There are 4 personality types:
1. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine. The ignoramus.
2. What’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is mine. The average person.
3. What’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is yours. The optimal personality
4. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine. The wicked person.
(Ethics of the Fathers 5:10)
Is it possible to balance a healthy ego and a healthy coexistence with others, and if yes—how? Is it merely about a logical negotiation of forgoing some of our immediate needs due to the benefit we receive from others? Or is it far deeper than that? What is more inherent in us — our individuality, or being part of a larger whole? E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one. How is that possible? Which prevails, the many or the one?
Last week we discussed “why not be selfish?” and established that in fact the most selfish thing you can do is be selfless. Transcendence, going beyond our limited boundaries – and not selfishness – is our inherent state.
Tonight, join Rabbi Jacobson for a fascinating discussion and discover how there is actually a third dimension to all of this – beyond the individual and beyond the group, and when we connect to that, the magic of true seamless fusion emerges! Both the individual and group become one, harmony within diversity, not a compromise at all but a beautiful, eloquent flow that results from experiencing transcendence — a reality greater than ourselves.
