April 23, 2017 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Ego, Quotes
We should devote our lives to others.
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We must constantly struggle and engage in self-analysis in order to find egoistic grains that have to be corrected.
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It’s immense and tireless work that grinds us like a mill, thus altering us. It’s extremely complicated to be constantly squeezed between heavy millstones that cut us alive; moreover, it’s us who should be spinning the millstones with our own hands and yet admire doing this work.
This is a real breakdown for my egoism. I act in relation to the friends, and the friends act in relation to me. I correct myself by means of correcting them. No one does this without others, and he depends on others in all his actions in the positive and negative sense, in joy and sorrow. He depends on their good and bad actions, and they depend on his good and bad actions. This is what the mutual guarantee is. Wishing good for ourselves, our nation, our country, I must take care of everybody. Only then will it be good for me.
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December 31, 2014 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Altruism, Crisis, Quotes
An important quote in the wisdom of Kabbalah states:
Two people were in a boat, and one of them took a drill and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companion said to him: Why are you doing this? He replied: What concern is it of yours? Am I not drilling under myself? The other replied: But you will flood the boat for us both, and we will both sink. (Kabbalist Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Midrash Raba, Leviticus 4:6)
In the global boat we all share, whoever thinks he can drill a hole under his or her own seat and ignore the well being of others is gravely mistaken. If one person drowns, everyone drowns right along with him.
Why is it so important for us to understand this? It is because we live in a new reality, a reality where we all depend on one another, for better or for worse. From now on, we have no choice but to work together, as one big family. Only then will we be able to navigate our global ship through this winter of our hardship toward the haven of bounty and prosperity.
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