So Nu, Humility

This High Holiday season, I thought about a joke.*

Three rabbinical students are praying on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The first student, a pious individual who has spent years and years studying Torah and Talmud and who spends all his spare time going over learned commentary, is moved by the spirit of the liturgy and prays, “Adoshem, have pity on me, for you are the Almighty, and I am a nothing created of dust and dirt!”

The second student, an equally devout fellow who devotes his time to acts of compassion and charity, hears the first student and is inspired to join him in prayer: “Adoshem, pity me, too, for compared to Your eternal lovingkindness, I’m nothing!”

The third student, who puts little effort into either his studies or acts of charity, hears the first two praying and joins in: “Adoshem, have pity on me as well, for I, too, am nothing!”

Upon hearing this, the first student turns to the second student and whispers, “Look who thinks he’s a nothing!”

The point of this joke is double-edged. We all recognize the difference between humility borne from the actual admiration of others’ (in this joke, G-d’s) abilities and insincere self-deprecation that comes from wanting to appear humble. The latter, it seems is the opposite of actual humility. Yet, as the joke gently highlights with the first two students’ responses, noting the difference between one’s own “true” humility and another’s “fake” humility is being the opposite of humble about humility itself.

Humility is a virtue that I’ve always found both admirable and elusive. Nothing turns me off other people faster than arrogance; ironically, nothing makes me less proud of myself than noticing arrogance in me. And yet, its opposite, humility, is so difficult to pin down. The mere act of trying to discuss it makes one sound twice as arrogant as before. Even thinking about how I can be more humble makes me feel arrogant: you can’t be humble if you have nothing to be humble about. Therefore, to wish I were more humble implies that I have many good qualities that prompt arrogance — and spending time pondering my own good qualities feels like the opposite of being humble.

Although I find much to disagree with in C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I like some of his thoughts on this slippery virtue. Lewis points out that for many, being humble means being as cynical about oneself as one can, denying any positive attributes and accentuating neutral or negative ones. He underscores the ridiculousness of the thought that downright rejecting one’s good qualities is somehow spiritually superior to acknowledging their existence.

I definitely do this. For instance, if someone gives me a compliment, my first impulse is to say, “Oh no, that’s not true.” or “You’re just as [positive adjective] as I am.” It’s not just me either (WARNING: comedy video in link contains sexual language and violence): a lot of people, men and women, have trouble accepting compliments.

In my head, accepting other people’s positive statements about me feels like boasting, but what contradicting them really shows is that I’m preoccupied with myself and how I seem to others. Instead, I have to remind myself that, actually, acknowledging those statements graciously (“Thank you!”) and moving on keeps the focus on my gratitude for the other person’s judgement, not my ego.

The trouble is, as Lewis rightly points out, lying to yourself about your own merits has no moral benefits when you know you’re lying. That’s part of what makes denying others’ compliments so annoying: everyone present knows that you and they really do think that your donation is generous, your work is outstanding, or your haircut is handsome. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes in most of his adaptations, this can be unhelpful in situations when honest assessment is necessary. It can make people too afraid or embarrassed to offer their gifts in service of others, because to offer that gift is to acknowledge you have it, and you can’t do that if you’re pretending it doesn’t exist.

Worse, this kind of attitude doesn’t get at the crux of what humility is — or at least, what I want it to be for me.

Working to be humble, for me, isn’t about denying the good aspects of myself. It’s about getting less obsessed about them and more excited about the good qualities of others. It’s about looking for and valuing virtues the exact same wherever I see them, in me or in others. My ego constantly looks for ways I’m smart, attractive, kind, and funny, and when it finds them, it glows — let me be just as diligent searching out those attributes in others and just as pleased when I succeed.

It’s OK to be all the things I’m proud to be, but it’s not special. Nothing I did gave me any natural gifts I was born with; anything I have above the ordinary is chance. And the things I did work hard to develop, like writing skills, confidence, and comfort public speaking, are equally serendipitous. After all, I can’t trace my choice to work on those things to anything deeper than pre-existing dispositions and the circumstances into which I was born. That doesn’t mean I can’t take pride in them: I am who and what I am, and work I did is my work. What it does mean that I can’t fall into the trap of thinking I’m better than anyone else because of who and what I am.

Yom Kippur helps me stay on track. I don’t always delve deep into personal meditation during the holiday, but the act of fasting for twenty-four hours helps to remind me that all the things I might want to think make me special vanish so easily when I take away things that aren’t part of me at all. Without food, I’m not that smart or diligent. Without water, I’m not kind or generous. Without the silly bits of everyday hygiene like washing my face or putting mousse in my hair, I’m not confident or friendly. And when Yom Kippur’s over, and I can have all those things again, I remember how precarious everything that’s “mine” really is, and how miraculous and wonderful every inkling of goodness and wisdom and humour is in every person around me.

In the new year, I’ll stop thinking about myself and where I measure up, and humility itself. Instead, I’ll start thinking about how to do the best I can; how to be honest about what I can and cannot do; and, most of all, how to love the beauty around me in the gorgeous, shining, brilliant talents of my friends, colleagues, and family.

* Modified in context but not in spirit from its source, The Big Book of Jewish Humor by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks