Chapters twenty-two and twenty-three describe level seven, the level of Anavah – humility.
“Initially, a person has to be humble in thought; after that, he can be humble in action. For if in his mind he is not humble and he wants to behave humbly, he will just be one of the fake, terrible ‘humble’ people we wrote about earlier (in chapter 11); these are hypocrites and there is nothing in the world worse than them!”
Sounds reasonable enough, but the Ramchal contradicts himself and writes the exact opposite at the beginning of the very next chapter.
“Since it is in the nature of man’s heart to be haughty and raise himself [above others], it is difficult to initially uproot this natural tendency unless he utilizes external behaviors that are within his power and – little by little – he influences his inner self which is not so much under his control, just as we described in Zerizus (in chapter 7)…”
Here the Ramchal advocates using external behavior as a means to gain Anavah, directly contradicting what wrote in the previous chapter that a person must first be humble inside before behaving humbly externally.
The answer is that both statements are true and there is no contradiction here at all, for in these two chapters the Ramchal is speaking of two different stages of Anavah. In chapter twenty-two the Ramchal argues that one must first be “humble in thought.” This means that a person must know, intellectually, that “he is not entitled to honor or praise.” The entire chapter is dedicated to convincing us of this truth, but as we have learned time and again in this work, knowing is a long way from being. Chapter twenty-three, entitled “On the Means of Acquiring Anavah,” teaches us how to take what we know and internalize it, using external behaviors to modify ourselves.
“It is in the nature of man’s heart to be haughty…” Reading chapter twenty-two and knowing that we are not entitled to honor does not change the reality of human nature. At that stage, before a person is “humble in thought,” he is a faker if he behaves humbly and it will get him nowhere. However, when a person understands clearly that he should be humble, behaving humbly is not hypocritical. On the contrary, it is the appropriate means to acquiring true, internal Anavah.
Humility is really a catch-22. By acting humble in order for people to perceive you as humble, you are doing one of the least-humble things possible.
ReplyDeleteThis is why humility in thought must precede humility in action. First one must actually want to be humble. Once the desire is there, however, actually attaining humility is not possible without practice.