Life Comes From Being Small
The Toldos finds in the verses about Sarah’s years a lesson that a long life of the body and soul depends on humility.
On the verse about Sarah’s lifespan, the Toldos connects the death of the body to the harm of the four basic traits that come from the four elements. The Mishnah says that envy, desire and the chase for honor remove a person from the world, and pride is the root of them all. The opposite of this is a life of humility, in which a person counts himself as nothing. Chazal say that whoever overlooks his own slights has his sins overlooked in Heaven. He adds a saying he heard in the name of the chassid Rav Nachman of Kosov: the verse “What does Hashem ask of you?” asks that we reach the level of “Nachnu mah,” “What are we?” Reaching this takes a gift of Heaven, a hundred blessings that come from the level of understanding, which is called humility. And first, pride must be cleared away.
Source: Toldot Yaakov Yosef, Chayei Sara:2-4
Today something will probably sting: a careless remark, a thank-you that never came, a person who took credit. Pick one such moment and decide, before you answer, to let it go. Say nothing, or answer kindly. Notice how much lighter the day feels. Humility here is not thinking little of yourself; it is knowing that your worth does not depend on being noticed. Ask Hashem quietly to help you carry less pride and more joy.