Vital Pride and Destructive Humility | Parshas Shelach

00:00 Let’s talk today about healthy pride, and at the same time about misguided humility. We’re all used to reading in the sefarim about pride as one of the reprehensible character traits. “Everyone who is haughty of heart is an abomination to Hashem.” Pride is among the most reprehensible traits. As the Rambam writes in Hilchos De’os, a person must distance himself from pride to the furthest extreme. On the other hand, in Chassidus especially, we find a kind of pride that is actually healthy—pride that is, in fact, an obligation for us. What is this healthy pride? And when it comes to humility, we always speak of it as one of the finest traits a person can have. “And the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” The Rambam, too, writes about how much a person needs to cultivate humility within himself. Yet there is also a humility that is actually misguided. Today we’ll discover, through the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and Chassidus, what that misguided humility is and what healthy pride we’re meant to have. You could say that, especially in our generation and our time, this is one of the most fascinating and important subjects. Unfortunately, many people get confused about it, and sometimes we make very big mistakes precisely on the basis of what is written in the sefarim and in the works of Chassidus. We’ll be discussing a very, very interesting subject today. For example, one of the things we see often in Chassidus is the concept of bittul, bittul hayesh—the nullification of the self—one of the foundational concepts of Chassidus. We need to know how to understand that properly, too: when is this bittul hayesh healthy, and when does it become something destructive that we should actually distance ourselves from? Let’s begin with the words of the Baal Shem Tov, a remarkable teaching of his on a statement

02:38 of our Sages in Tractate Gittin. The Gemara in Gittin—one of the well-known passages everyone knows from the sections studied on Tisha B’Av about the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash—tells the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. Who doesn’t know that story? A man made a feast and invited one of them, but the other came instead by mistake. Then the rest of the story unfolded: the host threw him out of the feast, and he went to inform on the Jews to the king. He then came with a sacrifice to show that the Jewish people had rebelled against the king. What happened next? There’s a statement of our Sages there that, on the face of it, calls for an explanation. The Gemara says that after the Sages discussed what to do—whether to accept the sacrifice or not—one of the great Tannaim, Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas, said that they should not accept it, for reasons he gave. Rabbi Yochanan then said that the humility of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas was what destroyed the Beis Hamikdash. Listen carefully: his humility, not his pride. The humility of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas destroyed the Beis Hamikdash. How can humility destroy the Beis Hamikdash? Humility is one of the most wonderful things there is, one of the finest traits a person needs to learn. And suddenly we’re told that this humility destroyed the Beis Hamikdash. Here the Baal Shem Tov teaches us something a Jew needs to know: just as there is pure humility, humility that builds the Beis Hamikdash, there is also misguided humility, humility that destroys it. He explains what that misguided humility is. A Jew needs to know that his davening is exceedingly important before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. His Torah study is exceedingly important before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He

05:06 cites a verse in Tehillim, chapter 68: “If you lie between the sheepfolds.” What does this verse mean, what does it allude to, what does it represent? The Baal Shem Tov says that it speaks of the holy Shechinah. The holy Shechinah, the exalted King, dwells and lies between a person’s lips—between our lips. With our lips, we have the ability to say a verse of Torah, a word of prayer. And so Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the exalted King, the holy Shechinah, stands and waits at a person’s lips for him to utter words of Torah and prayer. The moment he says words of Torah and prayer, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, kisses the lips that said them. For a Jew’s words of prayer and Torah are nourishment. That is what the Baal Shem Tov says: they are nourishment for all the upper and lower worlds, and all the holy angels in heaven stand waiting, because they receive their vitality from a Jew’s words of prayer and Torah. But when a person has false humility, a false sense of lowliness, he says to himself, “Who am I? What am I? Can my davening accomplish anything? Can my learning help in any way? There are great tzaddikim whose prayers matter, but I know how little I’m worth. I know I’m nothing. My davening is worth nothing; my learning is worth nothing. What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu need it for?” That, says the Baal Shem Tov, destroys the Beis Hamikdash. The humility of Rabbi Zechariah—this false humility, the humility that makes a person think his prayer and Torah have no effect on the upper and lower worlds or on the holy Shechinah—is what destroys the spiritual Beis Hamikdash. In other words, it causes, G-d forbid, holiness not to be drawn into the world. It causes the spiritual destruction of holiness in the world, in our

07:23 world. And that brings us to the healthy pride we need to work on. There is a famous Gemara at the end of Tractate Makkos. The Gemara says that we received 613 mitzvos. Moshe Rabbeinu gave us 611; the first two of the Ten Commandments, “I am” and “You shall have no other,” we heard directly from the Divine Presence, from the Shechinah. The Gemara then goes on to say that over the generations, great prophets and tzaddikim came and established the Torah on thirteen principles, on eleven, on six. The Gemara cites various verses. This does not mean, G-d forbid, that they reduced the 613 mitzvos. There are 613 mitzvos. G-d forbid, we neither subtract nor add: “Do not subtract” and “do not add.” There are 613 mitzvos from the Torah, 248 of them positive commandments and 365 prohibitions. But over the generations, the great Jewish leaders and tzaddikim, such as King David and the prophet Yeshayahu, as the Gemara relates, established foundations. That is, they identified particular principles on which all of Torah and mitzvos rest. So different numbers were given for these essential principles: once you have them, they give you the strength, energy, desire and ability to fulfill everything else. Then the Gemara says that Chavakuk came and established them all on one principle. Chavakuk came and established them on one. He said that all 613 mitzvos rest on a single foundation. What is it? “And the righteous person shall live by his faith”—a verse in Chavakuk. The righteous person lives through his faith. Now, there are many interpretations of these words. What does “the righteous person shall live by his faith” mean? There is the straightforward meaning: faith. Faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the foundation, and once we believe, that faith will lead us to all the other mitzvos.

09:47 There are deeper interpretations of “the righteous shall live by his faith.” In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains that this refers to faith in Hashem’s oneness—faith in the true oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is not only belief that Hashem exists, but belief that the entire reality of creation is one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what gives a person life in all 613 mitzvos. There are other explanations too, but there is a Chassidic explanation passed down from the early chassidim, generation after generation: “The righteous shall live by his faith” means not only faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but faith in oneself—in who we are and in our own abilities. As we said in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, it means believing that our prayers matter to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu waits and looks forward to our service of Hashem, and, so to speak, needs it. It means believing and knowing that, with the abilities I have, I can bring about change throughout creation and transform all the worlds. That faith is the foundation: “by his faith”—believing in ourselves and recognizing the extraordinary abilities Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given us. This is what gives us life, and what gives a person the ability to make real, tangible change in our world. Today we hear a lot about this. People speak about it in modern terms: self-confidence, low self-confidence, and so on; feelings of inferiority. But if we look at it from the true, deeper perspective that Chassidus reveals and explains, it means recognizing who we really are at our core. When we speak of healthy pride, we mean “the pride of Yaakov,” as it says in Tehillim: “He will choose our inheritance for us, the pride of Yaakov, whom He loves forever.” The pride of Yaakov is healthy Jewish pride: a true feeling, pride that comes from the healthiest and deepest place in the soul. The pride of Yaakov means that I am a

12:14 Jew. I have a holy soul, and my soul is truly a part of G-d above. Through the power of my soul, I can transform worlds. I can do the most wonderful things. That is the healthy pride each of us should have. There is another teaching from the Baal Shem Tov. Listen closely. We have just come from Shavuos, and the Baal Shem Tov says: Regarding the offerings in the Beis Hamikdash, it says, “You shall not burn any leaven or any honey as a fire-offering to Hashem.” This is a verse in Parshas Vayikra. In the Beis Hamikdash, it was forbidden to offer leaven or honey. In other words, the meal-offerings were made from matzah, not chametz. It was forbidden to offer sweet things on the altar—things with sweetness and honey, as Rashi explains. “But you may bring them as an offering of first fruits.” That is what the Torah says in Parshas Vayikra. What does “an offering of first fruits” mean? Rashi explains that this refers to Shavuos. At the beginning, when we brought bikkurim to the Beis Hamikdash, at the beginning of receiving the Torah, there were two kinds of first offerings on Shavuos. One was the bikkurim: “The first fruits of your land you shall bring to the house of Hashem your G-d.” On Shavuos, Jews brought bikkurim to the Beis Hamikdash, and the Torah calls them “first fruits.” They included honey—date honey, one of the seven species. Rashi says that “honey” does not mean only honey; it includes all sweet fruits. So the other fruits brought from the seven species were included as well, and this counted as an offering. In other words, on Shavuos they brought sweet things. The same applies to chametz. We all know that the first wheat meal-offering brought to the Beis Hamikdash was the two loaves. The Gemara says that the two loaves brought on Shavuos permitted offerings to be brought from the new grain, from the new wheat—and those loaves were specifically chametz. So throughout the year, “You shall not burn any leaven.” All the meal-offerings

14:49 were made from matzah. The only meal-offering made from chametz—apart, of course, from the thanksgiving offering, which is a subject of its own and also included chametz—was this one. As a rule, most offerings, most meal-offerings, were made specifically from matzah. But the first offering, the one brought as the first of the meal-offerings, was specifically chametz. The Baal Shem Tov asks: What is the explanation for this? If Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not want leaven or honey, why are they suddenly brought as an offering of first fruits? The Baal Shem Tov gives a wonderful answer. “First” means the beginning of one’s service—when a person is at the beginning, in a period of starting out. Shavuos is a time of new beginnings. We receive the Torah anew and start with a clean slate. When a person is at the beginning, at a point of renewal in serving Hashem, starting afresh, that is precisely when there must be leaven and honey. What is leaven? Pride. We all know what leaven does to flour and dough: it makes the dough rise. That is what it symbolizes. Chametz symbolizes pride; matzah symbolizes self-nullification and humility, while chametz symbolizes pride. So when you begin to study Torah—when Jews stand before Mount Sinai, as we do every Shavuos, standing before the Ten Commandments and receiving the Torah anew—when you begin a new chapter in life, you need that leaven, that chametz. Pride is usually a negative thing. But if, at the start of a person’s service of Hashem, they do not take to heart the tremendous power they have—the healthy pride we should have, recognizing our abilities and our capacity to bring pleasure to our Father in Heaven; knowing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands waiting and yearning for our Torah and mitzvos—then that person will not begin

17:05 their service. If a person thinks, “Who am I, and what am I?”—if they have that humility at the very beginning—they will not dare, and will not have the courage, to draw close to serving Hashem. “Hakadosh Boruch Hu is so great, and I am so small.” That is the way of the yetzer hara. One of the tricks of our yetzer hara is to persuade us: “You are so insignificant. Do you know who you are? Do you know how lowly and worthless you are?” And then the yetzer hara knows how to picture for us every sin we have committed in the past, bringing us down to the dust. “And Hakadosh Boruch Hu is so great. Do you think He needs your mitzvos? Are they worth anything? Will He accept them? Will He even look at them?” Sometimes it even supplies teachings of our Sages that seem to support what it says. And this is what the Baal Shem Tov teaches us: Quite the opposite—this is a very serious mistake. The first offering must specifically be the two loaves made from chametz. And the same applies to the leaven—the subject of leaven. As we said—sorry, honey: sweetness, something sweet. Ah, geshmak! The pleasure in learning Torah, the pleasure in davening. What do we mean by pleasure? We should daven and fulfill a mitzvah because that is what Hashem wants, with self-nullification, not for pleasure. But here the Baal Shem Tov tells us the same thing: with the first offering, at the beginning of one’s service, a Jew absolutely needs to seek out the chametz—the healthy pride that gives them the courage to stand face to face with the Creator, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in Torah study and in davening. One needs to seek out the enjoyment, the geshmak, the pleasure in a word of Torah, in a word of davening. That gives you the strength to enter into serving Hashem. Afterward, one really does need to work

19:14 A person should not serve Hashem merely for the pleasure he gets from it, but should serve Hashem for the sake of Heaven, with inner self-nullification. Then the whole subject comes into play as well. But at the foundation, at the beginning, there must specifically be chametz and specifically leaven—and, on the other hand, humility. What is proper humility? When does humility become unhealthy? As we said, Chassidus speaks a great deal about bittul, especially Chabad Chassidus. The word bittul is almost synonymous with Chassidus. So many maamarim discuss nullifying the sense of self, nullifying one’s independent existence: how a person must know that the world has no independent existence, that I have no independent existence, that everything is nullified. We talk about bittul all the time. So much so that the Rebbe would tell a story—I remember being privileged to hear it from the Rebbe at farbrengens several times. It was a story the Rebbe repeated often. There was a farbrengen in Russia, in the years when it was dangerous to be out on the streets at night. But the chassidim risked their lives, because a farbrengen changes a person. Chassidus without a farbrengen—how can you live without it? So the chassidim found all sorts of ways to hide, as long as they could sit together and farbreng from time to time, especially on special occasions and holidays. Once, they held a farbrengen in secret. Of course, they said l’chaim and talked together, and the mashpia spoke at length about nullifying the sense of self. After the farbrengen, one of the chassidim was on his way home. It was already late at night when a policeman stopped him and shouted in Russian, “Who goes there?” I remember it sounded something like “Kto idyot?”—who’s walking? The chossid was completely absorbed in the words he had heard at the farbrengen. They had penetrated him; he was immersed in them and living with them. So he shouted back to the policeman, “Bittul idyot!” In other words, “Bittul is walking.” That was his answer. So the policeman heard

