"The discovery of a failure to educate desire brings with it an impulse to suppress it. Self-effacement seems to us then to be the only way of redemption from the enslavement to the ego. Yet self-effacement as such is an escape by which we may rush to worse corruption. Elimination of the self is in itself no virtue. To give up life or the right to satisfaction is not a moral requirement. If self-effacement were virtuous in itself, suicide would be the climax of moral living. It is Moloch that demands the sacrifice of life; it is militarism that glorifies death in battle as the highest aspiration. The prophets of Baal rather than the prophets of Israel indulged in self-mortification. In fact, only he who truly understands the justice of his own rights is capable of rendering justice to the rights of others. Moral training consists in deepening one’s passionate understanding for the rights and needs of others in a manner equal to the passionate understanding of one’s own rights and needs. The value of sacrifice is determined, not only by what one gives away, but also by the goal to which it is given. The Hebrew word for the verb to sacrifice means literally to come near, to approach. Our task is not to renounce life but to bring it close to Him.
What we strive for are not single moments of self-denial but sober constant affirmation of other selves, the ability to feel the needs and problems of our fellow men. Never call such an attitude self-effacing or being spiteful to the soul. What is effaced is an offensiveness, an oppressiveness which at good moments the soul detests, wishing it away. The self may be turned into a friend of the spirit if one is capable of developing a persistent perception of the non-self, of the anxiety and dignity of fellow beings. Self-centeredness is the tragic misunderstanding of our destiny and existence. For man, to be human is an existential tautology. In order to be a man, man must be more than a man. The self is spiritually immature; it grows in the concern for the non-self. This is the profound paradox and redeeming feature of human existence. There is no joy for the self within the self. Joy is found in giving rather than in acquiring; in serving rather than in taking. We are all endowed with talents, aptitudes, facilities; yet talent without dedication, aptitude without vocation, facility without spiritual dignity end in frustration. What is spiritual dignity? The attachment of the soul to a goal that lies be- yond the self, a goal not within but beyond the self. This, indeed, is the mystery of the self, not explicable in terms of psychological analysis. Just as our sense of the ineffable goes beyond all words, so does the coercion for wholeheartedness, the power for self-transcendence, go beyond all interests and desires."
