or brazenness. We also see in the words of the Sages that modest people are those who spare themselves malicious talk (see Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 29b: modest people sling them behind with a stick), that is, they behave according to the way others see them. This is the first side visible in the roots of modesty.

The second side of modesty, however, seems to contradict the first. Modesty is required even in the innermost chambers. Here it is clear that the issue is not shame before others, and it is obvious that there is here a deeper root. Modesty in this context is precisely a lack of being impressed by others. A person performs his actions not so that others will say, or not say, something about him, or because others look at the matter this way or that. A person does what is proper only because it is proper.

It seems that this tendency is actually intended to create lack of dependence on the perspectives of others. For example, the modesty that appears as Torah study and performance of commandments in secret hints at a tendency to build an autonomous person who acts from his own inner power and is not acted upon by what others see, say, or think. A person who acts in secret does, in a completely pure way, what he truly thinks right. Here modesty is not a restraining trait but a constructive, creative, and impelling trait. The concealment of the self is for the sake of its realization and construction, and not, as might seem at first glance, for the sake of restraining and suppressing it because of external factors.

The covering of normally covered body parts and the avoidance of ostentation also point to such a tendency. A person does not dress according to what is expected of him, or according to what others will think of him, but according to what is truly proper. Clothing should be functional, primarily in order to cover, protect, and conceal, and not an end in itself so that it will be seen.

If our words are correct, we see that modesty contains two contradictory tendencies. One is to be ashamed before others, that is, to be acted upon by external factors; the other is specifically not to be affected by others. What these two tendencies share on the behavioral plane is concealment, but at their root they are opposites: one restrains the self from being revealed, and the other creates and impels, building it as an independent and powerful factor. One is passive and the other active. It seems that the word ‘modesty’ serves in this double sense only because of the similarity of the consequences on the behavioral plane.

In our time it seems that these two meanings have become mixed together. One who behaves immodestly in the public sphere does not lack shame before others, for that is an accepted norm. In many respects this is specifically conduct acted upon by others. Following some fashion is going with the crowd, and certainly involves being moved by others.

There is nevertheless a sense that it is still correct to say that a person who behaves immodestly in the public sphere lacks shame. In addition, the very establishment of absolute halakhic norms for modesty seems to hint at a value that goes beyond considering, or not considering, the other. There are absolute standards of modesty. Clearly not all standards are of this kind, but clearly some are. The commands of modesty are not derived only from the existing character of the public sphere; there is here also a clear tendency to influence the public sphere.

It seems, then, that shame too is not defined only by society’s norms. One who behaves immodestly, even in a place where everyone behaves that way, is not considered modest. This is certainly no less true than modesty in the innermost chambers, where no one says anything about him at all.

From here it follows that shame too is a concept with absolute components; shame is not necessarily before someone else. It follows, then, that the first side of modesty does not stand opposite, or in head-on opposition to, the second side. Today it is clear that one who wants not to be acted upon by his environment must specifically walk modestly. In our time there prevails an absurd situation in which modest dress itself can sometimes be embarrassing, and if so, the very fact of modest behavior contains specifically a dimension of autonomy, of lack of shame and lack of being moved by external society.

The conclusion emerging from all this is that the root of modesty is autonomy and lack of being acted upon by others. Shame should not be an automatic reaction to others unless they themselves answer to the demands of modesty. In other words, being affected is the secondary side of modesty, whereas autonomy is its principal side.

It seems that we can deepen this definition of modesty. The accepted opposite of modesty is immodest exposure. That which is broken open is external. Usually, when one breaks out from a place, one does so outward. Sometimes one hears proposals, seemingly logical, claiming that one can reach a less exposed and more modest situation by means of a sweeping permission of all the prohibitions of modesty.[16] According to those who argue this way, when there is a more natural relation to matters between man and woman, for example, there will be less tension and less tendency to breach boundaries.[17] Then it will be possible to release freely the energies stored within us, and so they will be less likely to burst out without control.

Even if the assumptions underlying this proposal are correct—which in my opinion is highly doubtful[18]—there is here a basic mistake in understanding the essence of modesty. The purpose of modesty is not the discharge of a person’s instinctual energies, but the opposite: to store them and preserve their power, in order to use them in beneficial directions.

As an example, Freud’s psychoanalysis argues for the importance of the sexual drive as the engine for a wide range of human activities.[19] If that energy does not remain at full intensity, the force and motivation of the person throughout the whole range of his life will be significantly diminished. Extinguishing this source of energy is extinguishing the human engine. Modesty demands that a person restrain himself in certain directions so that he can use these energies, in full force, in the desired channels.

