Rebbetzin Esther Offengenden
...But what about selfishness? Does the Torah really advise us to be selfish, to love only ourselves and care only about ourselves?
Of course not. We should love ourselves, rather than become selfish. These are two entirely different concepts, and perhaps understanding this will help most of those who are “ill” with an inability to love themselves recover.
The first chapter of the Torah, “Bereishit,” relates that four rivers flowed out of the Garden of Eden. One commentary explains that they led away from “paradise,” that is, away from the proper course of life. One of these rivers was called Gea. It flowed around the land of slaves. Its current swept along selfish people who considered themselves greater and more important than others and lived solely through the help and support of others.
But why is this kind of support so important to a selfish person?
A selfish person is someone who has lost touch with themselves, does not love themselves, and is terribly afraid that others will treat them as badly as they treat themselves.
Only being treated well by others gives their self-esteem some support. A selfish person feels that unless they fight, demand, and push for what they want, no one will love them.
True self-love comes from recognizing the fact that I am a small part of the Almighty. It follows that every person is an absolutely essential part of this world, possessing special strengths and abilities.
As the saying goes, the moment you were born, you proved that the world could not do without you! In general, loving yourself is the same as loving G-d.
A selfish person’s basic feeling is “Everyone owes me.” By contrast, someone who loves themselves feels, “I can give!” A selfish person is a martyr, a sufferer who cries out to others, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?!”
Someone who loves themselves knows how to enjoy life and always tries to do so!
Being selfish is hard work. Demands, expectations, constant disappointment, dissatisfaction with life, and feeling undervalued—all of this requires an enormous investment of energy. There is no strength left for growth and moving forward.
Loving yourself is not selfishness! The Torah contains several fundamental principles that cannot be put into practice without self-love. For example, Rabbi Akiva’s well-known statement: “Loving your neighbor as yourself is a great principle of the Torah.” It follows that a person must first love, value, and respect themselves. Only after coming to know and feel this love, this sense of their own importance and uniqueness, can they extend that feeling to another person who is no less important and exceptional.
One of the first rules taught to Jewish brides is this: “If you don’t love yourself, who will love you?”
This means, first of all, that I myself should be the main source of love for myself.
When this condition is met the tension of waiting for my husband’s love will diminish so sharply that it will be much easier and “safer” for him to give love, and for me to receive it.
Second, this rule tells us that it is impossible to love someone who does not love themselves.
Such a person conveys roughly the following impression to those around them: “ Well, if he himself, who surely knows himself well, treats himself this way, what else can we do…” And indeed, it is almost impossible to come to love him.
Picture the scene. A husband comes home in the evening. The apartment is sparkling clean. The children have been put to bed. A three-course meal is on the table. And his wife is lying in a corner of the sofa, quietly moaning:
- Oh! I’m so tired! I have no energy for anything… I’m going to bed.
With these words, she crawls away, still moaning and complaining. Her husband is left completely alone. He has a beautiful home. Delicious food. But he has no one to love. Instead of his wife, he has found an exhausted, apathetic creature at home. And a husband needs a wife!
to be continued