The Most Humble Leader

Beha'alotkha 5777 / 10 June 2017

God bless America. Throughout time, anyone who takes the Bible seriously has mined Moses’ character for guidance on spiritual, political, and communal leadership. But no other culture in human history could have produced a full shelf of books on the subject of Moses and leadership: Jewish books and Christian books, books for CEOs and varsity coaches and every conceivable niche you can imagine — if you have any role as a leader, Moses has advice for you.

In truth, Moses is a good model for thinking about leadership, and I imagine some of these books are quite good. Still, something about the enterprise of turning Moses into a biblical Peter Drucker strikes me as oversimplified, especially when we come to parashat Beha’alotkha. Although the Torah gives us countless examples of Moses’ leadership, the final episode of this morning’s Torah reading contains the only direct description of the qualities that defined our prophet-in-chief. At the very end of our parshah, the Torah tells us, וְהָאִ֥ישׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה עָנָ֣יו מְאֹ֑ד מִכֹּל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָֽאֲדָמָֽה, “Now, the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.”^[1] 

Interestingly, while the Hebrew word עָנָיו, most often translated as “humble,” appears twenty times in scripture, this description of Moses is the only instance where the word appears in the singular,^[2] and its only appearance in the Torah. In all other instances, primarily in the Psalms, the word is pluralized and describes a class or category of people, not a specific individual. The other uses make clear that עָנָיו is a desirable, positive characteristic, but we don’t get a precise definition. Most classical understandings of ענוה match up with the standard English definitions of humility: self-effacing, meek, deferential, submissive.^[3] That’s fine for moral philosophy in general, but it hits the rocks in the present case — deferential submission seems hard to fit onto someone who asserted his own moral conscience as a young man, stood up to Pharaoh, arguably the most powerful world leader of his day, and then took a newly-formed nation through a difficult wilderness journey, facing crises and combat along the way. Either we’re missing something about Moses or, more likely in my opinion, we need to think differently about ענוה.

Krista Tippett, whose radio program and podcast On Being is consistently one of the most worthwhile hours of the week, opens the door for a different understanding of Moses. At the very end of her recent book Becoming Wise, she writes, “Spiritual humility is not about getting small, not about debasing oneself, but about approaching everything and everyone else with a readiness to see goodness and be surprised.”^[4] This definition echoes Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin,^[5] known by his initials as the Netziv, who rejects any equation of ענוה with self-deprecation. For the Netziv, humility doesn’t, and indeed can’t mean we deny our essential strengths and talents. On the contrary, we have an obligation to recognize and own our best qualities. At the same time, ענוה, spiritual humility, challenges us to let go of any sense of entitlement, any desire for recognition from others.^[6] For the Netziv, ענוה is just as Krista Tippett suggests: an open, expansive sense of our own blessing and greatness without the need to see ourselves — or to be seen by others — as better than anyone else around us.^[7]

In his d’var Torah on this parshah from 1963, Rabbi Norman Lamm distinguishes between the standard definition humility as self-deprecation, and his understanding of ענוה as a form of self-restraint. Building on the ideas of the Netziv, Lamm asserts that “to be an anav means to recognize your true worth, but not to impose the consequences upon your friends and neighbors.”^[8] ענוה asks us to separate our self-perception from our self-presentation: to manifest all of our best qualities, and in the very same moment to present ourselves to the world as equal in status — no more entitled or important than anyone else.

Current research into the qualities that define ideal leadership back up Lamm’s definition of ענוה and reject the notion that humility involves any weakness, reticence, or self-effacement. Humble leaders consistently negotiate with strength, attain their goals, and lead their teams to success far beyond more self-centered leaders.^[9] As Jim Collins has shown, the best leaders “are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”^[10] I would say that Collins is almost right; but as Moses shows us, the mixture of humility and will that drives the best leaders is not a paradox at all — that combination is the very definition of ענוה!

How can we know if we’re cultivating this essential personality trait? We experience its effects directly. True ענוה gives a sense of joy, tranquility, and wholeness, whereas a mask of counterfeit humility leaves us feeling empty.^[11] Contemporary leadership theory and Jewish tradition also agree on the warning signs when we lose our sense of ענוה. Arrogance and pride lurk behind every corner, and only true ענוה keeps it in check.^[12] As Rabbi Lamm reminds us, a person who reacts to perceived slights with harsh words or passionate anger reveals his own deep sense of inferiority and worthlessness.^[13] Again Moses proves the theory: Why does God condemn him to die before the people enter the Promised Land, effectively ending the peak years of his leadership, when he strikes the rock in anger?^[14] Because, in that moment, Moses puts pride ahead of principle, the man before the mission. Moses’ right to lead depends on his ענוה. Without it, his authority lacks legitimacy — and the same holds true for each of us.

This morning’s Torah reading sets the gold standard in leadership: true ענוה, rooted in a harmonious balance of self-esteem and self-restraint. We should never deny our God-given talents; on the contrary, we have a moral obligation to use our abilities for the benefit of our society and all humanity. At the same time, we can not make the mistake of “believing our own press;” we must guard against thinking that our successes in any meaningful way distinguish us from anyone else.

The Seer of Lublin, the great Polish Hasidic master, used to say that two hasidim in a town would be too many, while just one was not enough; there should always be one and a half, and each should think that he is the half and the other is the whole one.^[15] To our great misfortune, we seem to live in a time when this kind of ענוה is in short supply. Political polarization, religious fundamentalism, bigotry of every conceivable fashion — all of these phenomena boil down to a claim that I am the whole one and the other is not even half, but nothing at all. No surprise, then, that we face a culture lacking in durable values; a government unable to govern except in the roughest of broad strokes; a Jewish community — we, the people of debate and discussion — struggling to engage in basic conversation around our most difficult issues of personal status, marriage and family, and Israel. When everyone tries to be the “whole hasid,” it’s just too much.

During the opening panel at the Center City Kehillah Jewish Night of Learning, the rabbis were asked to imagine the near future of Jewish life, ten or twenty years out. I shared my belief that we are beginning to experience a renewed search for meaning in Judaism. For all the attention given to the vast majority of Americans — not only Jews — walking away from religion altogether, we often miss the counter-trend: those people who don’t leave, each of you in this room today, are invested in a quest for spiritual living unprecedented in recent memory. I see this across generational and denominational lines, among friends of other faiths as much as among our own people. We may well be on the cusp of a Fourth Great Awakening in America, a spiritual antidote to the toxic attitudes of certainty swirling around us. We need a renewal of the spirit — not a strengthening of religious institutions, but a grounding of the soul in true ענוה, “a readiness to see goodness and be surprised.”^[16] Why is ענוה the only characteristic of Moses specified in the Torah? For all the many pathways to success, ענוה lies at the foundation of each one. It opens the door that leads to the wholeness we seek, as individuals and as a collective. May God grant each of us the strength to cultivate true ענוה in ourselves and, through personal example, spread the Torah’s vision of humility-centered leadership.

שבת שלום

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Tags: humility, Leadership, modesty, Moses