A strong example of this appears in Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 64a, where it is described that the Men of the Great Assembly abolished the sexual impulse, and at that same time they searched for a fresh-laid egg for a sick person and could not find one anywhere in the Land of Israel. Rashi explains that even eggs completed the previous day did not come out. The abolition of the sinful impulse paralyzed all activity in the world. The Sages are describing here the instinct as an engine with significance broader than sexual activity alone.[20]

A particular case of this principle is seen in the Sages’ description of modest women as those who adorn themselves for their husbands. See, for example, Song of Songs Rabbah, parashah 4, s.v. ‘Nerd’: From what was placed beneath the tooth, the modest and upright daughters of Israel would adorn themselves and gladden their husbands for all forty years that Israel was in the wilderness. So too the women of Israel in Egypt, who bore six at a time, through the way they enticed their husbands after the harsh labor. The modesty of these women enables them to bring these energies to expression within their relations with their spouses.

I should note that my intention here is to describe a much broader phenomenon. All human activities are driven by instinctual energies, and therefore one must not extinguish them in any way. A person must channel them in the desired directions, not neutralize them. The channels in which these energies will come to expression may be completely different from the original channel (see below, in the discussion of channeling the desire for honor).

From here we learn that modesty has the role of building man’s inner energies. Earlier we saw that the root of modesty is the autonomous activity of the person who is not influenced or acted upon by another. Here we see that this means the building of the person himself. In hiddenness a person builds himself without external disturbance. Modesty is not only ignoring others, but also, and perhaps primarily, the person’s concentration upon his own selfhood in order to build it. It is like the stretching of a spring by pressing and compressing it, an action that stores within it a great deal of potential energy, energy that is meant to burst outward in the directions we designate for it.

In this sense, modesty constitutes a root for moral labor and the construction of all the other traits. A person’s concentration on his own selfhood, and its construction, is the cornerstone of the entire labor of character. One should note that modesty is not the root of the other traits themselves, but of the moral labor directed toward improving and building the other traits. There is here not a relation among different traits, but a condition for working on traits.

In this generation, in which self-realization is a supreme and self-evident value, it seems that precisely now we can reach deeper understanding of the trait of modesty and of the work upon it. The hiddenness of the modest person is a kind of ‘demolishing in order to build.’[21]

We can now try to touch on the deeper metaphysical meaning of modesty. In every object in the world we distinguish between the thing as such (the noumenon, in Kant’s terminology), and the thing as it appears to our eyes (the phenomenon). In Aristotelian language, this is the distinction between matter and form. In this sense matter is higher than form (unlike, for example, Maharal’s usage); it is the hylomorphic thing before one relates to its specific form. It is being itself—its very essence—before its form and its outward appearance—its characteristics. The Nazir of Jerusalem explains that the thing as such is the kabbalistic World of Creation,[22] whereas form is the World of Formation. The combination of the two creates the object as we know it in the World of Action. Form is the way the object appears outwardly, while matter is what it is ‘in truth.’

According to this, it seems that modesty is preoccupation with the ‘matter’ of the person—in the elevated sense—in the person as such. Immodesty is preoccupation with his external form, as he appears to those around him. Matter, or the thing as such, is something hidden from the observer’s eye. In the language of the Nazir, one can only ‘hear’ it (in the sense of the ‘auditory logic’ in the Nazir’s thought), or ‘listen’ to it, but not ‘see’ it.[23]

Jeremiah 13:17 states: But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret because of pride. In Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 5b, the Sages learned from here that the Holy One, blessed be He, has a place called ‘hiddenness.’[24] True being exists specifically in hiddenness. The Holy One, blessed be He, is not seen and not grasped, because He is selfhood without outward form. This fact is connected to His not being acted upon by anything from outside, but rather acting with absolute autonomy. His actions, of course, have no prior cause. We see here a connection between a thing’s being hidden and ‘modest,’ and its being autonomous and active rather than acted upon. Both are connected to preoccupation with selfhood, rather than with outward-directed form. Things that exist only externally are not ‘being’ but ‘non-being’ pretending to be being. Everything, when considered in its essence, is true; falsehood can exist only in the way it is revealed outwardly.[25] Modesty is preoccupation with ‘being’ and not with ‘non-being,’ with truth and not with falsehood.

The common saying ‘still waters run deep’ expresses the power within modesty. There is a higher beauty when it is quiet, modest, and hidden—internal and not external. In another context too, protest of real power is specifically that which is carried out through restraint (understatement, in foreign parlance). A striking example is Mahatma Gandhi’s protest in India. There too a selfhood was created—the Indian national selfhood. There it became impressively clear that something restrained and hidden has greater force than even the fiercest and most violent external expression. This is the expression of a creation that is real and not merely external.[26]

We have thus arrived at a metaphysical description of modesty. It is not merely lack of being influenced by others. It is not merely the construction of selfhood. On the metaphysical plane, modesty is preoccupation with true essence and not with the way it appears and is perceived.[27]

In this sense it makes no practical difference what exactly one does with the selfhood. Whether one builds one capacity or force or another—here all the other traits will enter. So long as one is engaged in building the self, this is an engagement of hiddenness, an engagement of modesty. This is the root meaning of spiritual engagement. Therefore, as we saw, Torah study and commandments too should be carried out in a modest manner.

The conclusion of all this is that modesty, in certain respects, is not exactly a trait but a way of life that constitutes a framework for traits. Of course, certain forms of behavior are derived from it, as we have seen.

If we try to describe the chain of traits defined in the introduction, we would say that the trait of modesty is the capacity to engage my selfhood and what follows from it without influence from others—to be active and not acted upon. The feeling accompanying such states is the sense that a person has no interest in what society dictates to him unless it accords with his inner obligations. Some of the actions derived from modesty are described in the laws mentioned above.

The benefit and purpose of modesty is primarily itself. The capacity for self-construction is an end in itself. Clearly, from it all the capacities for improving traits are derived, but it seems that these are not its purpose, only a byproduct of it. Autonomous human activity is the divine image within him, and not merely a means for reaching various goals.

As we already mentioned, the chain of traits is bidirectional. One can arrive at modesty through modest actions. On the intellectual plane, a person should diminish the automatic influence of others upon him, and explain to himself that it makes no difference what people think or say about him. It is known that in the Novardok yeshivot students would perform strange acts, such as entering a pharmacy in order to ask to buy nails there. These acts were intended to help them reach a spiritual level at which one is not influenced by what people say about him.

The description given here is extreme. Clearly, a person must be sensitive, to some degree, to what his environment thinks and says about him. There is a clear halakhic obligation to prevent desecration of God’s name. We saw that modest people also try to spare themselves malicious talk, and from here it follows that a person should indeed integrate into society and should deserve to have it said of him that his deeds are beautiful, and so on.

For this reason I wrote above that a person should diminish the automatic influence upon him. Even the decision when to be influenced by others and when to ignore them should be made out of autonomous judgment, and not out of fear of or responsiveness to others. When a person sees that his actions will lead to desecration of the divine name, he should refrain from them. But he should do so because he has decided that in this situation this is what he must do, and not because of automatic influence, or instinctive fear, of society’s gaze upon him. Every person certainly must take others into account, but he must do so in a way internally controlled, not automatically.

It is interesting that the self-realization so common in our time is often exactly the opposite. Many engage in self-realization out of society’s expectation that they do so. This is indeed self-realization, but from a root entirely opposite to modesty. By its nature, such realization is always done publicly and before the eyes of all the onlookers—exhibitionism.[28] Therefore, to contemporary man it appears at a superficial glance that self-realization is the opposite of modesty. Self-realization based on the proper root and the proper motives[29] not only does not contradict modesty, but is the very definition of modesty.

In another way, one can say that the prevailing value in the world today is ‘self-expression’ and not ‘self-realization.’ Although on the surface the two concepts seem similar, there is a great difference between them. ‘Self-expression’ is the expression of selfhood outwardly, whereas ‘realization’ means making the self into something real—strengthening it, creating it, building it, bringing it from potentiality into actuality. Today the terminology sounds interchangeable precisely because of the phenomenon we pointed to above. Today the goal is outward expression, being acted upon, and not creation and realization of the self, true autonomy. Despite the apparently autonomous appearance of our society, this is still being acted upon and not acting.

Let us now summarize our remarks in this chapter. We saw two tendencies present in the concept of modesty, apparently at odds with one another. On the one hand, modesty is a restraining force, by which a person is acted upon by others and possesses shame. On the other hand, modesty is a constructive and active force, by which a person is not acted upon by others. This latter direction actually recalls brazenness.

In light of all the above, it seems that at the level of the trait as a psychic character tendency—and perhaps, as we saw, at an even prior level, before this psychic power and before psychic power in general—modesty is a constructive and active force expressing self-realization. After a person is autonomous and makes decisions independently, he can, in those circumstances in which this is proper, decide to feel shame or to be affected by others. This side of modesty exists only in the two outer layers of the chain of traits of modesty, the emotional and the behavioral. At the level of the trait itself, as stated, there is only the constructive and active force. The distinction made in the introduction, in which we distinguished within every trait a three-stage chain, clarifies here the seeming contradiction between the two apparently contradictory senses of modesty. In the deep sense of modesty, in the inner link of the chain—in the level of trait—there is no contradiction at all. There modesty means autonomy.

