Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 98): False Humility is Arrogance - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning and boker tov great to be back together again i want to thank our generous sponsors for the 10 minutes of meeting series for the year learning honey grown students father aaron ben yitzchak who is michelle continues to chart for us a path for how to be our best selves how to live our best lives how to try to achieve the greatest perfection that we're capable of we are up to the chapter 11 midas we begin with the media of zuhiros how to live a life of mindfulness and caution how to be present in all of our thought and all of our speech and all of our behavior we move to zurizus alacrity and zeal enthusiasm how to set goals make resolutions and pursue them and achieve them and now we've been spending a lot of time on this chapter of nichias the third quality in this 12-step program towards self-actualization and perfection the media of nikhias is all about how to purge and rid ourselves of the temptations the behavior the type of things that shouldn't be part of our repertoire at all we talked about the external actions and now that has moved over to the internal character traits he says you know many intelligent sophisticated advanced people they don't focus on character traits they think growing character reading focusing on character that's for people unintelligent but the truth is the most intelligent need to have the self-awareness we need to know who we are and how we behave how we're perceived what are the triggers that make us react in certain ways where we sabotage our own success our own happiness we sabotage sabotage the relationships with the people around us they're called midos we said last time mida means a measure because these are not categorically good or bad with the exceptions of anger and the exception of arrogance those are two categorically bad qualities all others belong in our repertoire belong in our their ingredients in our recipe it's just a question of what midda what measure too much pepper you destroy the dish too little pepper it has no flavor we need a little bit of stubbornness we need a little bit of a fire in our belly we need a little bit of envy to be envious of people with their spiritual accomplishments and get to want to be like them can us so it's a question of what meda what measure to have and we began with the character trait of arrogance arrogance is a character trait that both agree that arrogance is categorically bad an inflated ego an inflated sense of self a person who thinks they're better superior arrogant person there's not enough room in this world says hashem for both him and the arrogant person so we're up to the paragraph there's another arrogant person who thinks that they're worthy of praise that they have superior qualities and they think that the whole world has to respond they can terrorize the world we know people like this maybe they have power they have fame maybe they have money maybe they have good looks or charm or charisma maybe they're athletic maybe they're handsome maybe they're artistic and because of whatever gift or skill that they have on loan from the almighty never really ever owned by them they think that they can control others they try to micromanage the world manipulate the world they think the whole world has to respond to their will and whim before him it's unfitting for people to approach the talk to request anything people so arrogant who are you to ask me who are you to talk to me who are you to stop me who are you to say anything i have an opinion do you know who i am do you know the power i have this is how i drew it up this is how i think the world has to operate this is what i want you to do this is how i want you to behave there are people who real rule their homes this way their spouses their children live in fear and terror their co-workers their friends are not really their friends just nobody wants to deal with their ego they have no self-awareness people whose egos are so inflated they think they're so superior they try to micromanage and control those around them they have no self-awareness they don't even realize how they're perceived that their relationships are also shallow and counterfeit and fake because people are just going through emotions because you can't really connect with an arrogant person person who doesn't lower their wall and let you in the person who doesn't uh the person who doesn't feel that they have something to learn from you the person who doesn't actually connect you can't really have a relationship with and if they thrust themselves upon him he'll frighten them with his voice confound them with the breath of his lips responding instantly with a face that's always contorted with anger with anger the arrogant person gets angry the arrogant person when the world doesn't happen the way they want the way they drew it up what do you mean i didn't want a red light i don't want a delay of the flight i didn't want my kid to leave something on the floor i didn't want you to be running late i didn't want you to behave that way or say that or do that so therefore they fly off the handle with rage the arrogance the person who feels that the whole world has to respond the way they want that everything has to be choreographed by them that everything has to follow their order and their dictate the arrogant person gets angry easily and there's another type of arrogant person who thinks in their heart they ain't so close arrogant person who thinks that he's great and so esteemed that honor is inseparable from being and he has no need to cultivate it the africa dose of the horror shifts you know the worst type of arrogant person says there are such arrogant people that they have a false humility and their false humility is in itself a form of extraordinary arrogance and so they insist on speaking last or speaking softest or quietest or having the least to say they try to blend in the corner of the room they tell everybody how humble they are and how they don't have an ego and they give a million examples about how humble they are and how they don't have to tell everyone what to do person who has a false humility person who carries themselves with arrogance