What would you rather have, responsibility, obligation, moral duty, or rights, opportunities, gifts.

 

You may think rights would be better.

 

Would you rather have a salary paid by the welfare of the state or a salary earned through your own hard work?

 

Aha!

 

Now you see that rights might be nice, but responsibility is even nicer.

 

The reason for this is, because God created us in such a way that “a person desires more one dollar earned through his own hard work than nine given to him by him his friend.”

 

At the core of our being is independence.

 

We see this eminently in two year olds who we happily open car doors for etc. however what they want is for themselves to be in charge and to do things, “me”.

 

At this juncture we see a fascinating teaching of the Rebbe who says that as democracy brought with it so much goodness and justice to the world why isn’t Judaism democratic but theocratic, that we serve a God.

 

Why can’t we all decide what our rights are and be done with morality.

 

But that is the key error of humanity, that rights are actually gifts, and gifts are shameful.

 

Whereas God says you must feed your wife and children, you must feed the poor – responsibility, obligations, moral duty is hard like …, however it makes the person into a God, a person who is a giver, a person who rises above his selfishness, rises above his narcissism, rises above his dependency, to both independence, giving, contributing, ultimately filing his or her life with moral satisfaction at a job well done.