Is it selfish to take care of yourself before others?

Rabbi Landau teaches that putting yourself first, to a degree, is not selfishness but survival. “It has to be that way,” he says, “because even in halacha,” your life comes before someone else's life. Every person has “a certain percentage that they care about themselves before they care about someone else.”

He explains it with food. “You need to eat food. Question always is, at which point you are overeating?” A certain amount of self-concern is like a certain amount of food: you need it “to enable to survive.” Any creature has it, he says, “otherwise it wouldn't be able to survive.”

So the healthy question is not whether you care about yourself, but how much. Caring about yourself is normal. Caring almost only about yourself, as his caption puts it, is where the real problem begins.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

A measure of self-concern is not a flaw; it is needed for survival.

Underlying need or longing

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the Torah does not tell you to be a hero here. You have permission, and even a duty, to take care of your own life.

Deepest human truth

Like food, it is a matter of amount. The question is “at which point you are overeating.”

More questions from this teaching

• Is everyone really a narcissist?