D. What Is the Difference Between Humility and Modesty?

At the beginning of this article we mentioned the intuition of a closeness between the trait of modesty and the trait of humility. It seems that this feeling is expressed in Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 71a:

Rav Judah said in the name of Rav: The forty-two-letter Name is entrusted only to one who is modest and humble, in the middle of his life, not given to anger, not given to drunkenness, and who does not insist on his rights…

It seems that this passage is not listing different traits, but rather a collection of qualities that together make up humility and modesty. One who does not become angry and does not insist on his rights—that is, one who does overlook personal slights—we saw in chapter B is characterized as humble. One who does not get drunk seems more suited to the description of a modest person (when wine enters, secret comes out; wine brings hidden things outward).

The intuition linking these two traits to one another is based on the fact that both the humble person and the modest person seek to avoid external conspicuousness. In many respects modest behavior is regarded as the external expression of the trait of humility that exists in a person’s interior. According to the definitions of the introduction, these are two links in one chain of traits, in which modesty is the behavior that expresses an inner character tendency of humility.

This distinction may explain why concepts of modesty entered the Shulchan Arukh and binding Jewish law—dat Yehudit, red garments, the laws of the lavatory, the laws of modesty in Orach Chaim sections 240–241, and more—whereas, as far as I recall, humility does not appear there at all.[30] Jewish law generally commands behavior on the practical plane, and not abstract traits. This may also be the reason that humility appears often in Scripture and modesty very little, whereas characterizations of humility appear in the Sages less than do characterizations of modesty.

In light of all this, it seems that modesty indeed belongs to the plane of behavior, and humility to the plane of traits and character, and that both belong to one chain of traits.

This is the first level of the relation between humility and modesty.

On the other hand, in the previous chapters we saw that each of these two traits has a full chain of its own. Modesty is a tendency to build and develop the selfhood, and to cancel behavior that is merely acted upon by environmental influence. Humility, by contrast, is the negation of the value of the advantages with which a person has been endowed, despite recognition of their importance. In both cases there is a similar outward expression, in the form of behavior that tries not to stand out.

It nevertheless seems that the subdued external form stems from two different motives, and has different characteristics in the two cases. Humility is the root of self-reduction, whereas modesty is the root of concealment, without reduction. One can hide the appearance of an object from an observer in two ways: either by actually making the object smaller, or by concealing it behind partitions, in hidden places.

In Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 111b, an interesting metaphor for humility is brought incidentally:

They said: The World to Come is not like this world. In this world there is the pain of harvesting and treading. In the World to Come, one brings a single grape in a wagon or in a ship and places it in the corner of his house, and he supplies from it as from a great wine cask, and its wood is used to fuel the cooking, and there is not a single grape that does not contain thirty measures of wine…

If there is no printer’s error here—and perhaps even if there is—the metaphor suited to humility seems to be the grape. Humility presents the person as a grape, which is a small fruit. In Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 11a, it is told of Samuel the Small that he continues the humility of Ezra and Hillel, and therefore is presumably also called ‘small.’ Yet from the description above it seems that this is not mere smallness as such, but the individual’s being one among many—one grape among a cluster of grapes. Recognition that despite your uniqueness you are one among many can bring you to humility. Therefore the humble person is ‘small,’ described as a grape.

By contrast, the metaphor suited to modesty is perhaps the pomegranate: ‘Your temple is like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil’ (Song of Songs 4:3), said of the beloved who conceals her temple behind her braid. In the pomegranate all the seeds are there, but behind the rough peel that protects and conceals them. Modesty does not regard the person as small, but as hidden.

We saw that concealment, which is the result of the trait of modesty, is meant to build the person’s inner character and psychic structure—his selfhood. By contrast, reduction, which is the result of humility, is the diminishment of the value of that structure once built. As we saw above, in the chapter on humility, this diminishment is not on the moral-value plane, for a person must be aware of the importance of good traits and spiritual achievements in themselves. This diminishment occurs only on the plane of self-importance because these spiritual achievements exist in him himself, or in relation to a demand for reward or a claim for recognition of this structure on the part of others.

This diminution of value is first and foremost in the eyes of the person himself, and only afterward in the eyes of others. The diminution in the eyes of others is a means intended to help the person achieve such a consciousness within himself. By contrast, the concealment of modesty is directed entirely toward concealment from the other, and not from the person himself. Concealment from the other, as stated, is specifically intended to build the person’s awareness of the inner structure of his own selfhood.

In sharper form, one can say that modesty is a trait that ‘builds’ something, whereas humility is a trait that ‘destroys.’ Modesty builds the selfhood, whereas humility destroys the value, in the senses noted above, of that structure.

