[Avodah] walk humbly

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 5:16pm EDT, Joel Rich quoted from RYBS on
Rabbi JB Soloveitchik Days of Deliverance (pp. 45-46)
> Kach mkublani mbeit avi abba:
> To walk humbly with your God. God requires of man the highest of
> sacrifices-anonymity, humility. God hates glamor, fame, external glitter,
> and vainglory. He loves the actor who appears on the stage for a short
> while, plays his or her part humbly, and disappears immediately without
> receiving applause...

R Shimon in the haqdamah to Shaarei Yosher says something very related.
Quoting from my trandlation in Widen Your Tent (pg. 56, also available
as page 15 of <https://www.aishdas.org/ShaareiYosher.pdf#page=15>).

We are picking up just after the famous bit about how the key to Chessed
isn't selflessness, but having an "Ani" in the sense of "me and mine"
that goes beyond one's skin. Taking my ability to sacrifice for *my*
children and extending it to *my* friend, *my* community, *my* People,
or even *my* humanity or *my* universe.

Then R Shimon writes:

    If his feelings are broader and include [all of] Creation, that he
    is a great person and also like a small limb in this great body,
    then he is lofty and of great worth. In a great machine, even the
    smallest screw is important if it even serves the smallest role in
    the machine. For the whole is made of parts, and no more than the
    sum of its parts.

Now to summarize a couple of thoughts from Widen on that bit:

Everyone wants the limelight. They dream of being one of the parts of
the engine people discuss, a spark plug or one of the pistons.

But without that screw on the bottom (assuming casings are screwed
together, I don't know) being sufficiently tight, all the oil will run
out and your engine will swiftly melt into a lump of unusable metal.

Anavah is realizing your self-worth comes from being critical to the
machine as a whole and not worrying if people notice it. Tzeni'us is one's
consequent ability to not chase the limelight. Someone who self-defines
in terms of their crucial role in the Divine Plan derives their value
from that Plan, from all of Creation.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   this was a great wonder. But it is much more
Author: Widen Your Tent      wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter