If I Am Not for Myself, Who Will Be?
Opening There is a Jew who walks through the marketplace, goes into the synagogue, sits at a Sabbath meal, and feels alone. There are people all around him and conversations all around him, but he is off to the side. In his heart he complains: “Why don’t I have a real friend? Why do people keep their distance from me?” And he looks around for someone to blame. Stop for a moment. Before you look for someone to blame out there, there is one question you need to ask. It may be the hardest question of all: Would you want to be your own friend? Be honest. Not with the writer. With yourself. First Step: The Mirror That Does Not Lie The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught a deep principle: the world is a mirror. Whatever face you show it, it shows you back. This is not just a figure of speech. It is a direct insight into the nature of reality. A person asks, “Why do people run away from me?” Usually they are not running from him. They are running from the force he brings with him into the room: gloom, complaints, a quiet demand that everyone give to him, with nothing given back. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, describes heavy sadness in chapter 26 as a narrowing force, a force that closes a person up and weighs him down. In chapter 31 it explains that even someone who is not completely righteous will sink in spirit every time he looks at himself through “dark gloom.” That gloom itself is the danger, not only the pain it causes inside. People are not sociologists. They don’t analyze “energy.” But they feel it. They can tell when someone walks into a room and takes. He takes attention, he takes comfort, he takes empathy, and he gives nothing back. And so, naturally and without even realizing it, they pull away. This is where a teaching of our Sages comes in: “Whoever finds fault in others is finding his own fault.” This is not only a rebuke. It is a tool for diagnosis. Whatever bothers you in another person, check first whether it is inside you. Second Step: The Deeper Meaning of Hillel’s Words Hillel, the great sage, taught: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” The simple meaning is this: if I don’t take care of myself, who will take care of me? But there is a deeper layer here. Before there can be a “who will be for me,” there has to be an “I.” It has to be an “I” with real substance. It is an “I” that has built a source of vitality and joy inside itself. It is an “I” that does not depend on outside things in order to feel alive. The Tanya, in chapter 32, explains the commandment “Love your fellow as yourself.” It says that “as yourself” is not just a comparison. It is a condition. Love for others grows out of love for yourself. This is not the self-love of ego and arrogance. It is love for the divine point inside you, for the piece of Hashem above, truly, that lives in the depth of your soul. When you are connected to that point, you begin to see it in every other Jew too, and then the connection forms by itself. So loneliness on the outside is sometimes a reflection of a distance on the inside, a distance from the divine soul within you. You are not cut off from the people around you. You are cut off from yourself.
Putting It into Practice
Don’t start with “How will I find friends?” Start with one small question: What am I bringing into the room? Tomorrow, when you walk into a visit, a conversation or a Sabbath meal, bring something. A joke. A thought. A question about the other person. Even just a smile that asks for nothing back. The work is not “finding a friend.” The work is being a friend, first of all to yourself, and then to others. When the “I” becomes a place of joy and giving, the “who will be for me” will come by itself.
Questions and answers
Q: Why do I feel alone and why do people keep their distance from me?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is a Jew who walks through the marketplace, goes into the synagogue, sits at a Sabbath meal, and feels alone. There are people all around him and conversations all around him, but he is off to the side. In his heart he complains: “Why don’t I have a real friend? Why do people keep their distance from me?” And he looks around for someone to blame.
Q: What question should you ask yourself before blaming others for not having friends?
Rabbi Landau answers: Before you look for someone to blame out there, there is one question you need to ask. It may be the hardest question of all: Would you want to be your own friend? Be honest. Not with the writer. With yourself.
Q: What does the Baal Shem Tov's teaching that the world is a mirror say about friendship?
Rabbi Landau answers: The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught a deep principle: the world is a mirror. Whatever face you show it, it shows you back. This is not just a figure of speech. It is a direct insight into the nature of reality. A person asks, “Why do people run away from me?” Usually they are not running from him. They are running from the force he brings with him into the room: gloom, complaints, a quiet demand that everyone give to him, with nothing given back. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, describes heavy sadness in chapter 26 as a narrowing force, a force that closes a person up and weighs him down.
Q: What is the deeper meaning of Hillel's teaching, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me"?
Rabbi Landau answers: Hillel, the great sage, taught: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” The simple meaning is this: if I don’t take care of myself, who will take care of me? But there is a deeper layer here. Before there can be a “who will be for me,” there has to be an “I.” It has to be an “I” with real substance. It is an “I” that has built a source of vitality and joy inside itself. It is an “I” that does not depend on outside things in order to feel alive. The Tanya, in chapter 32, explains the commandment “Love your fellow as yourself.” It says that “as yourself” is not just a comparison. It is a condition. Love for others grows out of love for yourself.
Q: What practical step can a lonely person take to become a friend?
Rabbi Landau answers: Don’t start with “How will I find friends?” Start with one small question: What am I bringing into the room? Tomorrow, when you walk into a visit, a conversation or a Sabbath meal, bring something. A joke. A thought. A question about the other person. Even just a smile that asks for nothing back. The work is not “finding a friend.” The work is being a friend, first of all to yourself, and then to others. When the “I” becomes a place of joy and giving, the “who will be for me” will come by itself.