Is it good or bad to be humble and selfless?

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of  Shemini.

"And it was on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and the Israelite elders."

The Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 11:6) states that Moses was building and disassembling the Tabernacle for seven days, and on the eighth day he assembled the Tabernacle one last time and gave it over to Aaron. Moses was supposed to have been the High Priest, but he lost the priesthood and it was given to Aaron.

Why didn’t Moses receive the High Priesthood?

The lesson we can derive from this is so important that every person should engrave it in his soul and keep it uppermost in his mind. When Moses was shepherding sheep in Jethro's house, one sheep ran away and Moses chased it. Suddenly Moses saw a vision from God: a bush on fire that was not consumed. Then the Divine Presence suddenly appeared to him.

For seven consecutive days Moses stood there with God begging him to go and redeem the Israelites, while Moses kept trying to evade this appointment. When God asked Moses why, Moses answered “My older brother is the king, rabbi and leader of the Israelites in Egypt. How can I suddenly come and usurp his position and status? I don’t want to do this.” For seven consecutive days God tried to convince Moses to go redeem the Israelites, but Moses tried to dodge the appointment because he did not want to distress Aaron.

God assured Moses (Exodus 4:10), "He will see you and his heart will be happy for you." Even knowing that Aaron would be happy if Moses leads the Israelites, Moses still didn’t want to accept the role. Moses was punished for his excessive righteousness and deference to his brother by having the position of high priesthood taken away from him. Because Moses was overly righteous and concerned that his brother should be the leader, he lost this great privilege.

The fundamental principle we learn from this is that what God tells a person to do, he must do without inserting his personal calculations. A person should not try to be more “righteous” than what God commands him to be. Many times a person thinks it is better to act selflessly, righteously, or meekly, when in fact he is acting to his own detriment. Moses was the most humble of all people, as the Torah itself testifies, but this is the one time that his humility brought him to contravene God's Will and tell God that he did not want to redeem the Israelites. He said, "Send by the hand of the one you should send" hinting that Aaron should be the one to redeem them. Because he said, "I don't want to be the leader. Give it to Aaron. He is better than me.” - this caused him to lose the high priesthood and it was given to Aaron instead.

The lesson for us is that wholeheartedly fulfilling God's Will must take precedence to even the praiseworthy traits of humility and selflessness.

Surprisingly, we also find in our Torah section that Aaron was reluctant to commence the service of God, as it says, "Aaron was shamefaced and afraid to approach the service.” Moses told him, “Why are you shamefaced? You were chosen for this very thing." 

Our holy sages explain that there is a big difference between refusing out of stubbornness and refusing out of shame. The law is that a person who is asked to lead prayers for a minyan must first turn it down. However, when it comes to a regular prayer leader, he can’t turn down a request to lead prayers because that's his job.

When Aaron was called to serve God, he initially refused out of humility. He didn’t view himself as the public’s appointed emissary, as someone who was worthy of atoning for the wrongdoings of the Jewish people on a regular basis. In that case, it was incumbent upon him to refuse the first time he was called and therefore he didn’t approach the altar. 

Moses rebuked him, “Why are you overly humble? You were in fact chosen for this very thing.” You are the one who was chosen by God to bring the Israelites’ sacrifices and offerings and achieve their atonement. There is no reason to fear that you have a personal motive in doing the service instead of doing the service only to fulfill Your Creator’s commandments.

This is an extension of the previous principle we stated. When God commands a person to do a certain act, he shouldn’t worry about possible considerations of personal gain. If he is chosen by heavenly providence to fulfill this commandment, he must do it enthusiastically and above all with alacrity without worries and doubts whether he is worthy of it or not. To the contrary, he should feel motivated by the fact that he was chosen by heaven to fulfill this commandment and to be the emissary of divine providence in that matter.

Alacrity and enthusiasm in fulfilling God's words outweighs the worry that doing a commandment will cause us to become arrogant or that we are unworthy to fulfill it. We must lift up our hearts in the ways of God and fulfill our role out of a sense of mission and a constant reminder that “this is what you were chosen for.”

This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel