Moshe's Humility: Lessons on Patience and Humility Under Criticism

0:01 Let's play a game, a little social experiment, to learn about ourselves, if you will. At the end of last week's parasha we heard about that narrative of Miriam and Aaron speaking against their brother Moshe, inquiring about Moshe's relationship with his wife. And eventually Miriam got serahas and the Torah interjects, right after the words of Lashon Hara were spoken about Moshe, with a verse that says and now you should know that Moshe was un of ma'od mikola adam. The Torah responds to the criticism about Moshe by telling us that he is the most exceedingly humble man, more than any other person on the face of the earth.

0:49 And the Roshonim explain that. What does it mean to be humble? It means, shofar v'savlon, to be patient, to not easily have your feathers ruffled. They don't really care what people say about you. Ramban to Evenezer, they explained that even though someone was unjust, they were wrongly criticizing Moshe, misplaced. It was incorrect. He didn't look with even the slightest bit of ill will at those people that critiqued him. He was so humble that it didn't bother him. He was un-of-my-ode.

1:29 And Rebbe Urachim shows that it's clear from here that humility it seesaws back and forth with how much a person will become angry when spoken about in front of him. So the experiment, he says if you want to figure out how humble you are or, god forbid, how much effort we need to put in suppressing our thoughts of haughtiness, well then just wait for that situation or scenario. Or have someone speak ill about you, say something oh, you heard he said he woke up late this morning. Oh, he doesn't know how to learn If you become angry as opposed to just being content, patient, confident, because you don't care what anyone else thinks.

2:19 That's how you can see your level of humility. It also shows us kind of a new definition of humility. There's that element of patience in it. And the model child, the model student, the ultimate epitome of humility. Moshe Rabbeinu, there comes a point where you're so excited about everyone else's success and care so little about your own status, of what people think about you, that even when people say Eldad and Medad are prophesizing in the camp there's so many people, moshe, they're encroaching upon your territory Moshe says I wish everyone was prophets, because when you are un-of and you are shafal and you are patient and you are humble, you want everyone to be successful.

3:07 So try the social experiment. Wait for a time that someone speaks a little bit less and up to your standards about you and see if you can sit there and just say hey, I'm good, I'm humble, I'm patient and I really only care about what Hashem thinks about my service towards Him.