NUM111 In traditional Jewish understanding, humility has nothing to do with being the lowest, most debased, shrinking creature on earth.… Mussar teaches that real humility is always associated with healthy self-esteem. Lack of self-esteem leads to unholy and false feelings of worthlessness. … Being humble doesn't mean being a nobody, it just means being no more of a somebody than you ought to be. After all, Moses, who is considered the greatest of the prophets, is described in the Torah as "very humble, more than any other men who were upon the face of the earth" [this verse]. If a leader as great as Moses was so humble, there is surely more to humility than the shrinking meekness we ordinarily associate with the term.