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change. That’s why Moses, 
David, Elijah and Jeremiah 
found life so hard.
We can say precisely what 
brought Moses to despair. He 
had faced a similar challenge 
before. Back in the book of 
Exodus the people had made 
the same complaint: “If only 
we had died by the hand 
of the Lord in the land of 
Egypt, when we sat by the 
fleshpots and ate bread to the 
full, for you have brought us 
out into this desert to starve 
this whole assembly to death.” 
Ex. 16:3
Moses, on that occasion, 
experienced no crisis. The 
people were hungry and 
needed food. That was a 
legitimate request.
Since then, though, 
they had experienced 
the twin peaks of the 
revelation at Mount Sinai 
and the construction of the 
Tabernacle. They had come 
closer to God than any nation 
had ever done before. Nor 
were they starving. Their 
complaint was not that they 
had no food. They had the 
manna. Their complaint was 
that it was boring: “Now 
we have lost our appetite 
(literally, “our soul is dried 
up”); we never see anything 
but this manna!” (Num. 11:6). 
They had reached spiritual 
heights, but they remained 
the same recalcitrant, 
ungrateful, small-minded 
people they had been before. 
That was what made 
Moses feel that his entire 
mission had failed and would 
continue to fail. His mission 
was to help the Israelites 
create a society that would 
be the opposite of Egypt, 
that would liberate instead 
of oppress; dignify not 

enslave. But the people had 
not changed. Worse: they 
had taken refuge in the most 
absurd nostalgia for the Egypt 
they had left: memories of 
fish, cucumbers, garlic and 
the rest. 
Moses had discovered 
it was easier to take the 
Israelites out of Egypt than 
to take Egypt out of the 
Israelites. If the people had 
not changed by now, it was a 
reasonable assumption that 
they never would. Moses was 
staring at his own defeat. 
There was no point in 
carrying on.

FINDING COMFORT 
IN GOD
God then comforted him. 
First, He told him to gather 
70 elders to share with him 
the burdens of leadership. 
Then, He told him not to 
worry about the food. The 
people would soon have meat 
in plenty. It came in the form 
of a huge avalanche of quails.
What is most striking 
about this story is that 
thereafter Moses appears to 
be a changed man. Told by 
Joshua that there might be a 
challenge to his leadership, he 
replies: “Are you jealous on 
my behalf? Would that all the 
Lord’s people were prophets, 
that the Lord would put His 
spirit on them” (Num. 11:29). 
In the next chapter, when 
his own brother and sister 
begin to criticize him, he 
reacts with total calm. When 
God punishes Miriam, Moses 
prays on her behalf. It is 
specifically at this point in 
the long biblical account of 
Moses’ life that the Torah 
says, “The man Moses 
was very humble, more 
so than any other man on 

earth” (Num. 12:3).
The Torah is giving us 
a remarkable account of 
the psychodynamics of 
emotional crisis. The first 
thing it is telling us is that 
it is important, in the midst 
of despair, not to be alone. 
God performs the role of 
comforter. It is He who lifts 
Moses from the pit of despair. 
He speaks directly to Moses’ 
concerns. He tells him he will 
not have to lead alone in the 
future. There will be others to 
help him. 
Then He tells him not to 
be anxious about the people’s 
complaint. They would soon 
have so much meat that it 
would make them ill, and 
they would not complain 
about the food again.
The essential principle 
here is what the Sages meant 
when they said, “A prisoner 
cannot release himself from 
prison” (Brachot 5b). It needs 
someone else to lift you 
from depression. That is why 
Judaism is so insistent on not 
leaving people alone at times 
of maximum vulnerability. 
Hence the principles of 
visiting the sick, comforting 
mourners, including the 
lonely (“the stranger, the 
orphan and the widow”) 
in festive celebrations and 
offering hospitality — an 
act said to be “greater than 
receiving the Shechinah.” 
Precisely because 
depression isolates you from 
others, remaining alone 
intensifies the despair. What 
the 70 elders actually did 
to help Moses is unclear. 
But simply being there with 
him was part of the cure.
The other thing it is telling 
us is that surviving despair 
is a character-transforming 

experience. It is when your 
self-esteem is ground to dust 
that you suddenly realize 
that life is not about you. It 
is about others, and ideals, 
and a sense of mission or 
vocation. What matters is the 
cause, not the person. That is 
what true humility is about. 
As the wise saying goes, 
popularly attributed to C.S. 
Lewis: Humility is not about 
thinking less of yourself. It 
is about thinking of yourself 
less.
When you have arrived at 
this point, even if you have 
done so through the most 
bruising experiences, you 
become stronger than you 
ever believed possible. You 
have learned not to put your 
self-image on the line. You 
have learned not to think 
in terms of self-image at all. 
That is what Rabbi Yochanan 
meant when he said, 
“Greatness is humility.” 
Greatness is a life turned 
outward, so that other 
people’s suffering matters to 
you more than your own. 
The mark of greatness is the 
combination of strength and 
gentleness that is among the 
most healing forces in human 
life.
Moses believed he was 
a failure. That is worth 
remembering every time we 
think we are failures. His 
journey from despair to self-
effacing strength is one of the 
great psychological narratives 
in the Torah, a timeless 
tutorial in hope. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

served as the chief rabbi of the 

United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all 

at rabbisacks.org.

