Humility: Why Moshe, Not the Angels, Received the Torah

1To complete the words of Chazal in Shabbos [88b–89a], quoted above in section 1, we add a further explanation in the same vein. The Gemara says that Hashem told Moshe, “Take hold of My Throne of Glory and give them an answer.” That is: the very flaw the angels pointed out, that you are born of woman, is how you can answer and defeat them. It is lowly, yet it is a virtue. Because people know in their hearts that they are born of woman and of little worth, and see opposite that the greatness of the Creator, they can come to lowliness, humility and teshuvah out of love. Teshuvah means returning to the root, and the root of a Jewish soul is hewn from beneath Hashem's Throne of Glory. Teshuvah like this repairs all the worlds, for Hashem loves and wants it. As R' Bunim of Peshischa, zt"l, said: we call Hashem “the One who desires teshuvah,” not “the One who is appeased by teshuvah.” The word “desires” implies that, as it were, He wanted teshuvah. Just as He wanted us to keep the Torah and not sin, so He wanted us to do teshuvah in truth, if we sin. This adds strength to the heavenly household. The angels, though they are of very high stature, being Hashem's own handiwork, cannot for that very reason merit teshuvah.

2Moshe asked the angels, “Is there a yetzer hara among you?” (Shabbos 89a). This follows what the holy R' Avraham Moshe of Peshischa¹, zt"l, said, and it is implied in Binah La'Itim² as well, on the verse “Hashem, all my desire is before You, and my sighing is not hidden from You” (Tehillim 38:10). True, all my desire, which comes from my craving soul, is against Your will, for my yetzer craves what is not right in Your eyes. But You, Hashem, also see what stands against it. The force of my sighing and my pain over it is not hidden from You. I regret what I have done, and as I look upward, I sigh over this desire constantly. That is the meaning of “Is there a yetzer hara among you?” A Jew comes to humility and a broken heart when he remembers that he followed his yetzer hara and longed for what is not right in the Creator's eyes, and so drifted away from “the light of the King's face” [Mishlei 16:15]. All this leaves his heart broken and crushed. Hashem says, “I am with the crushed” (Sotah 5a), and he merits teshuvah: to return to the root, the source from which he was hewn, and to take hold of Hashem's Throne of Glory. Without the trait of humility, the angels cannot receive the Torah.

3aMoshe also asked, “Is there give-and-take among you?” (Shabbos 89a). This is like what the Ran wrote on the blessing “to engage in words of Torah”: to engage in the give-and-take of keen analysis and reasoning, and to clarify the halachah truly. For this, a great deal of humility and lowliness is needed, since humility is one of the Torah's traits. Through humility and self-nullification, a person is as nothing in his own eyes. He sets aside himself and his own interests and does not lean to either extreme, and so he merits the trait of truth. Truth is the trait of Yaakov [“Give truth to Yaakov,” Michah 7:20], the aspect of Tiferes, the middle line that leans to neither side. Through truth he merits true understanding and true judgment, to clarify the halachah truly and reach the correct ruling. This is what Chazal say on “words of peace and truth” [Esther 9:30]: “This teaches that a Megillah needs ruled lines, like the truth of the Torah” (Megillah 16b). The hint is that the truth of the Torah needs a ruled line. A person must walk the middle path, along the line, without tilting to any side, and set aside all his personal interests. For this he greatly needs humility, one of the Torah's traits. (This is discussed at length below, in Parshas Mishpatim and Parshas Terumah.)

3bThrough his humility, a person merits the light of the Torah. He binds and attaches himself to “the light of the King's face,” the light of the Infinite One, and to the whole Jewish people, as the holy Zohar says: “The Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, and Israel are one” [cf. Zohar III:73a]. It is different with someone who walks in haughtiness and arrogance. He is automatically one of those of whom Hashem says, “I and he cannot dwell together in the world,” and he pushes away the Shechinah, as it were (Sotah 5a). So Moshe told the angels, “Is there give-and-take among you?” Through his humility, a Jew can merit the give-and-take of Torah and clarify the halachah truly. But you lack humility, as we said. Without it, they cannot receive the Torah: they cannot reach the correct ruling or arrive at the Torah's truth.