I was reminded recently of the “Varsity Blues” scandal, which seized our collective imagination back in 2019, before COVID came to dominate our lives.
The scandal centered on wealthy Americans, including some Hollywood actors, accused of helping their kids cheat their way into college — inflating test scores, bribing school officials and falsifying high school sports records. Some 50 people were charged in the scheme, with many of them convicted and a handful serving jail time. That saga presented the most extreme — and, of course, illegal and unethical — behavior at the far end of the bell curve. But with my oldest child now in their junior year of high school, I’ve gained a new understanding of the cultural currents that may have pulled the Varsity Blues parents to compromise their values in this way.
There is such enormous pressure on many young people to gain admission to a top university and then broadcast their acceptance to their networks. These teens are overwhelmed by the messaging that only those with a perfect record will get into the elite universities of their dreams and, by extension, the Edenic life they imagine that offers. The message they’ve absorbed: Falling short is more than just a setback; it’s something to be ashamed of.
Against such dominant messaging, it’s hard to convey an alternative vision that prioritizes humility and openness to failure over the need to showcase endless successes. With those values in mind, I’m drawn anew to the enigmatic tale of Aaron and Miriam gossiping about Moses found in Numbers 12:1-3:
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Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses … “Is it only through Moses that the LORD speaks? Does He not speak through us?”
Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any human on the face of the earth.
At first glance, what we have is a story of sibling rivalry. Miriam, Aaron and Moses, the three children of Amram and Yocheved, are each success stories and beloved Jewish leaders. Yet Aaron and Miriam express their jealousy of God’s unique relationship with Moses. In response to this, the Torah reminds us of one particular quality of Moses, his exceptional humility. While status was important to Aaron and Miriam, it didn’t even register for their little brother.
In his commentary on these verses, Rabbi Raphael of Bershad — an early Hasidic master — shares a profound teaching about humility:
At the final judgment before the Master of the Universe, one might imagine legitimate defenses for many sins. You didn’t study Torah? That’s understandable if you weren’t taught Torah yourself as a child. You didn’t fast on Yom Kippur? That’s perfectly defensible if you tell God you were weak or ill. But for a person to be self-aggrandizing or lacking in humility, there is no justification for that sin before the Almighty. Why lie, why deceive, why not be honest with yourself and with others about who you are, what your strengths are and what you struggle with?
While arrogance may have seemed indefensible to Rabbi Raphael, we, sadly, have an ironclad defense when facing the charge of egotism. Today, American adults and, to a much more profound degree, our children, are in a constant state of evaluating ourselves against friends (or even strangers) on social media and are therefore driven to a cycle of grandstanding and self-promotion.
According to the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the author of the much-discussed book, The Anxious Generation about the dangers of replacing a “play-based childhood” with a “phone-based” one: “Social media fuels the insecurity of adolescence, already a period where there is immense concern about the possibility of ostracism, and has thus turned a generation of girls (and boys too – perhaps to a lesser degree) away from discover mode and toward defend mode.”
So how can we protect ourselves from this culture of online curation and self-promotion? I believe that the Torah, in the verses that follow our story, hints at a corrective.
In Numbers 12:10-13, Miriam is struck by God with the very visible — and embarrassing — skin ailment of tzaraat, and then Aaron is forced to admit his jealousy to his brother and beseech Moses’ help in interceding with God on Miriam’s behalf. Aaron and Miriam are made to feel fragile or visibly other, and to confront the source of their jealousy directly and ask for help.
What the Torah seems to suggest here is that the antidote to self-aggrandizement is to confront our own powerlessness and limits head-on. We, too, can do this — without painful illness or public humiliation — by learning to admit what we don’t know. By modeling for ourselves and our children being uncomfortable and inexpert in real-world tasks. By looking those who know better in the eyes and asking for their help. By trying new things — even hobbies, foreign languages or art forms — and by failing at them. These kinds of experiences teach us humility, help us to grow wiser, stronger and more resilient than if we only stayed in our virtual palaces where we can project false strength and worth.
Rabbi Ephraim Pelcovits is a Los Angeles–based Jewish educator and consultant who teaches, mentors fellowship cohorts, and advises philanthropic initiatives. He has served in congregational, academic and nonprofit leadership roles.
