Rabbis Rice: The Virtue of Humility

"And God said, 'Let us make humanity..." (Gen 1:26)

 

     This week Jews all over the world start reading and studying the Torah from the very beginning. A midrash tell us that when the Holy One was creating the world, an argument broke out between the angels that were helping. The Angel of Mercy began by saying, "Let humanity be created, because humans will dispense great acts of loving-kindness."

     The Angel of Truth disagreed, arguing, "Let us not create humanity, for humans will lie and be deceitful."

     The Angel of Justice declared, "Let humanity be created, for they will establish courts of law."

     And just then the Angel of Peace piped in, "Let humanity not be created, for humans will be full of strife and will no doubt wage war."

     So what did the Holy One do? The midrash says that God took Truth and cast it down to the ground. And when this happened, Peace remained the sole angel still objecting to humanity's creation. The Angels of Mercy and Justice both still favored the decision to make humans, so humanity was created. (Thank God!)

     So why did God choose Truth, rather than Peace - the other objector, to be cast to the ground? Because not even a majority vote can stand up against Truth. Even if both Justice and Mercy had favored creating humanity, arguing that we would practice justice and mercy, Truth would have proceeded to prove that even our acts of justice and mercy could be considered a sham and falsehood. Peace, on the other hand, which argued that humanity would be full of strife, could easily be made to give way to a majority combination of Justice and Mercy. Thus, Truth, rather than Peace, was "cast to the ground."

     With the holy days behind us and our past sins and truths cast out to the ground, we begin our search for Truth again. The biblical and Talmudic commentator, Rashi points out that the most important lesson here is that even God is humble. Although the angels did not actually assist in forming humanity, and although the use of the plural in the Torah is odd, here God teaches us the virtue of humility; namely, that the greater should also consult and consider the opinions of the smaller.