This is a second level of the relation between these two traits.

One can distinguish yet another level of relation between these two traits, more essential still, if we view modesty not as a trait but as a general mechanism of character. We saw that modesty in its full sense is not a trait at all, but a general mode of relating to the restraint of an instinctual tendency, or some kind of force, or spiritual energy. This restraint is intended to strengthen that psychic energy, and not, as may seem at first glance, to extinguish it. Strengthening the energy is meant so that after the building process we may channel that energy into desired directions. Usually modesty is used in this sense with respect to sexual energies, and therefore its expressions are concealment or restraint of aspects related to that instinct or energy. This is the common use of the concept of modesty, but it is only a narrow sense of it. One can view modesty as a more general mode of action.

We pointed out that Freud argued that sexual energy—the instinct of sex—is the engine that drives a person in many varied activities, in different realms not necessarily connected to what we would define as the sexual instinct. Extinguishing the sexual instinct is extinguishing the person, even in contexts completely different from the sexual one. Therefore modesty is not supposed to extinguish that energy.

There are other schools in psychology that locate the human engine in energies of other kinds. Some hang it on the desire for honor (Adler), or the will to meaning (Viktor Frankl), and so on. Even if we do not accept the total claim of each of these schools, which assert the dominant rule of one psychic force and its being the fundamental engine par excellence, in any case it is clear that there are various kinds of energy that drive a person.

For each such type of energy one can define its own modesty. That means concealment or restraint of that energy, intended to build that psychic energy so that it can be channeled into positive and desirable paths. This is a way of relating to modesty not as a specific trait, but as a force of character.

If we take, for example, the energy of the human desire for honor—the human engine according to Adler—the mode of modesty we would define in relation to it would be precisely the trait of humility. Humility is a particular case of the form of action, or mode of action, that we called modesty, when it is applied to the instinct for honor. One must restrain the desire for honor, not in order to extinguish it, but in order to channel that energy into positive directions.

Above, when I discussed the Hasidic concept of equanimity, I argued that the purpose of humility is not to kill the tendency to be hurt by insults hurled at a person, but to ground the feeling that there is nothing from which to be hurt. There is no tendency here to kill a person’s emotional world, which is a divine creation, but to preserve it and direct it properly. The tendency to be hurt is bound at its root to the desire for honor. In fact, what was said there is that the purpose of humility is not neutralization and dismantling of psychic forces, but their preservation and channeling. That is exactly our claim here. Humility is a ‘destructive’ trait only with respect to a person’s tendency to take credit for himself, and not with respect to the sources of that tendency. We thus learn that humility is the application of the fundamental trait of modesty to the instinct for honor.

This is the third level of the relation between humility and modesty.

This claim raises a difficulty in the words of Maimonides. Maimonides rules that in the trait of humility one should behave in an extreme way, that is, not by the middle path. One must be humble in a total way, with no tendency to honor—no haughtiness of heart—at all. This is his language in the Laws of Character Traits 2:3:

There are traits with respect to which a person is forbidden to follow the middle path, but must distance himself from one extreme all the way to the other, and that is haughtiness of heart. For the good path is not merely that a person be humble, but that he be lowly of spirit, and that his spirit be exceedingly low. Therefore it is said of Moses our teacher, ‘very humble,’ and it is not said merely ‘humble.’ Therefore the Sages commanded: ‘Be very, very lowly of spirit.’ They further said that whoever raises his heart up denies the fundamental principle, as it is said: ‘And your heart will be lifted up, and you will forget the Lord your God.’ They further said: ‘Under a ban is one in whom there is arrogance of spirit, even a little of it.’[31]

It seems from here that there is no place at all to build up a psychic energy of honor, for there is no positive direction at all into which that stored energy can be channeled. If so, it would seem that one cannot understand humility as we suggested above—as a form of modesty acting upon the instinct for honor in order to build it and direct it toward positive channels. It seems that according to Maimonides there are no such positive channels at all.

