"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." George Bernard Shaw
"Have it your way." Burger King
(יד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי.
(14) He [also] used to say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I?
(ד) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה רְצוֹנוֹ כִרְצוֹנְךָ, כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּעֲשֶׂה רְצוֹנְךָ כִרְצוֹנוֹ. בַּטֵּל רְצוֹנְךָ מִפְּנֵי רְצוֹנוֹ, כְּדֵי שֶׁיְּבַטֵּל רְצוֹן אֲחֵרִים מִפְּנֵי רְצוֹנֶךָ. הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר, וְאַל תַּאֲמִין בְּעַצְמְךָ עַד יוֹם מוֹתְךָ, וְאַל תָּדִין אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ,
(4) He used to say: do His will as though it were your will, so that He will do your will as though it were His. Set aside your will in the face of His will, so that he may set aside the will of others for the sake of your will. Hillel said: do not separate yourself from the community, Do not trust in yourself until the day of your death, Do not judge your fellow man until you have reached his place.
(26) And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
Bereshit Rabbah 8:5
R. Simon said: When the Holy Blessed One decided to make the first person, the ministering angels formed themselves into groups and parties, some of them saying: “Let him be created!” and others saying, “Do not let him be created!” Lovingkindness says: “Let him be created, because he will do acts of love,” and Truth says, “Do not let him be created, because he is all lies.” Justice says, “Let him be created, for he will do acts of justice,” and Peace says, “Do not let him be created, for he is all strife.” What did the Holy Blessed One do? He took Truth and cast it to the earth (to the ground), … R. Huna the Elder of Sepphoris said: As the ministering angels were arguing and disputing with each other, God created him [Adam], and said to them: “Why are you arguing! Adam has already been created.”
(ה) כֵּיצַד מְאַיְּמִין אֶת הָעֵדִים עַל עֵדֵי נְפָשׁוֹת, . . . דִּינֵי נְפָשׁוֹת, דָּמוֹ וְדַם זַרְעִיּוֹתָיו תְּלוּיִין בּוֹ עַד סוֹף הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁכֵּן מָצִינוּ בְקַיִן שֶׁהָרַג אֶת אָחִיו, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (בראשית ד) דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים, אֵינוֹ אוֹמֵר דַּם אָחִיךָ אֶלָּא דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ, דָּמוֹ וְדַם זַרְעִיּוֹתָיו. . . . לְפִיכָךְ נִבְרָא אָדָם יְחִידִי, לְלַמֶּדְךָ, שֶׁכָּל הַמְאַבֵּד נֶפֶשׁ אַחַת מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ אִבֵּד עוֹלָם מָלֵא. וְכָל הַמְקַיֵּם נֶפֶשׁ אַחַת מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ קִיֵּם עוֹלָם מָלֵא. . . . לְפִיכָךְ כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד חַיָּב לוֹמַר, בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם. וְשֶׁמָּא תֹאמְרוּ מַה לָּנוּ וְלַצָּרָה הַזֹּאת, וַהֲלֹא כְבָר נֶאֱמַר (ויקרא ה) וְהוּא עֵד אוֹ רָאָה אוֹ יָדָע אִם לוֹא יַגִּיד וְגוֹ'. וְשֶׁמָּא תֹאמְרוּ מַה לָּנוּ לָחוּב בְּדָמוֹ שֶׁל זֶה, וַהֲלֹא כְבָר נֶאֱמַר (משלי יא) וּבַאֲבֹד רְשָׁעִים רִנָּה:
(5) How does the court intimidate the witnesses in giving testimony for cases of capital law? . . . In cases of capital law, if one testifies falsely, the blood of the accused and the blood of his offspring that he did not merit to produce are ascribed to the witness’s testimony until eternity. The proof for this is as we found with Cain, who killed his brother, as it is stated concerning him: “The voice of your brother’s blood [demei] cries out to Me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). The verse does not state: Your brother’s blood [dam], in the singular, but rather: “Your brother’s blood [demei],” in the plural. This serves to teach that the loss of both his brother’s blood and the blood of his brother’s offspring are ascribed to Cain. . . .The court tells the witnesses: Therefore, Adam the first man was created alone, to teach you that with regard to anyone who destroys one soul from the Jewish people, i.e., kills one Jew, the verse ascribes him blame as if he destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And conversely, anyone who sustains one soul from the Jewish people, the verse ascribes him credit as if he sustained an entire world. . . . Therefore, since all humanity descends from one person, each and every person is obligated to say: The world was created for me, as one person can be the source of all humanity, and recognize the significance of his actions.
In the coming world they will not ask me—Why were you not more like Moses? They will ask me—Why were you not more Zusya?“ — Zusha of Hanipol Ukrainian rabbi 1719 - 1800 Quoted by Martin Buber in Tales of the Hassidim: The Early Masters, Shocken Books 1968, p. 141.
And no outsider can share in its joy.
"One factor in our cultural resistance to the work of repentance has to do with the post-Enlightenment move toward individualism and how this took shape in the United States. The French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville warned, in his 1835 tome Democracy in America, that our country's extreme form of individualism would cause people to feel that they "owe no man anything and hardly expect anything from anybody. They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine their whole destiny is in their own hands." And indeed, our society, . . . focuses on rights afforded to the individual, rather than on our obligations to one another, and on limitation to what the governemnt can do to the individual, rather than what the government is required to offer its constituents." Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair, Beacon Press, Boston 2022.
Speaking from amid the fresh trauma of the Holocaust . . . , Rav Joseph Soloveitchik suggested that the twentieth century is soaked with blood because politicians have forgotten that social formation turns on moral and religious questions. Political orders must deal with the problem of how to reconcile individual self-expression vis-à-vis the demands of the collective, and Soloveitchik claims that most forms of government err in emphasizing the value of one at the expense of the other. "Yokhed ve-tsiber: Individual Expression and Communal Responsibility in a Yiddish Droshe by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik" Ariel Evan Mayse.