Welcome to our Anava series. A while back we said that the goal of Yetziat Mitzrayim was to make us humble. Somebody recently shared with me a sefer Tiferet Shlomo, on Parashat Beshalach, that says, Anytime a person wants to merit any level of greatness, he has to start off with the understanding that, 'I am not fit for this.' It's not my merit, but rather than merit of my forefathers that opened the path for me, and set me on the road. The Gemara in Berachot 10B says, כל התולה בזכות עצמו תולין לו בזכות אבותיו כו' ע"ש.If you think that you're worthy on your own, God will reciprocate and say, "I gave this to you because of your forefathers." The very fact that you take credit makes you less worthy so you need the merit of others.
But when someone says, I don't have merit, that in itself is the merit, because humility is the merit! As the pasuk in Devarim 7,7 says לֹ֣א מֵֽרֻבְּכֶ֞ם מִכׇּל־הָֽעַמִּ֗ים חָשַׁ֧ק יְהֹוָ֛ה בָּכֶ֖ם /God likes you because you are not great, but you humble yourselves.
That's why we always say Elohenu V'Elohei Avotenu /Our God and the God of our forefathers, which means the whole Elohut/ the whole connection to God comes because we realize it's Elohenu avotenu. It's not enough to simply understand, I got it from my father. No, the fact that you make the statement and realize it's from your father, is how you create your connection.
Conversely, somebody who lifts themself up and thinks I'm worthy on my own, is going to go down, as we see in many cases in history
The Tiferet Shlomo points out that Az Yashir starts with,
כִּֽי־גָאֹ֣ה גָּאָ֔ה ס֥וּס וְרֹכְב֖וֹ רָמָ֥ה בַיָּֽם׃
He threw the horse in the rider. Why do we say that? Because Paroah was the one that said, I am a god. So Hashem is showing us what happens to those that think they're gods. The Jewish people were saved specifically because they were humble.
He then goes through the Nusach HaTefila that we say every morning. ממצרים גאלתנו כו' וים סוף להם בקעת כו' על זאת שבחו אהובים כו' שירות ותשבחות ברכות והודאות למלך אל חי וקים.
God took us out of Egypt… He split the sea….Those beloved ones sing songs
Wonderful! We are talking about Keriat Yam Suf and we are going to say Hashem Yimloch L'Olam Vaed- that's our daily introduction to our prayers. You have to have Keriat Yam Suf on your mind, so that you are ready to pray. You're supposed to make Keriat Yam Suf alive every day of your life.
In middle of that discussion, we say
רם ונשא כו' משפיל גאים ומגביה שפלים.Ram V'Nisah God is great. He brings down the arrogant
What does that have to do with anything?
Then we go back to תהלות לאל עליון
Why, in the middle of my discussion about God saving us from Mitzrayim, do I have this little Mussar on Anava?
He explains, That's the point. Without the Anava, they never would've gotten out of Mitzrayim. And without the Anava you can't connect to Hashem. So every single day, I'm not just Zecher LYetziat Mitzrayim as a philosophical concept. Rather, with that Zecher LYetziat Mitzrayim comes my daily dose of Anava, and then I'm ready to pray.
And he says, we see this built in to the famous Rashi on Zeh Eli V'Anvehu, Rashi15B, which says
שראתה שפחה על הים מה שלא ראו / So the Jewish people saw tremendous things and yet they remained humble. That's what we want to say.
מוציא אסירים ופודה ענוים /God took those out of jail and He redeems the humble. Why did He take them out of jail? Why did He redeem them? Because they were Anavim. And he says, an unbelievable thing
ועונ"ה לעמו הוא אותיות ענו"ה /We say God answers ועונהOnah which has the same letters as the word Anava humility ענוה indicating that what caused Hashem to answer us is our Anava.
In Arbit, we say the same. בוקע ים לפני משה זה אלי ענו ואמרו.
God split the sea for all the Jewish people. He says, Moshe is the symbol of humility. משה עניו מכל אדם. (Bamidbar 12,3)
The sea was split in the merit of Moshe Rabbenu, in the merit of Anava.
It says זה אלי ענו ואמרו
Answerענו has the same letters asענו Anavhumble They saw these great, great revelations and they still remained anav.
That's one explanation. Annu/ Anav, they remained anav.
The other explanation is because they were Anav they were able to say is Zeh Eli, which is Kabalat Ohl Malchut Shamayim. You can't accept the yoke of God's kingdom unless you're humble.
Another unbelievable explanation- It says in the war with Amalek, Shemot 17, וּמֹשֶׁה֙ אַהֲרֹ֣ן וְח֔וּר עָל֖וּ רֹ֥אשׁ הַגִּבְעָֽה׃
Moshe and Aharon went to top of the mountain.
And in Bamidbar 23, 9 it says, Bilam says
וּמִגְּבָע֖וֹת אֲשׁוּרֶ֑נּוּ
/I see them from the mountains, Rashi says that refers to the Avot, who are considered the mountains. So says Moshe and Aharon went to top of the mountain, when going to fight Amalek. Amalek is all about Ga'ava, and we fight him with humility, by realizing we'll go on top of the mountain.
There is a phrase from the Rishonim, the Kananas al gavei Anak/The Jewish people are like dwarfs on top of giants.
So before we go to fight against Amalek, we can't stand on regular ground.
We're going up on the mountain, as if to say I'm a dwarf and I'm standing on top of a giant. That humility is what caused us to win against Amalek. And that's why at Keriat Yam Suf, we aroused Zechut Avot. As it says in Shemot 14,30
וירא ישראל. /And Yisrael saw. But Tiferet Shlomo says we can read it as, they saw Yisrael, their grandfather referring to Yaakov Avinu. I'd like to add that
Rav Wolbe says Shema Yisrael also means Listen Yaakov. When the tribes were standing around Yaakov Avinu's bed and they said, Shema Yisrael/ Listen, our father Yisrael. And that's what we're saying every single day. When I say Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad, it's not because of me, it's because of Shema Yisrael, because of my grandparents, and that in itself is a statement of humility. It's not just Zechut Avot. It's the expression of humility, that I need to come on to them.
This is a fascinating thesis by the Tiferet Shlomo. It says in Devarim 26,7
ונצעק אל ה' אלהי אבותינו We cried out to the God of our fathers, וישמע ה' את קולנו.and He heard our voice. And I was always bothered that it starts our our fathers and then our voices. But based on what we said before from the Gemara, that if you are humble and you say, I need my parents zechut, then Hashem says, well then I could do it on your zechut alone.
As it says in Shemot 2,24
(שמות ב, כד) וישמע אלהים את נאקתם ויזכור אלהים את בריתו את אברהם את יצחק ואת יעקב.
He heard their groans and He remembered the Brit with Avraham Yitzhak and Yaakov. When he wanted to hear their cries, Hashem said, Oh, they're arousing zechut Avot. They're not doing in their own merit, then I'll answer them.
Shemot 2,25 וירא אלהים את בנ"י Hashem saw Benei Yisrael.
This is an unbelievable explanation. He saw that there were Bnei Yisrael, He saw that they realized they needed zechut Avot, and וידע אלהיםGod knew.
The simple explanation is, that this refers to the interference with intimacy. because that's something that only God could know. But he adds, Only God knows when you are praying, if you're praying because you think you're worthy, or you're not. Every single day before we say Az Yashir, we quote from Nechemia 9,9ותרא את עני אבותינו /You saw the poverty, you saw the humility. And again, quite clear, the only way God heard our prayers at Yam Suf was because he saw the עוני , he saw the humility. As Rashi says at Zeh Eli,
לא אני תחלת הקדושה / I'm not the beginning of Kedusha מימי אבותי it's my forefathers.
He offers an unbelievable explanation of why Keriat Yam Suf needed Anava.
Because when it came to time for Keriat Yam Suf Moshe wanted to pray but Hashem said it's not about praying. And he uses the term that's a Zohar that says, בעתיקא תליא מילטא/it's dependent on the Atika /the ancient One (on God). There are different explanations of what that means (Zohar volume two, page 52B.) The Nefesh HaChaim, Rav Chaim Volozhin says, Atikah means you need bitachon, it's not about prayer, it's about relying. But the Tiferet Shlomo explains it's about humility.
Keriat Yam Suf needed humility. What does humility have to do with, with Hashem being called the Atikah/ the ancient One? In creation, Hashem hides Himself. The word Olam is from the Lashon of He'Elam/hidden. God is referred to as Sanua. He is hidden. We don't know where He is. And in Keriat Yam Suf, we know the wind's blew as the sea split. Why not let the sea split in a very open way? Because all miracles are done in a way that the nature is also involved. Noah had to get on an Ark. Why? An ark can't hold the whole creation. The answer is Because God is humble in His miracles. So if we want miracles to happen, we have to emulate God and also be humble. That's what it means by בעתיקא תליא מילטא
The whole KeriatYam Suf was dependent the on humility of the Jewish people, to emulate the humility of God*. And that's why it says in in Tehilim (113,6)
המשפילי לראות בשמים ובארץ.God humbles Himself every time He comes down and looks at the heavens and earth. Through the Anava, Hashem brings down the miracles.
Again, if we want to arouse the humble God's miracles, we too have to be humble.
I once heard an unbelievable explanation from Hacham Yeuda Moalem, one of the Roshei Yeshiva of Porat Yosef (there is a sefer written on him called Gaon HaAnava) He was humble, beyond humble. He says that when the sea split, it split at different times for different peoples. He asks, Why did it split for one person at one point, and for another person later? He says that it says that when the water hit Nachshon's nose, it split. And everyone is different. Someone who walks with his head down low, who's humble, the water hits his nose earlier, so the sea split earlier. Someone who walks with the head high in the air, is arrogant (Of course this is being said in a a figurative, joking way) and if the person is arrogant, his head is high up in the air, so it took longer for the water to reach his nose, and longer for the sea to split. He says the same is true in our lives. If we want our symbolic sea to split our problems, we have to lower our noses a little bit.
We know there are two things that are as difficult as Keriat Yam Suf- Parnasa and Shidduchim, and both of those things are humbling. When does our sea split? When we're humbled?
Oh, you have a business? You you know what you're doing? Not so simple.
Oh, Everyone's going to want want my family. Everyone will want my son or daughter. Let's see..
The shidduch process is humbling. Why is it humbling? Because we need you to put your nose down for the sea to split. That's the way we arouse Hashem's mercy. If you want to see the miracles of the humble God, we too have to reciprocate with humility.
*For a source that Hashem is considered humble, a pasuk in Mishleh 8,30says,
וָאֶהְיֶ֥ה אֶצְל֗וֹ אָ֫מ֥וֹן
I will be by Him an Amon Amon can mean different things, and one of which is craftsman. The Midrash in Bereshit Rabba 1,1 uses the term Amon M'Tsuna/ humble craftsman. Rav Wolbe used to quote this on this concept that God is called a Humble Craftsman.