ABSTRACT
What does it mean to be, or to work toward becoming, an ethical person? For some, the proper path consists of dedicating significant efforts toward self-improvement – to become the best that one can be. For others, ethics is fundamentally interpersonal and the focus is primarily on the betterment of others and their situations. While these two orientations can coexist, for some there is a strong tension between the desire for self-improvement and the obligation to aid others. In this chapter, I examine a key passage from rabbinic literature in conjunction with several texts from early Christian monastic literature that all address the tension between self and other ethical orientations. While the passages under discussion generally evince a preference for a focus upon the self rather than others, the importance of interpersonal obligation is never entirely out of sight. Observing the ways that rabbinic and monastic sources navigate this tension provides a pathway for bridging the ostensive chasm between text and context, allowing us to identify a nexus of Jewish and Christian moral reflection in antiquity on the one hand, and scholarly and theological perspectives on the other.
