The mind is a slippery thing – any time we get complacent and think we’ve got a good handle on our behaviour and our character, it will find some way to puncture our balloon. This happened to me the other day, and I’d like to share it with you, in the hope that you find it helpful.

We have just finished celebrating the holiday of Passover, of which the defining feature is the absence of leaven and leavened products in our lives for one week. Leavening, usually caused by yeast, is the property of baked goods in which they puff up with air. During the Exodus from Egypt, as the story goes, our ancestors’ bread did not have time to leaven, and they had to bake it in the form of matzah – the flat bread of affliction. We eat unleavened bread during Passover in memory of this experience.

The rabbis of our tradition were great at finding deeper meanings in just about anything. The leaven, they taught, was a symbol of how we get puffed up with pride, full of air and not much else. A flat piece of matzah has the same calories and nutritional value as a beautiful roll of bread, although it is nowhere near as much fun to eat. What does the air actually contribute?

I like to think that I’m a fairly humble, open and inclusive person – I truly don’t believe that anyone is better or more important than anyone else. Each human being on this planet is created in the image of the Divine, and has a spark of that divinity in them, no matter how deeply buried it may seem. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, and that’s how I try to live my life. I’m sure you, as a reader of this blog, have similar values on this, however we might disagree on other things.

The other day, however, I was forcefully reminded that we must always be on guard for manifestations of our privilege – for those of us who had the good fortune to be brought up in families that valued intelligence and education, it is easy to become arrogant about abilities in that area. This was brought to my awareness through a reminiscence about something I apparently said many years ago, and the person who was relating it thought it was funny, thankfully. I have no memory of the conversation in which I apparently boasted of the number of PhDs in my family, but I cringed anyway.

It was a good reminder for me that we are never done working on ourselves, and there is always room for growth. As a person with many unearned privileges of appearance and education, it’s easy to be puffed up about them. That pride, however, is nothing but air, and can be deflated in no time at all. While an achievement such as a PhD is something to be celebrated (it’s a LOT of work!), it should never be used as a weapon to put someone else down. 

We are all created with the same spark of Divinity. It’s important to remember that at all times, especially in moments of justifiable pride. Celebrate your achievements and those of your loved ones, and be proud of them. Just remember your privilege, and be grateful rather than arrogant. It will serve you and humanity well.

Is this an issue you have encountered? I’d love to know what you think.