It seems to me that one can exploit restrained honor-energy even in broader senses than honor in positive contexts alone—contexts which, according to the above Maimonides, do not exist at all. Such energy is a significant motive for entirely different human actions. Something akin to what Freud claimed regarding the sexual instinct or energy can also be said about honor—and Adler indeed thought so. Honor can serve as energy that drives actions which do not appear at all to be connected to planes of honor (for example, there is no honor except Torah); it is an energy that a person may use in entirely different directions. Precisely if he wastes it in pursuit of honor, he extinguishes it. The purpose of humility, according to this perspective, is to store this energy and channel it into those directions.[32]

To summarize, we have seen three planes of relation between modesty and humility. The first plane distinguishes that modesty is not a trait at all. It is the external behavior derived from the trait of humility. This level places the two traits on one chain of traits. On the second plane of relation, we understood these two as traits, each of which has its own complete chain of traits, from psychic tendency to deed. Here modesty serves as a trait, but only in its narrow sense—in the context of relations between man and woman. The third plane of relation states that modesty is not a trait at all in the accepted sense, but rather a mode of character-action. In this sense, humility is nothing but a particular case of modesty. It is quite to be expected that there are other traits, besides humility, that would constitute particular examples of the mode of action of modesty. These three planes of relation express three different perspectives on modesty: as behavior, as a trait, and finally, on the deepest and most essential plane, as a mode of character-action.

[1] See also Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 58a; Tosefta, chapter 6, halakhah 5; Numbers Rabbah, Pinhas, section 21:2; and elsewhere.

[2] The distinction between this stage and the previous one should be sharpened. By ‘feeling’ here I mean a psychic state in a given situation, and not a tendency of the emotional faculty that exists in a person on a permanent basis. Here we are speaking of ‘anger’ and not of ‘irascibility.’ Earlier we spoke of a psychic power, not a psychic state. It is the psychic power that creates the concrete psychic states when a person finds himself in some specific situation. A person is called ‘angry’ in a certain situation, which usually passes. A person’s irascibility is part of his permanent character. He is ‘possessed of anger.’

[3] ‘Irascibility’ is usually understood as a description of the manner of appearance of an angry person, and not as the name of a trait or general tendency in the soul, but this is not the place to elaborate.

[4] A permanent feeling of anger toward someone is, at first glance, a state that does not pass, but despite that it is clearly a feeling and not a character tendency. It may indicate the intensity of some character tendency, but one should not confuse the two. It is still a feature of this person’s condition and not part of the person himself. As an analogy, it is known that any acquisition for a term is not ownership of the object itself but only usufruct. By the same token, usufruct is essentially temporary ownership. But in principle one could have usufruct whose duration is eternal.

[5] See Maharal, Netiv Ha-Anavah; and in the book Traits and Emotions, edited by Asa Kasher and Aharon Namdar, Hosen LaMishpat, Ramat Gan, 1995, in the article by Emmanuel Ettkes (there, p. 13).

[6] See Psalms 9:13, 10:12; Proverbs 3:34, 14:21, 16:19. And the reverse—written ‘humble’ and read ‘poor’—in Isaiah 32:7 and Psalms 9:19.

[7] It is interesting to note that Moses himself writes the Torah, and if so, he testifies about himself that he is humbler than any person on the face of the earth. This reminds us of the seemingly puzzling statement of Rav Yosef that will be discussed below: when Rabbi died and they said of him that ‘with Rabbi’s death humility ceased,’ Rav Yosef rebuked them by saying that he himself still existed—that is, humility had not ceased.

[8] See also the Vilna Gaon’s commentary on Proverbs 16, on Everyone who is proud of heart is an abomination to the Lord, where he says this about the trait of pride. There too he explains that pride is a trait of character even if it does not come to any practical expression at all.

[9] In Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 38a, Rabbi Yohanan says that the Holy One, blessed be He, causes His Presence to rest only upon one who is strong, rich, wise, and humble, and all these are learned from Moses. The same is true regarding those in positions of authority whom Moses seeks in the portion of Jethro, and so too regarding the High Priest. It may be that all the demands for wisdom, beauty, wealth, and strength are only prerequisites for humility. Without all these, humility has no significance. Only one who possesses all these can have his humility considered a virtue, but this is not the place to elaborate.

[10] There is a well-known story about the genius Rabbi Akiva Eger arriving in Warsaw, where all the townspeople climbed onto the roofs to watch him. When he saw this, he asked his escort whether he was really so ugly and so bent over that everyone wanted to look at him. I personally have never believed this story. Rabbi Akiva Eger was known as humble, but not as a fool. Even in his relation to himself it was clear that he knew his place on the plane of facts. In the controversy over printing the Talmud it is known that he wrote of himself that he was the leading sage of the generation and that one who disagreed with him could suffer for it. As stated, there is no contradiction between that and his humility. Perhaps in the story about his visit to Warsaw he wished to teach his listeners a lesson in humility and did not mean the statement seriously. It still seems very puzzling to me, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[11] He can of course be arrogant, though unjustifiably, and thus we learn that arrogance is not necessarily the opposite of humility, but this is not the place to elaborate.

