Has All the Kindness Gone? Hope Still Lingers On

The basis of human nature is egoism. This is hardly a secret. In fact, the Bible acknowledges this condition almost at the very beginning – “man’s heart is evil from his youth” – and Kabbalists explain that the evil inclination is our egoism. The question this brings to mind is: “If egoism is so bad, why did the Creator place it in us and make us evil from our youth?” Practically every religion and every teaching tackles the challenge of egoism. Religions in general tell us to suppress it, and Eastern philosophies tell us that we need to diminish it.

These modes of coping with the human inclination toward egoism worked well for many years. But today, our egoism is soaring to unprecedented levels, and for many people, the familiar ways of coping with it just don’t seem to work.