If I am only for myself...

A saying I have that has guided me over the past few decades comes from Rabbi Hillel (110

BCE-10 CE), an older contemporary of Jesus.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me

But if I am only for myself, who am I?

If not now, when?"

This statement captures the spiritual interplay of caring for ourselves and caring for others. “I

need to be for myself.” A few decades after Hillel’s death, Jesus said, “love your neighbor as

yourself.” Self-love and self-care are essential for caregiving over the long haul, whether our

concern is for a child, aging spouse or parent, our nation, or the planet. Without self-care and

advocating for our own well-being and just treatment, we will not have the resilience to care for

others. The path to justice is long and arduous and to have the tenacity and strength to stay on

the path of justice, we must be spiritually centered and physically strong. Self-interest, that is,

care for your deepest spiritual, physical, relational, and economic needs is at the heart of a life of

service. Self-interest, however, by itself is insufficient. Self-interest must be joined with world

loyalty and care for others.

“If I am only for myself, who am I?” As a parent, teacher, and pastor, I know that

following these vocations requires me to expand my self-interest to include the well-being of

others. My child’s, grandchild’s, spouse’s or companion’s, and student’s well-being must be as

important than my own well-being. Sacrifice is essential to a healthy, spirit-centered life. Today,

our loyalty must be planetary as well as personal if the earth is to be habitable for human and

non-human life. My self needs to become boundless. I need to have a heart as big as the world,

and circle whose circumference includes everyone.

Hillel captured this sentiment in another of his wise sayings: “Whosoever destroys one

soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though

he had saved the entire world." We need each other. In fact, in an interdependent world, we

need one another to find wholeness. Ubuntu, “I am because of you. We are because of one

another.” Or, as Martin Luther King said,

In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of

mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all

indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you

can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...

Finally, “if not now, when?” We can’t wait forever to solve certain problems. Global

climate change can’t wait. Feeding the hungry can’t wait. Finding a humane political solution to

immigration and undocumented residents can’t wait. We may have the privilege of leisure but

for the hungry, dispossessed, and fragile planet, postponing action means death.

I must confess that, for me, this is the hardest of Hillel’s counsels, “If not now, when?” I

struggle with maintaining a sense of urgency and feeling that I can make any difference in the

complications of politics, economics, and environmental policy. But, despite this tendency

toward hopelessness, I cannot give up, nor can you. The future depends on joins self-interest