Pirkei Avot, Ethics of Our Fathers

Being insulted is one of the most upsetting experiences in life. If the insult comes from friends or acquaintances, it often hurts. If it comes from family, it’s especially painful. Imagine how Moses felt the day he found out his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam gossiped against him regarding the woman he chose to marry. It was especially painful for him, not because he was “the great Moses,” but primarily because these were his older siblings. This was not an insult coming from friends or the community—it was from his own family.

Shimon, the son of Rabbi Gamliel said, “All my life I have been raised among the Sages, and I have not found anything better for oneself than silence. Study is not the primary thing but action. Whoever talks excessively brings about sin.”   (Chapter 1, Mishna 17)

How did Moses react? Prior to answering that, let’s explore how he might have reacted. It would have been very possible for Moses to respond like this: “Who do you think you are, insulting me in this way? Don’t you remember who I am? I am your kid brother who became greater than both of you. It was I who G-d chose as His trusted servant, it was I who led our people out of Egypt, it was I who spoke with G-d face to face, it was in my hands that G-d placed the Torah on Mount Sinai, and it is with me that G-d communicates directly on a daily basis. Aaron, if it weren’t for me, you would never have become the Kohen Gadol (High Priest). Miriam, you are a prophetess only by virtue of my being a prophet. Shame on both of you for this behavior.”

But is this was Moses says? Perhaps it’s what he wanted to say, or what some would feel he could have said. Instead, once it becomes known to Moses that his siblings gossiped against him, the Torah responds on his behalf: “Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.” (Numbers 12:3).

By informing us of the humble character of Moses, the Torah was also informing us of Moses’ response to the gossip—silence.

In his commentary on this Mishna, the Spanish philosopher Rabbi Simon ben Zemah Duran teaches: “The most effective way to combat one who insults you is by turning a deaf ear and remaining silent, for this will certainly humiliate him more than any attention or response you would give him.”

During the Talmudic period, it was common for rabbis and various teachers to compose their own individual prayers. The Talmud records several of these prayers, as a way of inspiring us to compose prayers from our own hearts. One such personal prayer was composed by Mar the Son of Rabina. The Talmud (Tractate Berachot 17a) tells us that upon concluding his prayers, he added the following meditation: “My G-d, guard my tongue from evil, and my lips from speaking deceit. May my soul be silent to all those that curse me.”

The prayer continues, and you should find this meditation familiar, as the rabbis found it so powerful and compelling, that they took Mar’s personal meditation and made it the conclusion of the silent Amidah for the entire Jewish people. We recite this prayer three times a day —- Shaharit, Minha and Arvit—every day of the year.

“May my soul be silent to all those who curse me,” meaning, when someone insults me or gossips against me, may I have the strength not to respond. It is easier said than done, which is why we have to constantly remind ourselves by meditating on this idea.

If one were to survey an audience about the greatest moments in the life of Moses, most would probably answer the Exodus from Egypt or receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Thinking about it, as amazing and magnificent as these episodes were, they were both acts of G-d, and he was privileged to be the human agent that stood by G-d at these historic times. But his greatest moment, as a human being, did not involve the stormy waters of the Red Sea or the sounds of thunder and Shofar at Mount Sinai. Instead, it was a courageous, difficult, brave and powerful moment of silence.