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A wise woman once said: excellent people discuss ideas, mediocore people discuss events, inferior people discuss other people. This blog will be devoted mostly to ideas that I teach and write about. Ocassionally I will throw in some travel, recipes, movie reviews or other quirky indulgences. Since the state of our world and efforts to mend it are never far from my consciousness, you will also find some "current events" features under "tikkun olam." Please feel free to add your comments. Definitions: Midlife--Too late to do anything really new; too late not to. Mussar- A traditional Jewish practice to cultivate ethical insomnia(thanks to Rabbi Stone) If you want to know more about the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College where I teach, check out www.rrc.edu

Thursday, December 21, 2006

the middah of humility


I love this piece by Alan Morinis on humility


"Anyone who sets a particular place for himself to pray in the synagogue, the God of Abraham stands in his aid, and when he dies, people say of him, 'this was a humble person'" (Brachot 6b).

Humility is limiting oneself to an appropriate amount of space while leaving room for others.

Where is the humility in sitting in the same place in the synagogue whenever you come to pray? The answer is that by fixing yourself to one spot, you thereby free up all the other space for others to use.

This example helps us frame a Jewish definition of humiliy as "limiting oneself to an appropriate amount of space while leaving room for others." Sitting in a predictable place, you make room for others to occupy their own spaces too. Zechariah ben Avkulas gave up too much of his "space," considering that the space a person can occupy can be physical, emotional, verbal, or even metaphorical.
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