MIND THE GAP
Our Sages teach us that the reason HaShem chose Mount Sinai to be the location where He gave the Torah to His people was because it was smaller than the other more significant mountains. The Sages go on to teach us that Torah is given to those who are humble. Throughout our holy books there is tremendous emphasis placed on the importance of humility. There are many other fine qualities that we should adopt, why is humility placed ahead of those other qualities?
It must be clarified that humility should in no way be confused with poor self-worth or low self-esteem. The latter is detrimental to the health of a person and certainly of the Jew. HaShem is not interested in having a nation of people who do not believe in themselves. Quite to the contrary; He wants a nation whose people are driven to be-come great and to make a difference in the world. This can only be accomplished by people who believe in themselves. So then what is humility?
Humility is recognizing one’s true self worth. When a wealthy fellow whose financial worth is $40 million dollars stands next to the other members of his shul, he feels real good about himself. When he attends a convention where the smallest folks are worth over $200 million he feels quite small. The question is how does he view himself when he is by himself? What is his real self worth? Is his self worth only through comparison or does he have an actual self worth?
The people of HaShem do not measure themselves in terms of financial worth or in terms of academic accomplishments. We measure ourselves in terms of our relation-ship with HaShem. That relationship is what defines us. It is who we are.
There are many types of relationships; parents/child, teacher/student, siblings, peers, employer/employee and so on. We can identify two types of relationships; equal relationships and unequal relationships. Parent/child is unequal while peers or equal. For a relationship to be successful both parties must recognize whether their relationship is equal or unequal. It is also important to recognize the gap of that inequality. A healthy parent/child relationship will require that the child recognize how much greater his father is than he. If this 10 year old considers his father as being just a bit more mature than himself it will be a lopsided relationship. Our relationship with HaShem is certainly unequal. Let us then consider the gap of inequality between us and HaShem.
We are His creation and He is our Creator. He created the heav-ens which contain between 100 to 200 billion galaxies and each galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars. If we can imagine squeezing the entire universe into the space between th e Earth and the moon, Earth itself would be microscopic!
If we were to now calculate the gap of inequality we would be almost non-existent. However, we know that HaShem created the universe for the Jewish people. HaShem created it all for me and my people. On one hand this recognition raises my self worth extremely high but at the same time I must recognize the tremendous gap between myself and Him. An honest under-standing of the gap will erase any other measure of significance. I am only a Jew; my entire self worth is only that HaShem cares for me.
The mountain upon which HaShem gave us the Torah must have no distinction other than it is the mountain of HaShem. It can have no other self worth. If it is also known as the tallest mountain or the widest mountain then it has a self worth outside of being the mountain of HaShem. Such a mountain cannot become the mountain of HaShem.
Perhaps the primacy of humility is that only with humility can HaShem endow us with the relationship which allows us to receive His Torah.
Have a wonderful Shabbos.
Paysach Diskind