Parashat Vayishlach
December 8, 2022
Rabbi Abby Sosland, Morah Ruchanit (Spiritual Advisor) and Talmud Department Chair
What is the right balance between pride and humility? When teaching our children, how much pride should we encourage? Too much pride can come across as arrogance, but self-confidence is essential to living in the world and getting things accomplished. How do we teach both in a healthy way?
Yaakov Avinu seems to live his life between these two attributes. Certainly he believes in himself; he has the courage to demand his brother’s birthright and to kiss Rachel when he first meets her! On the other hand, he is humbled by the angel he meets in this week’s parashah, ending their famous struggle with a limp that inevitably knocks him down a bit. Both his strong ego and his humility present key elements of his personality; he needs both to be his fullest self. How might he offer us a model of the right balance between the two?
Yaakov Avinu seems to live his life between these two attributes. Certainly he believes in himself; he has the courage to demand his brother’s birthright and to kiss Rachel when he first meets her! On the other hand, he is humbled by the angel he meets in this week’s parashah, ending their famous struggle with a limp that inevitably knocks him down a bit. Both his strong ego and his humility present key elements of his personality; he needs both to be his fullest self. How might he offer us a model of the right balance between the two?
We can find one important answer in his prayer at the beginning of our parashah. Just before he meets his brother Esau for the first time in years, Jacob expresses his gratitude to God for the journey he has taken until this point:
קָטֹ֜נְתִּי מִכֹּ֤ל הַחֲסָדִים֙ וּמִכׇּל־הָ֣אֱמֶ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ
I am small (or unworthy) of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant. (Genesis 32:11)
According to HaGra, the eighteenth-century Lithuanian “genius” known as the Vilna Gaon, this moment of gratitude is the key to the right balance. He points us to a secret message in the Talmud (Sotah 5a) which teaches, on the surface, that a Torah scholar should have one eighth of one eighth of a measure of pride. What is this strange measurement? The Vilna Gaon suggests that the Talmud is secretly referring to the eighth verse of the eighth parashah — this very verse in Parshat Vayishlach, Yaakov’s “katonti” moment, his acknowledgment of gratitude to God.
With this, HaGra offers us a way to manage a healthy balance between pride and humility: gratitude, the antidote to overweening pride and entitlement. We should always be proud of who we are and confident enough to accomplish our goals, but we must never take for granted anything we have. Yaakov’s sense of appreciation for what he has been given is, at least in the eyes of the Vilna Gaon, just the right distillation of pride and confidence. May we learn to raise our next generation with this same perfect concoction: healthy pride and appropriate humility, all with a full measure of “katonti” — a deep sense of gratitude for all that we have been given.
קָטֹ֜נְתִּי מִכֹּ֤ל הַחֲסָדִים֙ וּמִכׇּל־הָ֣אֱמֶ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ
I am small (or unworthy) of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant. (Genesis 32:11)
According to HaGra, the eighteenth-century Lithuanian “genius” known as the Vilna Gaon, this moment of gratitude is the key to the right balance. He points us to a secret message in the Talmud (Sotah 5a) which teaches, on the surface, that a Torah scholar should have one eighth of one eighth of a measure of pride. What is this strange measurement? The Vilna Gaon suggests that the Talmud is secretly referring to the eighth verse of the eighth parashah — this very verse in Parshat Vayishlach, Yaakov’s “katonti” moment, his acknowledgment of gratitude to God.
With this, HaGra offers us a way to manage a healthy balance between pride and humility: gratitude, the antidote to overweening pride and entitlement. We should always be proud of who we are and confident enough to accomplish our goals, but we must never take for granted anything we have. Yaakov’s sense of appreciation for what he has been given is, at least in the eyes of the Vilna Gaon, just the right distillation of pride and confidence. May we learn to raise our next generation with this same perfect concoction: healthy pride and appropriate humility, all with a full measure of “katonti” — a deep sense of gratitude for all that we have been given.
Extra note for Torah readers! The word katonti is actually noted in alternative tropes in the various Torah reading references. In an article on USCJ’s Torah Sparks, Gideon Gendler tells of the manuscript differences that led to this distinction. Interestingly, it is the Vilna Gaon himself who suggests singing the word katonti on a downbeat, the revia. This fits his thinking on the verse; for him, the word is about balancing pride and humility. On the other hand, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, argues that we should sing the same word with a flourish, with joy and enthusiasm — the azla geresh. Katonti!!!! In the Chasidic way of thinking, it is evidently important to be humble in a big way. In our minyan this week, we chose the azla geresh tradition. Belt it out, we figured! Gratitude is worth singing about.