Between Great and Small

Overcoming Fear 

The best way to overcome fear is to stare straight into its “eyes.”  Rebbe Nachman confessed that when he was a little boy he felt a great fear of dying, and so he decided to daven that he should be killed al  kiddush Hashem. This might be the source of Rebbe  Nachman’s famous declaration: “The entire world is a narrow bridge, and the main thing is not be at all afraid.”¹ 

 

The words seem to contradict themselves, but that’s exactly the point. When you look at the world objectively and realize that it is a narrow bridge, you are then able to cross it without fear. If you don’t know what you are supposed to be afraid of, you will spend your entire life running away from an unknown fear. That fear will control everything in your life, public and private, and whether you want it or not. 

 

No One Is Insignificant, But Some Are More Significant 

Each of us is afraid of being small, and we develop this trait very early in our lives. Everyone smiles when a two-year-old, who has no conception of life, tells his parents emphatically, “I’m not little! I’m big!” 

 

There is a positive aspect to this fear, for it pushes us to develop ourselves and achieve high goals. But there is a negative aspect as well – this fear does not permit us to admit that anyone else is bigger than we are. We have the mistaken concept that if someone else is bigger, that means that we are small and insignificant. That is why people have the tendency to find faults with everyone else. By convincing ourselves that others are small, we feel big; that is a very sorry situation. 

 

In reality, you become big only through the recognition that those around you are also big, especially those who are in positions of authority. The very fact that you recognize your need to learn is what makes you big. This is what the Mishnah says: “Who is a wise man? He who learns from all men!”² 

 

We have to admit that we are afraid of being small in order to overcome that fear. We must seek out those who are greater than us and learn from them. The world is constructed in such a way that it is possible to learn from all others, and we must learn from all others. We must realize that in every generation there are great men from whom we can learn. We must not ignore this, because if we  don’t  recognize it, we won’t be able to grow. 

 

No one is small. We are all great and important, but some people are greater than others. Our greatness is measured by how much we are willing to learn from those who are greater than us and to obey their directives. Even the greatest of the great needs to keep on learning and growing. That is why every Torah scholar, even the greatest one, is called a talmid chacham – the student of a wise man. 

 

Last week we discussed Yehoshua bin Nun. He was a truly great person, but he knew that he must humble himself before Moshe Rabbeinu. That is what made him worthy of becoming the nation’s next leader and the one who carried forth the wisdom of the Torah to the next generation, although he had great contemporaries as well. 

 

This is the way of our Torah, and it will never change. Harav Yehudah Zev Leibovitz, zy”a, told me that anyone who wants to choose a Rav for himself must see to it that his Rav has a Rav above him. His Rav must also humble himself before someone else. Rav Yehudah Zev was an enormous  talmid chacham, and he was considered the head of the hidden  tzaddikim, but he considered Harav Shmuel Wosner, zy”a, to be his Rav. 

 

Torah Has Its System 

We can derive a very special lesson from between the lines of this week’s parashah. Moshe Rabbeinu was taught each mitzvah by Hashem, and he then taught it to the people of Yisrael. The parashah of nedarim, with which our weekly portion begins, is no different. For some reason, the passuk states that Moshe Rabbeinu taught this mitzvah to the “heads of the Tribes” instead of simply stating that he taught it to all the people of Yisrael.³ Why was this instance different? 

 

Chazal tell us, and Rashi repeated their words, that this mitzvah is not different. This was the system that Moshe Rabbeinu used to teach all the mitzvot – he first taught them to the heads of the Tribes, and only after that did he teach them to the entire nation. 

 

What was the advantage of such a system? If the Torah was given equally to everyone in Klal Yisrael, shouldn’t Moshe have taught the mitzvot to everyone all at once? Why did he have to teach it in stages, first giving the Tribal princes a private shiur and only then teaching it to all the people? 

 

It’s because Klal Yisrael consists of great people and greater people. When the people see that their leaders, their Rabbanim or princes, are sitting humbly to learn from Moshe Rabbeinu, each Jew realizes how important it is for him to accept Moshe’s teachings and to fulfill them. The Tribal princes were not only managers of their Tribal affairs. Each prince was a vital link between his people and the tzaddik, between the nation of Yisrael and the Mishkan, and between the people and the Torah. 

 

It All Depends on You 

Who opposed this system? It was Korach. He insisted that “everyone in the congregation is holy”⁴ and that no one is greater than anyone else. He tried to diminish the stature of the true gedolim in order to  aggrandize himself. He knew very well that there were great people among the others. For that reason, his strategy was first to attract the “princes of the congregation” to his side, as Rashi mentioned. He knew that the key to his success was through the princes. Once he drove a wedge between the princes and Moshe Rabbeinu, he could sweep the entire nation to his side, and that is exactly what he did: “Korach congregated the entire people against them.”⁴

 

So what does all this teach us? The people of Yisrael are inspired to fulfill the Torah through watching their princes receiving the Torah from Moshe. And if, Heaven forbid, a prince rebels against Moshe and his Torah, his entire Tribe will follow him, just as happened to the Tribe of Shimon when Zimri ben Salu sinned in view of his entire Tribe. 

 

Every ordinary Jew should learn from this that he must find for himself a Rav, a guide who is himself connected to the leading tzaddikim, to those who carry the Torah and Jewish traditions forth to the next generation. In that way he becomes part of that sacred chain. 

 

Every Jew who is a leader for others should learn from this that people watch what he does, that his actions influence others. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah teaches: “Fortunate is the generation in which the great people listen to the advice of the ordinary people.”⁵ When the ordinary people witness this, they say to themselves, “Then we certainly must listen to the advice of the great people.” 

 

Every head of a household is a Jewish leader, at least for his own family.  Rebbe Nachman said that every Jew has an aspect of royalty. Your children observe you, and when you are connected to tzaddikim and to daat Torah (Divine wisdom of Torah), your children become connected as well. 

 

In your home, you must display respect and admiration for Rabbanim and  talmidei  chachamim, especially the Rabbanim of your own community and those who influence you. You must display no less respect for the Rabbanim who educate your children. This is the key to ensuring that your children will remain on the path of Torah and mitzvot. 

 

Understand this well. If you choose to be an “independent,” and you do not bend your head and ears to those greater than you, you are placing the spiritual future of your children in grave danger. This is especially true if you question the authority of our generation’s Torah leaders, whoever they may be, and if you express criticism and disagree with them. 

 

The nation of Yisrael is built on a system – kohanim, levi’im, Yisrael; Rabbanim,  dayanim, roshei yeshivot, and tzaddikim. Yes, very few individuals achieve the level of a tzaddik ha’emet (a true tzaddik) and become spiritual giants, but the Torah comes to us through the Rabbanim who live with us, in our time and in our generation. They are people of truth because they humble themselves before the tzaddikim who are greater than they, before the Poskim (Halachic authorities) of the generation. We pray that Hashem will enable us to become part of the system and move the traditions of our nation forward to the next generation. 

 

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Editor’s Notes:

¹ Likutei Moharan II, Torah 48

² Perkei Avot, Chapter 4, Mishnah 1

³ Bamidbar (Book of Numbers) 30:2-17

⁴ Bamidbar 16:3

⁵ Rosh Hashanah 25b of the Babylonian Talmud