[Avodah] walk humbly

[Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer]

On 8/28/2024 6:19 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> 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.
...
>      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. ...

I don't think Reb Shimon is saying anything like RYBS said. If anything,
RSS is far more in line with Slabodka. It's Gadlus Ha'Adam. Just that
the very small cog in the machine is also legitimately entitled to feel
greatness, as he is also essential to nitzchiyus.

To be melamed zechus on RYBS, I think he may mean that the individual
(the lonely man of faith) should be able to find satisfaction in his one
internal sense of accomplishment, whether he is applauded or not. But
the use of the term "anonymity" is imprecise.

YGB