Running From Honor
Offered a position of leadership in Yerushalayim, Rav Gershon treated the offer itself as a warning sign.
In his letter from Chevron, Rav Gershon described how the Ashkenazim of Yerushalayim pressed him to become their rav and leader and had already prepared a home and a beis medrash for him. He did not feel flattered. He told himself that all his days he had fled from honor, so this sudden invitation must be the work of the yetzer hara, who sets out snares of pride and hunts for a person with them. His reasoning is simple and sharp. If a person has spent his life avoiding glory, an offer of glory is the moment to be most careful, because that is where the evil inclination aims. He turned the offer down, and he was spared the plague that struck the city soon afterward.
Source: Igeres Chevron, in Birkas HaAretz (Baruch HaKohen Kahana), p. 62; also Avraham Yaari, Igros Eretz Yisroel, p. 277
The next time you are offered a title, a compliment or a spot at the front, stop for a moment before you accept. Ask yourself whether you are being drawn by the work itself or by how it would feel to be seen. You need not refuse good things, but be honest about your reasons. Choose one small way today to do something good without being noticed, and let that be your practice of the lesson Rav Gershon taught in his own letter.