Over the past weeks we have discussed pride, love, justice, safety, whiteness, witnessing, solidarity. Tonight, at the risk of sounding like school marm in a finishing school, I would like to discuss the virtue of modesty.
I didn't think up this topic myself. It comes to us from this week's haftarah portion, from the Book of Micah, which gives us one of our clearest and most memorable moral demands. The verse says:
הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־יְהוָ֞ה דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗
כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃
"O human, Adonai has told you what is good, and what is required of you: only that you do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God."
It is the third of these – hatznea lechet im Eloheycha, walk humbly with your God – that drew my attention this week, even though it is justice that has so powerfully filled our minds in these weeks. What does it mean to walk humbly, modestly? And why is it important enough to put right up there with justice and kindness which, you would think, would all by themselves be enough for us to get on pretty well?
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we don't yet live in a world of justice or kindness. We live in a world in which we are striving for them. We are living in a world where justice and kindness do not live in isolation.
Instead, we are slippery beings in constant motion, wanting kindness and justice; but also wanting love and power and validation and comfort. We are each a swirling mass of needs and investments and uncertainties and fears. We might be able to work much of it out with spiritual practices and psychotherapy and good talks with honest friends. But still, all of these things are always at play.
And so even our justice work and our acts of kindness can have baggage.
For me, for instance, wearing a mask in public is a clear act of chesed. It is me being loving and caring; it is a kindness toward other humans, who might be more vulnerable than I am; and I don't know how vulnerable I am. And then when I drive through Cotati and see a dozen unmasked people playing volleyball, I am filled with judgment. As if I was never young and immortal; as if I never bristled at limitations imposed on me; as if I never rejected authority. My whole life has been rejecting authority!
So what does "walk humbly" require of me here? It doesn't require me to say, "Fine, who needs a mask? It's okay." But it might require to get off my high-horse about it. I can oppose, I can persuade, but I can't pretend that that is some whole other kind of person that I am unlike and better than.
Even our struggle for racial justice. It is easy to simply condemn others as racists, because there is always someone doing something egregious. It is easy to point to white cops who have killed people of color. But some cops involved in the deaths of people of color are people of color. So there is more going on than just racism; there is all sorts of cultural training and individual challenges. And even the piece that is racism is not limited to people who are unlike me in some deep and absolute way; not limited to those White Supremacists. somewhere. Because I honestly couldn't say what ugliness my own racist conditioning couldn't unleash in some moment of extremity, God forbid.
We are complex creatures. We have noble ideas and terrible thoughts and we have fears and we have animal instincts. And we are so in our heads so much of the time that we can't easily recognize the instincts that drive us; we are so separated from that ancient, embodied way of knowing.
Who are we? Psalm 8 says:
וַתְּחַסְּרֵ֣הוּ מְּ֭עַט מֵאֱלֹהִ֑ים
God, you have made the human slightly less than angels. Which is, I'm sure, meant as a compliment. But just under the angels is a bummer of a spot to be in. Not high enough to really get the big picture we need and want. And not rooted in the earth enough to have the ways of knowing that other animals do, who do not have to try to figure out what is motivating them.
And so, hatznea lechet – walk humbly. Because we are complicated creatures in a complicated world. We cannot see all ends. We can only do the best with what we've got. Pursue justice as we understand it; extend love and kindness as abundantly as we can. And be humble about it in the doing.
This modesty, this humility, is required by Torah; required by justice itself. Justice without humility is just exercise of power. And this humility is required by kindness itself. Kindness without humility is just a show.
So I will fight for justice. I will stand up for Black lives. With the humility of knowing that I don't know what it's like to be Black. And with the humility to know that my own racism is always operating in me and that is work I need to be doing too. I will stand up because it is what Torah demands.
So yes, I will answer the prophet. Yes, I will do justice and love kindness. I will do so in all my imperfection and despite my limited understanding. I will do so here, from this perch, somewhere below the angels and somewhere above the ground, but not above anyone else. I will do so with determination, with persistence, and, as much as I can muster, with humility.