The world, including the Jewish world, seems full of people who are convinced that they know everything.  They presume to know not only what’s right, but what everyone else should do.  The fact is that there will always be infinitely more we don’t know than that which we ever will know.  Moshe, the human being who had the closest and most intimate experience of Divine Wisdom was also described as the most humble of men.  Of course, he realized his greatness, but also realized that, compared with the Infinite God, he was still merely human.

Rabbi Twerski zt”l, in Parashat Bereishit, explains the verse, “And God created man in His image” by saying, “The central point of צלם אלוקים, Tzelem Elokim, in the Image of God, is not that man should look at himself and from himself deduce what God is, but rather the point is that he should look towards God and know himself.  And what do we know about God?  That He is a Creator and that He creates not for His benefit, but for the benefit of someone else.  And from that we learn the nature of man, which is to create and to create for the benefit of someone else.” (Malchut Shlomo, Rabbi BCZ Twerski zt”l).

Notice that he doesn’t say to look at God and see that he’s omniscient and omnipotent and thus imagine that we’re also omniscient and omnipotent.  What he says is that we have the potential to become selfless.  And, like Moshe, we also have the potential to become humble, to reign in our ego and our arrogance.

Shabbat Shalom