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The Talmud, in Berakhot 18b, cites the following baraita:1A baraita (lit. “outside teaching”) is a tannaitic teaching that was not included in the Mishna. Talmud frequently quotes baraitot.It was taught: There was an incident wherein a pious man gave a dinar to a pauper on the eve of Rosh HaShana during a year of drought. His wife annoyed him [for his excessive largesse], so he went and slept in the cemetery. He heard two spirits talking with one another.... Let us go and wander in the world..., see ad loc.2The spirit reported a coming ruinous rain during the planting season. The pious man delayed his planting, and so avoided ruin. Thus, he was rewarded for his generosity.This is quite astonishing. Why would a pious man go to sleep at night in the cemetery, a place of impurity? See Maharsha,3R. Shmuel Edels (1555–1631), a talmudist whose dual commentary on the legal (Ḥiddushei Halakhot) and non-legal portions of the Talmud (Ḥiddushei Aggadot) is printed in many editions of the Talmud. who writes in Ḥiddushei Aggadot that the author of Ein Yaakov4Ein Yaakov is a collection of all the aggadic (non-legal) material in the Talmud. It was compiled by R. Yaakov ibn Ḥaviv in the fifteenth century. was likewise troubled by this. See there that this led him to deny the plain meaning of the story and write that the correct approach is certainly that of Ritva,5R. Yom Tov ben Avraham Assevili (1250–1330), a leading sage of Spain who wrote a commentary on the Talmud. namely, that this whole matter occurred in a dream. He wrote at length on this, see ad loc.

However, we heard an amazing and true explanation from the holy mouth of our eminent and pious master, teacher, and rabbi, [R. Israel Salanter,] ztvk”l, in accordance with a Mussar approach. This story happened as straightforwardly told, while the man was fully awake, in neither a vision nor a dream.The language, “His wife annoyed him” (“hiknitato”) shows clearly that this pious man had an emotional response and was agitated by his wife’s pestering him. He experienced pain and took offense in his heart, or possibly this was a matter of anger. This [i.e., the proposed meaning of “hiknitato”] is explained in Shabbat 30b:The Rabbis taught: A person should always be humble (anvetan)6In this story, Hillel exemplifies the trait of patience. The word used, however, is anvetan, which is related to anava, which is classically translated as humility, which is how we translated it. Yet anavah connotes humility, empathy patience and unpretentiousness. like Hillel and not be strict (kapdan) like Shammai. There was an incident with two people who wagered that the first one who would go and annoy (yaknit) Hillel would take 400 zuz. One of them said: I will annoy him…. He went and passed by the entrance to [Hillel’s] house. He said: Who here is Hillel? Who here is Hillel?....7The Talmud records how the man proceeded to repeatedly interrupt Hillel with puerile questions, which Hillel then praised as good questions and answered. Then he asked: Are you Hillel who is called the Prince of Israel? He said to him: Yes. [The man continued and] said to [Hillel: If you are him,] may there not be many like you among Israel. [He said: My son, why? He replied: Because I lost 400 zuz because of you.] He said to him: Be cautious of spirit. Hillel is capable of causing you to lose 400 zuz and then another 400 zuz, yet he will not be offended. Thus, the term “yaknit” means to bring the target of the taunting to a state of offense and rage. But this man was unable to bring Hillel to such a state, because Hillel, given his great humility (anvetanut), was not affected in the slightest by all the man’s petulance and scorn; he felt nothing and did not take offense at all.

However, here [in Berakhot 18b] it says that his wife annoyed him, so clearly this means that the pious man was emotionally affected by her taunting, and it brought him to take offense or even become angry. It emerges that this pious man failed due to his weakness in the trait of humility (anava), for it is not the manner of the pious, who are humble and self-effacing in their demeanor, to be offended or annoyed. For the path of true humility is not to have any emotional response to petulant and taunting words. The rod of offense shall never rest in the place of humility,8A paraphrase of Psalms 125:3. for any reason, ever, just as they said of Hillel in the Talmud that due to his great humility, he was not offended by the man who was taunting him. Our Sages, of blessed memory, likewise said in Sota (40a):R. Abbahu said: At first I would have said that I am humble. Once I saw R. Abba of Akko state an explanation, whereupon his amora9In its common usage, an Amora is a Sage of the talmudic era, after the era of the Mishna (whose Sages are called Tanna’im). R. Abbahu himself was an Amora in this sense. There is also a sense in which an amora is a “speaker” or “spokesman,” a sort of “human microphone” who would repeat the teaching of living, present Sages to larger audiences assembled at the Babylonian academies. These amora’im were undoubtedly learned men, but it would have been considered both presumptuous and offensive for an amora to alter the teaching of a Sage, especially in his presence. gave a different explanation, yet he did not take offense, I said that I am not humble.Thus, we see that the foundation of humility is never to take offense at anything in the world.

Therefore, when the pious man noticed that he was emotionally affected by his wife’s taunts, to the extent that he took offense, and thus had failed with respect to the trait of humility, he wanted to repent and perfect his soul to the utmost through the trait of humility. Now, it is well known that the basic path of repentance is abandonment of the sin and resolution about the future. However, repentance with regard to character traits cannot be compared to other sins or practical mitzvot, where a person can easily resolve to be fastidious about a mitzva or to separate from the sin. But this is not the nature of character traits, which are rooted in the inner reaches of the heart. Uprooting an undesirable character trait therefore demands a great deal of effort and contemplation.

In terms of the methods for acquiring humility, we learned in Avot 4:4: “R. Levitas of Yavneh says: Be very lowly of spirit, for the ultimate destiny of man is maggots.” And see that Rambam wrote in his Commentary on the Mishna there: “That is, you must compel your soul, to the point that you distance it from pride, by contemplating the destiny of the body, which is to return to maggots.” We see that the way to acquire humility is to contemplate the ultimate destiny of a person, for his end is maggots and worms. This is also written in Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Just), chapter 23, [titled] “On the Methods for Acquiring Humility”:[One develops humility] through contemplation of various matters…. For when a person scrutinizes the triviality of his material being…and likewise when he considers that after all his greatness, he will return to dust and be food for worms, his pride will certainly surrender…for what do all his benevolence and greatness mean when his end is shame and disgrace?

Therefore, this pious man, who failed through weakness of the trait of humility and wanted to repent and perfect his soul to the utmost through the trait of humility, had to contemplate the methods of Mussar with respect to the triviality and lowliness of human beings – for the ultimate destiny of man is maggots, as said above. At a different time, it would have been possible to work through the aforementioned methods of contemplation over a period of time. But on the eve of Rosh HaShana, he wanted to do a complete repentance and quickly perfect his soul vis-à-vis the quality of humility – that very night – before he arose in the morning to face his trial on the awesome day of judgment [i.e., Rosh HaShana]. Therefore, he saw fit to use the strongest means to intensify the methods of contemplating the lowliness and triviality of human beings, which would make an impression and powerfully affect the tablet of his heart.

So he went and slept in the cemetery, the appointed meeting place for all the living and the end of every human being. This place is most capable of rapidly affecting the aforementioned methods of contemplation, namely, that the ultimate destiny of a person is maggots and that his end is shame and embarrassment. Thus, one can acquire humility and the utmost lowliness of spirit quickly. It is therefore not astonishing that he went and slept in the cemetery, for whatever [the pious] need in their service of God, blessed be His name, and especially in methods of repentance, they would not deny themselves – not any suggestion or strategy in the world.