CONFRONTED BY HUMILITY? WHAT DO YOU DO?

This is a serious question. Every type of human behaviour either elicits or demands an appropriate response. If someone displays anger towards me, I know that this is a corrosive middah and that it is never right and generally wrong to respond with a display of anger of my own. Not just in Pirkei Avot (see eg Avot 5:14, 6:6) but throughout Jewish ethical writings, anger is regarded as a destructive personal quality, akin to avodah zarah—idolatry—because a person possessed by it is no longer in control of himself. Likewise, if someone greets me with a happy smiling face I should respond in like kind (Avot 1:15).  When a person displays boastful arrogance, I should not seek to compete or contradict: that is likely to cause anger. If someone is in a quiet, contemplative mood I should recognize the fact and give him time and space. And so on.

But what should we do when faced with a display of humility? The importance of this middah, which is emphasized in Avot (eg Avot 4:4, 4:12, 6:6), is further underlined by the Maharal in Netivot Olam, where he lists it as the foremost requirement for learning Torah, by Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Psishcha, who calls it a chiyuv de’oraita (a Torah obligation), by Rambam in his Pirush Mishnayot, and by many others. Do displays of humility call for any response at all?

I ask this question because of the superficial similarity between true humility from its evil twin, false humility (a.k.a. false modesty)—an annoying trait that our sages identify and which in reality is a form of boastfulness or conceit. A species of this middah that I have encountered several times over the years is found where someone who is giving s shiur cites a question, describes its difficulty, lists the various sages who have not offered a satisfactory answer to it, and then announces that, despite his relative insignificance when compared with these gedolim of previous generations, he is humbly submitting the answer. If the speaker was truly humble, would he really announce his humility?

Publicly one cannot say anything without running the likely risk of embarrassing the speaker in public, and this would be contrary to the teaching of Rabbi Elazar haModa’i at Avot 3:15. In addition, in the context of a shiur, whether the speaker is humble or not is less important—and less interesting—than whether the answer he has given is correct, or at least tenable.  Privately one might speak to him and tactfully rebuke him, but this in turn raises the question whether the Torah mitzvah of rebuking another (endorsed by Avot 6:6), applies only to the breach of mitzvot or also to a display of poor behaviour such as false humility.

My guess is that, in most situations, the correct thing to do is—nothing. At least that way one avoids giving positive offence, which itself is something.  Comments, anyone?

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