21:31 someone talking such nonsense and sent him home—he let him go. In any case, what is the point of the story? I remember the Rebbe telling it and explaining its deeper meaning. First, we see just how deeply the chassidim were imbued with the idea of bittul. That was what they farbrenged about, what they lived with, what occupied their minds—and that was how he spoke. But there is something deeper here. He said, “Bittul is walking.” Although this was, seemingly, just a chossid after a farbrengen, you might say—but it is interesting that the Rebbe focused on those words and saw a tremendous message in them. Bittul is walking. People commonly understand bittul as being a doormat. Bittul means lowliness: Who am I? Nothing. I am nullified. I am a nobody, a zero. Sometimes we misunderstand self-nullification, interpreting it as meaning that I am nothing, a nobody, a zero. But that feeling of being a nobody leaves a person feeling diminished and weak, in a passive state. Here we are told the opposite: bittul is walking. The true bittul that Chassidus teaches us is not a passive self-nullification that leads to inaction. It is not, “Who am I? Nothing, a zero,” leaving me cast aside, saying, “I’m a doormat.” On the contrary, this self-nullification makes a person walk forward. It lifts a person up and gives him strength. There is a wonderful letter from the Frierdiker Rebbe that explains at length the mistake people make in translating the word bittul. The common translation is very superficial and shallow, as though bittul means that a person is nothing, a nobody, a zero. The Frierdiker Rebbe discusses how the word bittul is translated into Yiddish. He says that bittul is not, as some translate it, a sort of farloirenkeit—a person losing himself,

24:09 feeling deficient: “I am nothing; I am nobody.” Rather, he says, the correct translation of bittul is ibergegebenkeit—devotion. The bittul that Chassidus speaks about so much does not mean, “Er iz a gornisht”—“He is nothing.” It means, “I am devoted.” I am devoted to something higher. And once we are talking about devotion, devotion is a source of strength. It lifts you up and gives you tremendous strength: devotion to something above yourself. Then it is no longer just me, with my limitations and narrow confines; we are talking about a G-dly power. So, on the contrary, this self-nullification gives a person extraordinary strength to overcome the yetzer hara, to overcome all the obstacles and hindrances, everything that interferes with our service of Hashem. It enables us to stand strong on our path, to know where we are going, and not to be shaken. “Bittul is walking”—that is the healthy bittul Chassidus teaches us. By Divine Providence, we are discussing this now, just as we are learning in the weekly parsha about the story of the spies. There we can see what unhealthy, destructive humility looks like, and what healthy pride looks like: the spies as opposed to Kalev. The spies return from Eretz Yisroel and spread fear. They weep and say, “We can’t do it. We can’t go up; we can’t conquer it. We don’t have the strength. We are nothing, because the people are strong,” and so on. Then they explain what happened: “We went around Eretz Yisroel. We saw the sons of giants there; we saw the Nephilim there. ‘We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.’” Everyone knows that verse, “We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers,” but look at what it is telling us. The explanation is right there in its words: “We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers.” It all began with how we saw ourselves. We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and only then, “so we were in their eyes.” That is what caused them to see us as grasshoppers too. In other words,