so arrogant they want the world to think that they're the most humble mistakes in fact i'm so great i don't need you to flatter me i don't need you to honor me because i'm so great your honor is an insult that's how great i am and how much greater i am than you so such a person who has no patience and no time and makes no space for other people to honor them because they're so arrogant that they're beyond the honor of others is a false humility it's a counterfeit fake humility ain't the el nivate that's yet another type of an arrogant person so the ramkha here is unpacking it's really extraordinary that nearly 300 years ago he had such insight to the human psyche and psychology that he's able to develop and unpack these different forms of arrogance arrogance can express itself sometimes the arrogant person is the loudest in the room sometimes the arrogant person is the quietest in the room these are opposite expressions or manifestations but equally they stem from a sense of arrogance i've arrived i'm great i'm superior i'm better my time is more valuable than others my wisdom is greater and more compelling than others my talents and my skills are more honed than others and cultivated than others such an arrogant person again it can express itself in different manifestations but equally it comes from arrogance and an arrogant person is like an idolater because they're worshiping themselves an arrogant person only has a relationship with themselves and with no one else not with god and not with other people who live in fear and terror of them you know you know the arrogant person you have to walk on eggshells around them and choose your words carefully and make sure you're not going to upset them because the whole world revolves around them they're at the center of the circle and everything needs to fit into their formula those relationships they think they have the arrogant person is so blinded by their own arrogance they lack such self-awareness they don't even perceive they don't understand how they're perceived by others that they think they think what they're selling to others is true they actually buy it about themselves though nobody else does another type of arrogant person who wants to be highly celebrated for qualities and singled out for their ways and a person is so arrogant that they're insulted that they're not praised for their humility can you imagine someone says you're a great speaker you're a great lawyer you're a great doctor you're a great banker you're a great community leader you're a great friend you're great great great great great but you forgot about how humble i am i try to be so humble i said no you know 400 times about being honored at the dinner and you forgot to at the dinner when i finally was honored mention how i said no 400 times you forgot to mention how humble i am and how hesitant i was to accept this because i won't say who is a rabbi much older than i who um i remember a meeting of younger rabbis and he was trying to offer some mentorship and he told us a story about uh about a woman who helped at the school dinner and she said to him a hundred times in the preparation of the show dinner she said whatever you do please do not say my name at the shul dinner whatever you do don't mention everything i help don't mention the hours i put in don't mention the personal money it costs me whatever you do don't mention my name rabbi that's the one condition i'm begging you i plead with you don't mention my name so when he was a young rabbi foolish as he was he didn't mention her name and afterwards he found out that she was furious at him she was so upset so he turned tossed the young rabbis and he said let me translate when she said whatever you do don't mention my name it loosely translates as whatever you do don't forget to mention my name so there's a false humility there's a false humility there are people who really don't agree to be accepted honor being honored at dinners and they hold steadfast and they hold true and they're never honored but they're the people who refuse or hesitate or give you the hard time because they want to make sure that when they're honored you'll talk all about how many times they said no so the ramhal here develops the idea of the person who is praised and recognized and celebrated for their wonderful qualities and yet with all of that with all of that they're frustrated and upset that they're not acknowledged for just how humble they are vanim they say look how far i'm running away from honor look how much i'm avoiding it how could you not have mentioned that do you know how hard it is for me do you know how much i'm working on it how could you not have mentioned it you hear the arrogance the person who says there's no one as wise and humble like me in the entire land i'm the most humble there is i'm the most humble there are people who actually will show off to you i don't need anything i don't need a designated seat and i don't need honor i don't need to be honored and i don't need the covered you know again you have you have certain kibutimat simras and the person who says 400 times to you i don't need the keyboard i don't need the keyboard which loosely translates to don't forget to give me the keyboard sometimes a person can be arrogant in the way that they're showing off about their humility or this person's arrogant because they are complaining that they fail to be acknowledged and celebrated for the humility which itself is a form of arrogance so arrogance takes on so many forms and that is why it is one of the categorically bad qualities it doesn't belong in any media and in this in this character trait of nikias in this chapter the third character trait that we're working on with we're trying to purge arrogance from ourselves and we do that by having people around us a good spouse good friends checks and balances who put us on our place and humble you humble us and remind us where we come from that the gifts and talents and skills that we have they're on that part of our permanent collection and we'll continue with how to achieve humility and overcome the arrogance hashem next week have a wonderful day we continue with living with a moon at 8 45 9 o'clock tonight behind the bhima they're on a part of our permanent collection