[12] In a previous note we saw that Moses our teacher, when he writes in the Torah ‘Not so My servant Moses; in all My house he is trusted’ and describes himself as ‘more humble than any person on the face of the earth,’ says things similar to Rav Yosef and Rav Nahman. Yet those words were spoken by the Divine through Moses and were not Moses’ own words; therefore we need Rav Nahman and Rav Yosef to teach us this trait.

[13] Pride about things that are not spiritual achievements does not belong at all to flaws in the trait of humility. It is simply an error, or a problem in faith and worldview. Defective humility is pride in genuine advantages and achievements.

[14] See Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 89a.

[15] These planes are Maharal’s primary concern in Netiv Ha-Anavah.

[16] Similar to the argument proposing to permit the use of addictive drugs so that they not be in the category of ‘stolen waters,’ and likewise to permit pornography and immodesty.

[17] Yet, as is well known, there is a small organ in a person: if one starves it, it is satisfied; if one satiates it, it grows hungry. This is not the place to elaborate.

[18] When norms become more unrestrained, a person’s desire to break boundaries will need to find expression in even more extreme acts. There will always be boundary-breaking; the question is only the height of the boundary that is broken. Today, when the boundary is very low and almost everything is permitted, a person who wants to protest or break boundaries for one reason or another must perform provocations or very extreme acts. This is the reason the artistic norms of things displayed in public keep deteriorating. Art that wants to cry out must break a boundary. If the boundary is that a woman must completely cover her hair, a protest may be to reveal a little of it; if the norm is that a woman need only be minimally clothed, then breaking the boundary can be done only by removing even that minimum—if not more. See my remark below on art.

[19] Therefore, in Freud, the sexual drive—the libido—is defined as the life instinct (Eros), in contrast to the death instinct, aggression, and destruction (Thanatos).

[20] My thanks to my friend Rabbi Uriel Eitam, who reminded me of this Talmudic passage in this context.

It is interesting to note in this connection that when the Sages sought to abolish the impulse for sexual transgression, they did so only partially, so as not to paralyze the world’s activity, as explained above. Even with partial abolition, one might have thought that they would abolish the impulse where it is forbidden and leave it only where it is permitted or commanded. There the Talmud describes that they abolished half of it so that a man would not be aroused by his female relatives. Rashi explains there that the impulse toward the menstruant and toward a married woman remained. Ostensibly the Sages could have requested that all sexual impulse in prohibited contexts be abolished, and not only that relating to relatives. Apparently an impulse that turns only in permitted directions, or in the direction of commandment, cannot serve as the engine that drives a person. Of course, this does not mean that one should surrender to this impulse. We see here clearly that a world without this impulse—precisely in the place of transgression—cannot function. Without attempts to overcome instincts, the world cannot function properly.

From here it is clear that after the abolition of this impulse, even partially, the world was not on a higher level but on a lower one. Man was half extinguished. It should be noted that the same is true of the impulse toward idolatry, which the Men of the Great Assembly also abolished. Often there is a sense that the world is thereby in a better and higher state, but that is not so, at least from this aspect. With the abolition of that impulse, a certain inner engine was extinguished, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[21] Demolishing a structure means concealing it, not erasing it. Therefore it is called ‘demolition.’ For this reason Jewish law requires, among the prohibited labors of the Sabbath, that demolition be for the sake of building. Concealment is not meant to remove the thing from the world, but to build it better. In Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a, the Talmud requires demolition for the sake of building in the same place—that is, to build that very thing itself, and not merely to use the stones to build something else. Demolishing a thing is part of improving the thing itself. Likewise, refuting someone’s words should be done out of a desire to build together something better, and not for the sake of destruction and humiliation. Here too one needs demolition for the sake of building. All the terms of ‘demolition’ mean concealment not for the sake of nullification, but for the sake of construction and improvement. So too the hiddenness demanded of the person who behaves with modesty.

[22] Creation describes being from nothing. Bringing the entity itself into being is creation; giving it a form is formation. Therefore the World of Creation is the world of things as such, and the World of Formation is the formation of their forms—that is, the Platonic world of ideas. The result of combining these two is the World of Action.

[23] Hearing means cognition of hidden things. On the physical plane one can hear sounds beyond a partition, but one cannot see even if only a thin partition separates object from observer. This is one of the reasons the Nazir uses the metaphor of ‘hearing’ to denote cognition of hidden things, but this is not the place to elaborate. On this subject see the Nazir’s book Kol Ha-Nevuah – The Hebrew Auditory Logic (and also the essays of appreciation printed at its end).

[24] The verse in Lamentations 3:10 says: He is to me like a lurking bear, like a lion in hiding (see Rashi there, who explains that the bear is the Holy One, blessed be He).

[25] The exception to this rule is Amalek, of whom it is said that his end is utter destruction. In the future, when everything is revealed at its root, it will become clear that in Amalek’s selfhood there is nothing at all, and he will disappear by himself. Amalek is form without matter—without selfhood.

[26] One of the problems with contemporary art, as it is perceived by religious eyes, is modesty. This is not only a halakhic problem, but a problem of character. The demands of modesty do not lessen the power of protest; they actually intensify it. A strong and external experience passes as quickly as it arrives. A quiet expression of protest penetrates deeply and is much more long-term. There is no opposition here to protest, but an attempt to shape its character differently. The controversy over the problematic appearance of the Batsheva dance company on Independence Day (1998) should not be conducted on the plane of consideration for the feelings of the religious minority, but on the plane of an artistic dispute. The question is how art, or even protest, should look and be expressed. This is not the place to elaborate. See also my earlier note on breaking boundaries.

[27] This distinction is connected to the kabbalistic distinction between hesed and gevurot (or dinim). Judgments and powers are the form, whereas hesed is the selfhood. The powers stop and shape the hesed, which is being itself, but this is not the place to elaborate.

In light of this, perhaps we can understand why the commands of modesty for women are more numerous, more prominent, and stricter than those for men. In our terminology, woman is form—judgment, power, the left side in Kabbalah—and man is matter—hesed, the right side in Kabbalah. Here too this is not the place to elaborate, but the point should be clear.

In light of this one can also understand why ‘but with the modest is wisdom,’ and as Maharal elaborates in Netiv Ha-Tzeni’ut, the result of modesty is wisdom, and wisdom is entrusted to the modest. See also Numbers Rabbah, section 8, s.v. ‘Davar Aher Ve-Ish,’ where it states: When she conducts herself according to Jewish standards of modesty, being modest, she merits that sons emerge from her who are masters of Scripture and masters of Mishnah, and further in Song of Songs Rabbah, parashah 4, s.v. ‘Nofet,’ it is said that a Torah scholar must be modest.

Wisdom too belongs to the right side, above hesed, opposite understanding, which is above gevurah. Wisdom also represents the entity within wisdom, or wisdom itself. Understanding is bringing wisdom outward—deriving one thing from another, that is, formal rules for deriving truths from prior truths. In mathematical terms, ‘understanding’ consists of the rules of inference used to derive propositions from axioms, whereas ‘wisdom’ is wisdom in itself—the axioms—from which understanding draws out all knowledge. Again we see that the right side is the entity, the thing itself, while the left side is its wrapping and outward reflection. It is therefore clear why ‘with the modest is wisdom,’ and this too is not the place to elaborate.

One final remark touching on the hidden within hiddenness—that is, within modesty. Blessing too, as is known, rests in that which is hidden from the eye. Even regarding the tablets, it is stated in Tanhuma, Ki Tisa, section 31, s.v. ‘Psal Lekha’: The first tablets, because they were given publicly, were therefore subject to the evil eye and were shattered. Here the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Nothing is more beautiful than modesty, as it is said… ‘and to walk modestly with your God.’ The modest thing is the thing that truly exists. The external has no true existence; it is only the appearance of the thing—its form—and not the thing itself—its matter. The evil eye has no power over essence. Therefore the Sages said that one who does not believe in the evil eye is not ruled by it. This follows from the fact that the evil eye is a false reality, whose existence depends on human belief in it, or on the fact that ‘it is seen.’ It is form without matter. If one does not believe in it, it does not exist. The evil eye does not harm the modest, and this is not the place to elaborate.

[28] See above in the note on the nature of art today.

[29] In light of what we described above, it would be more accurate to say that self-realization has no motives at all. Self-realization means behavior that does not arise from motives. It is what constitutes the fundamental motive of every other behavior.

[30] Perhaps the prohibition against walking with an upright posture, which appears at the beginning of Orach Chaim, though that too is generally understood, whether correctly or not, as good conduct or a special virtue more than as a binding law. There are also things forbidden because of arrogance, but this is not the place to elaborate.

[31] Maimonides’ source is Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 5a, quoted above earlier; see there.

[32] In Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 6b, the Talmud says that one who fixes a place for his prayer is called one of the disciples of Abraham our father, and when he dies they say of him: ‘Alas, the humble one! Alas, the pious one! One of the disciples of Abraham our father.’ When one studies this Talmudic passage, the question immediately arises: what is the connection between having a fixed place for prayer and the trait of humility? Perhaps one can understand that in this context humility functions like modesty. It builds the self. Creating my place means creating a fixed standing before the Creator, or in fact building my selfhood. That is precisely modesty. Humility too can function as modesty. Yet this Talmudic passage still requires further consideration.