F

rom the moment of our birth, we 
clamor for our wants and needs, 
and we spend the rest of our lives 
pursuing them. Clearly, God has hard-
wired self-interest deep into the human 
psyche, so it’s certainly not 
something we view as nec-
essarily evil. On the con-
trary, halachah — Jewish 
law — explicitly reflects 
this. The Talmud sets out 
the following scenario: 
two people are walking 
in the desert, and one of 
them has a flask of water. There’s only 
enough water for one of them to make 
it to civilization; if they share the water, 
they will die. The great Talmudic sage, 
Rabbi Akiva, rules that in such a case, 
“your life comes first;” the one who has 

the water drinks it. Survival of the self 
comes first.
At the same time, while self-interest 
is a powerful and unshakeable force of 
human nature, it can also be extremely 
destructive. Even self-destructive. As 
the Mishna in Pirkei Avot says: “Jealousy, 
physical desires and the pursuit of honor 
remove a person from this world.”
Jealousy, desire and honor are all 
self-centered forces within a person, 
and the Mishna is saying that a person 
who is self-centered ultimately brings 
destruction on himself. God has created 
the world in such a way that when a 
person blindly pursues self-gratification, 
he paradoxically does grave harm to 
himself. Those who are consumed with 
jealousy, with the pursuit of their phys-
ical desires, with acquiring honor and 

recognition from others at all costs, find 
no peace of mind and are drawn to act 
in ways that harm not just the people 
they perceive to be standing in their way 
— they harm themselves, too.
It goes beyond that, to our ultimate 
calling in this world, which is a calling 
toward holiness. This week’s parsha, 
Kedoshim, opens with a clarion call to 
the Jewish people: “You shall be holy, for 
I, Hashem your God, am holy.” (Vayikra 
19:2) What is this call to holiness? What 
does it mean to be holy? And what does 
it mean that God is holy?
Rabbi Shimon Shkop, one of the great 
Lithuanian sages of the pre-war years, 
has a fascinating explanation. He says 
God’s essential “characteristic,” as far 
as we can talk about such things, is His 
pure goodness and kindness. God is 

Chief Rabbi 
Warren 
Goldstein

42 | MAY 5 • 2022 

Is Self-Interest Incompatible 
with Altruism?

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

