Greatness and Humility
A sequence of verses in Parashat Ekev gave rise to a beautiful Talmudic passage, one that has found a place in the siddur. It is among the readings we say after the evening service on Saturday night as Shabbat comes to an end. Here is the text on which it is based:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God, who shows no favouritism and accepts no bribe. He upholds the cause of the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. (Deut. 10:17–18)
The juxtaposition of the two verses – the first about God’s supremacy, the second about His care for the low and lonely – could not be more striking. The Power of powers cares for the powerless. The Infinitely Great shows concern for the small. The Being at the heart of being listens to those at the margins: the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the poor, the outcast, the neglected. On this idea, the third-century teacher R. Yoḥanan built the following homily:
R. Yoḥanan said, Wherever you find the greatness of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, there you find His humility. This is written in the Torah, repeated in the Prophets, and stated a third time in the Writings.
It is written in the Torah: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God, who shows no favouritism and accepts no bribe” (Deut. 10:17). Immediately afterwards it is written: “He upholds the cause of the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” (10:18).
It is repeated in the Prophets, as it says: “So says the High and Exalted One, who lives forever and whose name is Holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with the contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Is. 57:15).
It is stated a third time in the Writings: “Sing to God, make music for His name, extol Him who rides the clouds – God is His name – and exult before Him” (Ps. 68:5). Immediately afterwards it is written: “Father of the fatherless and judge of widows, is God in His holy habitation” (68:6). (Megilla 31a)
It is this passage that found its way into the (Ashkenazi) service at the end of Shabbat. Its presence there is to remind us that, as the day of rest ends and we return to our weekday concerns, we should not be so caught up in our own interests that we forget others less favourably situated. To care only for ourselves and those immediately dependent on us is not “the way of God.”
Greatness is humility. Three episodes taught me this in ways I will never forget. The first was this: During the twenty-two years in which I served as chief rabbi, Elaine and I used to give dinner parties for people from within – and also from outside of – the Jewish community. Usually, at the end, the guests would thank the hosts. Only once, though, did a guest not only thank us but also ask to be allowed to go into the kitchen to thank those who had made and served the meal. It was a fine act of sensitivity. What was most interesting was who it was who did so. It was John Major, at that time the British prime minister. Greatness is humility.
The second episode took place in the oldest synagogue in Britain: Bevis Marks, in the heart of the City of London. Built in 1701, it was the first purpose-built synagogue in London, created by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were the first to return to England (or practise their Judaism in public; some had been Marranos) after Oliver Cromwell gave permission in 1656 for Jews to return. They had been expelled by Edward I in 1290. Modelled on the Great Synagogue in Amsterdam, it has stayed almost unchanged ever since. Only the addition of electric lights has marked the passing of time – and even so, on special occasions, services are candlelit as they were in those early days.
For the tercentenary service in 2001, Prince Charles came to the synagogue. There he met members of the community as well as leaders of Anglo-Jewry. What was impressive was that he spent as much time talking to the young men and women who were doing security duty as he did to the great and good of British Jewry. For security reasons, people volunteer to stand guard at communal events – part of the work of one of our finest organisations, the Community Security Trust. Often, people walk past them, hardly noticing their presence. But Prince Charles did notice them, and made them feel as important as anyone else on that glittering occasion. Greatness is humility.
The late Vivienne Wohl died tragically young. She and her husband Maurice had been blessed by God with material success. They were wealthy, but they did not spend their money on themselves. They gave tzedaka on a massive scale – within and beyond the Jewish community, in Britain, Israel, and elsewhere. In Israel, for example, they donated the nineteen-acre rose garden next to the Knesset and the striking Daniel Libeskind-designed cultural centre at Bar-Ilan University. They endowed medical facilities in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as well as at King’s College and University College, London. They supported Jewish schools in Britain and yeshivot in Israel – and all this hardly touches the surface of their philanthropy. They were among the greatest philanthropists of our time.
What was really moving, though, was how they became a couple in the first place, because Vivienne was thirty years younger than Maurice. When they met, Maurice was in his late forties, a dedicated businessman seemingly destined for a life of bachelorhood. Vivienne, not yet twenty, was the daughter of friends of Maurice who had asked whether she could work for him during a vacation.
One day, Maurice offered to take her for lunch. On their way to the restaurant, they passed a beggar in the street. Maurice gave him a coin, and walked on. Vivienne stopped and asked Maurice if he would be kind enough to give her in advance a substantial sum – she named the figure – from that week’s wages. Maurice handed over the money. She then walked back and gave it all to the beggar. “Why did you do that?” asked Maurice. “Because what you gave him was not enough to make a change to his life. He needed something more.”
When the week came to an end, Maurice said to Vivienne, “I am not going to give you your full wages this week, because you gave away part of the money as a mitzva and I do not want to rob you of it.” But it was then that he decided that he must marry her, because, as he told me shortly before he died, “Her heart was bigger than mine.”
Among those who felt most bereaved by her death were the waiters and waitresses of a well-known hotel in Israel where they often stayed. It transpired that she had come to know all of them – where they came from, what their family situation was, the difficulties they were going through, the problems they faced. She remembered not only their names but also the names of their spouses and children. Whenever any of them needed help, she made sure it came, quietly, unobtrusively. It was a habit she had wherever she went.
I have had the privilege of knowing other philanthropists, but none who knew the names of the children of the waiters at the hotel where they stayed, none who cared more for those whom others hardly noticed or who gave help more quietly, more effectively, more humanly. Greatness is humility.
This idea – counter-intuitive, unexpected, life-changing – is one of the great contributions of the Torah to Western civilisation and it is set out in the words of Parashat Ekev, when Moses told the people about the “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God” whose greatness lay not just in the fact that He was creator of the universe and shaper of history, but that “He upholds the cause of the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.”
Physically, the taller you are the more you look down on others. Morally, the reverse is the case. The more we look up to others, the higher we stand. For us, as for God, greatness is humility.