The greatness of humility. At a dinner to celebrate the work of a communal leader, the guest speaker

paid lavish tribute to his many qualities, his dedication, hard work and foresight. As he sat down,

the leader leaned over and said, you forgot to mention one thing. What was that? asked the speaker,

the leader replied, my humility. Well, quite so. Great leaders have many qualities, but usually

humility is not one of them. With rare exceptions, they tend to be ambitious, with a high measure

of self-regard. They expect to be obeyed, honored, respected, even feared. They may wear their

superiority effortlessly. Eleanor Roosevelt called this

wearing an invisible crown. But there's a difference between that and humility. This makes one

provision in Arpasha unexpected and powerful. The Torah is speaking about a king. Now,

knowing as Lord Acton put it, the power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts

absolutely, it specifies three temptations to which a king in ancient times was exposed.

A king, it says, shouldn't accumulate many horses or wives or wealth, the three traps into which centuries later King Solomon eventually fell.

Then it adds, when the king is established on his royal throne, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this Torah.

It's to be with him and he's to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn,

to be in awe of the Lord whose garden follow carefully,

all the words of this law and these decrees and not feel superior to his brethren,

or turn from the law to the right or to the left,

then he and his descendants will reign a long time in the midst of Israel. If a king, whom all

abound to honour, is commanded to be humble, not to feel superior to his brethren, how much

more so the rest of us. Moses, the greatest leader of the Jewish people ever had, was, very humble

more so than anyone on the face of the earth. Was it that he was great because he was

humble or humbled because he was great? Either way, as Rabbi Jochena said of God himself,

...