26:58 it all begins with a false sense of lowliness about ourselves. Once the spies lost faith in themselves and in their abilities, they thought, “Who are we compared with these giants?” As the Midrash says: Who asked you to think that way? Who told you that was how they saw you? The Midrash says that perhaps they thought the opposite—that you were giants. But once “we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers,” then suddenly, as Rashi says, we heard them saying, “There are ants walking around here in the field.” It began, though, with the way we thought about ourselves. When a person puts himself down with false lowliness, the world starts to belittle him. The world starts to see him as nothing. But when we recognize our true strengths, the world fears us as well. This is a tremendous message, so important for us in these times. Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says something wonderful about this week’s parsha. Speaking about these verses, he asks: What is the difference between the sin of the spies and the sin of the Golden Calf? The sin of the Golden Calf was a lack of faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it was a sin of idolatry. The sin of the spies was a lack of faith in ourselves, in the power of a Jew. That is the difference between the two sins. With the Golden Calf, the Jews had a problem with their faith in Hashem: “These are your gods, O Israel,” and so on, as the Torah tells us. With the spies, they did not believe in their own strength. They thought, “Who are we? What can we accomplish? How could we conquer the land?”—“We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers.” This was especially true of their spiritual strength, in the spiritual meaning of conquering the land: being able to refine and elevate the world, to turn the land of Canaan into the Holy Land. They did not believe they had the strength to do that: “We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers.” Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says something wonderful.

29:22 Also. Rashi says, “We heard them saying, ‘There are ants walking around here in the field.’” Why ants? Because it says about the ant, “Go to the ant, you sluggard”: we need to learn from the way it works. But later in that passage it says that the ant works without a commander or an overseer. How does King Shlomo put it in Mishlei, chapter 6? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says: That is what they were saying. They said, “We see ants here.” They saw people who had lost their—they were people who worked, who came and went, but they no longer believed in the strength they had without a commander or an overseer. They had lost their dedication, lost their connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They didn’t believe in the wonderful strengths they had without a commander or an overseer. So they ran around and worked all day, but they lacked the healthy self-discipline a Jew needs. And this explains why Rashi says “ants” when the verse says “grasshoppers.” That is what Rabbi Levi Yitzchak explains. Let’s return to our subject. This is the issue of faith, of the sickly, destructive, ruinous humility that was the sin of the spies. On the other side stands Kalev ben Yefuneh, facing the entire people. “Kalev quieted the people before Moshe.” And what does Kalev say? He says these wonderful words: “If Hashem desires us.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu desires us. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has a will—and not just any will, but one filled with delight. Because desire is not just a will; it is an inner will, a will with delight. “If Hashem desires us and brings us into the land,” a land flowing with milk and honey. “The land is very, very good.” What is he saying? He is saying: On the contrary, Hakadosh Boruch Hu looks forward to it, waits for it, desires it—“For you shall be a land of delight to Me.” As the Baal Shem Tov explains, every Jew

31:50 is a “land of delight” whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu desires, filled with wonderful treasures. And because Hashem desires us, we have extraordinary strengths. With those strengths, we can conquer Eretz Yisroel, turn the land of Canaan into the Holy Land, and bring holiness into Eretz Yisroel, making it a place of holiness. That is our task. “If Hashem desires us.” But he doesn’t say, “Hashem desires us”; he says, “If Hashem desires us.” In other words, it depends on us. We need to reveal these strengths within ourselves. And that is the message we need to take to heart in these days, especially in our generation, in our time. We are in a position just like the one the Jewish people faced when they were about to enter Eretz Yisroel, as the parsha tells us. Kalev, with his extraordinary strength, revealed a healthy pride: “If Hashem desires us.” And that very desire is what gave him the strength to say, “The land is very, very good.” If we see ourselves in this proper way, with this proper outlook, then in our generation too, in our time, as we find ourselves at such critical moments in the situation in Eretz Yisroel, we can awaken the strength, the faith, that Kalev ben Yefuneh taught us: faith in ourselves, faith in the strength of a Jew to stand before all the nations of the world without being intimidated, to be strong and make the land holy. To reveal the holiness in Eretz Yisroel and turn the entire world into Eretz Yisroel, as the Tzemach Tzedek taught us: wherever we are, to bring holiness into that place. That is the message we need to take into our lives at this time. To awaken the right kind of pride and the right kind of humility. To recognize our strengths, the proper dedication, the wonderful strengths we have, and to use them. With these, we will go out into the world and do

34:05 the final work that remains for us in these last, decisive moments at the end of the time of exile: to illuminate the world, to prepare the world, and to recognize our wonderful strengths. As the Rebbe spoke to us about so often, particularly in the later years, today every Jew has the power, through one deed, one word, and one thought, to bring deliverance and salvation to the world, as the Rambam says: to tip the balance of the entire world toward merit and bring the deliverance and salvation of the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach.