Arrogance and humility: the dream team?

It is fair to say that, on the whole, arrogance gets a pretty bad press at the hands of Jewish sages. It's a shame that there's not much demand for arrogance, since it is usually in plentiful supply. Humility, in contrast, is highly praised for its efficacy both in our dealings with God and for how we relate to our fellow humans—but it would regrettably appear to be in short supply.

In his work Elef HaMagen, Rabbi Eliezer Papo (better known as the Pele Yo’etz) tells the story of a man who, when rudely insulted by another, refused to respond to this provocation. When asked how he managed what must have looked like a huge feat of self-restraint, he explained as follows:

When the man insulted me, I was not alone. On one side of me stood Arrogance, and he said to me ”how can you find it within yourself to pay any attention to this person? Surely it is well beneath your dignity to retaliate against a meaningless attack by a worthless individual! Treat him with disdain and just ignore him”. To the other side of me stood Humility, who said to me “is this not the time to demonstrate how meek and humble you are, bearing in mind the wise words of our sages who say that it is far preferable to be among the insulted than to be classed among those who do the insulting”.

The Pele Yo’etz ties this in with the first two teachings of Yehoshua ben Perachya (Avot 1:6):

“Aseh lecha rav, ukoneh lecha chaver”: עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר

These words are usually translated along the lines of “make for yourself a teacher (or master) and acquire for yourself a friend”. The word rav has the additional meaning of “great”, so the first part of this teaching can be taken at a pinch as meaning “make greatness for yourself”, i.e. “make yourself arrogant”. As for kaneh lecha chaver, the word kaneh—which means “acquire”—has the same three-letter root (קנה) as kanah, a reed. The reed is a symbol of humility since it bows and bends in the breeze. So the man who faces insult and abuse but follows the path to which this Mishnah alludes is able to summon up both arrogance and humility in order to reach the right behavioural conclusion.

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