We have been talking about humility for a while now. As we know, Rabbenu Yona wrote a book on Teshuva called Shaare Teshuva/ Gates of Repentance.
In gate 1, letter 27, he explains why it's necessary to work on humility as part of the Teshuva process, and he gives 20 fundamentals of repentance. We may be more familiar with the Rambam’s four principles, but Rabbenu Yona says there are 20, and one of them is humility. Why? He says, because when you do teshuva, it’s not enough to just say, I'm stopping the sin. You have to uproot the causes of the sin. I tell you to get rid of the weeds in the garden, it’s not enough to take a lawnmower and cut the weeds. You have to uproot the weeds, because otherwise they just grow back.
Additionally, he says, arrogance is a cause for many sins and arrogance strengthens the Yetzer Hara of the person. He quotes a pasuk in Devarim 8,14 (which we’ve quoted in the past), which says,
V’Ram Levavecha/you’ll become arrogant, VShachachta Et Hashem Elokecha/ and forget Hashem your God.
Forgetting Hashem is a very strong cause for sin. He quotes another pasuk, Mishleh 21,4:
רוּם־עֵ֭ינַיִם וּרְחַב־לֵ֑ב נִ֖ר רְשָׁעִ֣ים חַטָּֽאת׃
Eyes that are high up and a wide heart,
the wicked plow with sins
When a farmer plows the field, he softens it up so that seeds can take root. So too, the wicked man prepares his heart with arrogance. Arrogance is the plowing of the field and without it, the seeds, which are all the improper thoughts and plots that bring about sins, won't grow. You need the arrogance for everything to grow.
So it’s quite obvious that arrogance is a major cause of sin. And he says that arrogance itself is a sin, besides for arrogance causing sin. The Middah/the trait of arrogance s a sin.
He quotes another pasuk in Mishleh 16,5:
תּוֹעֲבַ֣ת יְ֭הֹוָה כׇּל־גְּבַהּ־לֵ֑ב יָ֥ד לְ֝יָ֗ד לֹ֣א יִנָּקֶֽה׃
Someone who is arrogant is abominable to God, and as a consequence, Hashem doesn't help him in his life or in his teshuva process, because, it says, the arrogant man thinks he can do things on his own. He doesn't need any help.
But we need help. We need help in life and we need help in order to do Teshuva. The Yetzer Hara is an angel and is powerful, and the Gemara in Kedusha says, if not for the fact that Hashem helps, and we would not be able to overcome the Yetzer Hara, but arrogance interferes with the Divine assistance that we need.
To recap, we discussed two very important reasons to work on humility:
1- arrogance causes sins.
2- arrogance itself is a sin.
He gives a gives a third reason that it’s important to work on being humble-Because the Gemara says that through humility, a person saves himself from getting angry, and from being exacting with his friends. With humility, he'll let things ride.
What does that do? The Gemara in Rosh Hashana 17A says, Whoever is easygoing with people, someone that lets things slide with other people, God lets his sins, so to say, slide. God is not so exacting on him. Middah k’neged Middah. And he adds, this is a great opening of hope, that we have this technique.
Furthermore, he quotes a pasuk in Eicha says,
יִתֵּ֤ן בֶּֽעָפָר֙ פִּ֔יהוּ אוּלַ֖י יֵ֥שׁ תִּקְוָֽה
Put dirt in your mouth, and maybe there will be home.
When somebody says something upsetting to you, don't respond. There's hope that it will help you.
What’s more, the very last thing we do in the teshuva process that started all the way back on Rosh Hodesh Elul (Selichot for Sepharadim and the shofar for Ashkenazim), is on Hoshana Raba, when we take the Aravot and bang them on the ground.
Why do we do that? Because it says that the Aravot are like lips-we're taking our lips and we're banging then on the ground, to remember this pasuk
יתן בעפר פיהו
Put dust in your mouth, which means be insulted. And the only way to do that is through humility. So we have three advantages of humility.
Number one- it gets rid of the plowing of sin. Number two- it gets rid of the sin of arrogance, (which causes us to have a lack of Divine assistance)
And fiy, it enables us to let things ride and have our sins forgiven.
Have a wonderful day.