31 December, 2023 08:52

Self worth ; Ego ; how one views (him or herself) and the attribute of humility

There is a rather (in the shomer shabbot circles) famous saying / teaching

That goes something like this…

Do not see yourself as worthy, for the lowly bug was created before you

;

On the other hand we are also taught, that the whole world was created for us (mankind) to acknowledge God / Give the Crown to the King.

I think it is most likely that people forget or do not know or do not want to know the last part. About God as King.

On self worth/ how one views himself …

, … almost all of the first book of the Torah, Beresheit, almost every part is void/ does not mention how one views themselves (!)

There are how others are viewed.

The Tree in the Garden was pleasant to look at (which is odd, because, in order to know if something looks pleasant some sort of subjective knowledge would be required) and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge had not been eaten! So how did the viewer "know" it was pleasant to look at? Compared to what?

Anyway (ala Gav, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch discusses this question at great length).

(Later) in Beresheit, we have examples of people (women) being attractive.

Sarah, Rivka, Rachel. Possibly Issac, for Rivka when she saw him seemingly saw him as attractive.

Esev is essentially a carpet of (red) hair(!)

Yaacov is smooth skinned.

It seems actually that of all people in Beresheit, there is just 1 person that was aware of (his) looks!!, and that is Yosef

Who we (jews) refer to as Yosef haTzadek.

Apparently he combed his hair and looked in the mirror, and knew that girls/women were as we would say, "checking him out".

If I missed an example in Beresheit let me know.

What about the other Books?

Hardly any. Moses is described looking like an Egyptian (by the daughters of Yitro, who was a Midianite) but that could be due to his clothes. Later in his life, Moses cannot be looked at by others, and wore a veil.

But we do not hear of 1 person and how he or she feels about themselves specifically too often.

There is infamously the report of the 10 spies. Here is our first "global" torah on how people (10 men) viewed themselves in comparison to others. "We were like grasshoppers in our eyes".

They saw themselves as tiny in comparison to the Giants mentioned in the Torah.

This extreme negative self appraisal by 10 men ended up in one of our nations worst mass deaths!!!! 600,000 men 20 – 60 died due to sin / lack of self worth of 10 people.

* there is ALOT I want to say, * but I already have written for sometime. ….

More later.