The Purpose of Life According to the Torah? Giving

Why do we get married? Why do we bring children into the world? What gives meaning and purpose to our lives — and to all of creation?

These questions lie at the heart of a powerful teaching from Michtav Me’Eliyahu, the seminal work of Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892–1954), one of the leading Torah thinkers and ethicists of the 20th century.

Becoming Givers in a World of Takers

In the Book of Psalms, we find: “The world was built with chesed” (Tehillim 89:3). Chesed, variously translated as kindness or benevolence, implies giving for the sake of giving, with no ulterior motive. Therefore, the ultimate chesed upon which our existence is based is God’s chesed in creating us, as He had no need to do so.

The Torah teaches us to emulate God. It follows that when we give to others, without looking to gain something from it, we are emulating Him in the most fundamental way possible. Rabbi Dessler stresses that every single person is born with the capacity to both give and take, but it is only by cultivating the capacity for giving that a person becomes truly Godlike:

“If we confine ourselves to simply receiving God’s goodness, constantly asking for more, we become entrenched in taking and selfishness, which leads to ingratitude. The only remedy is to strive to integrate the power of giving. When God created man, He made him both a giver and a taker. The power to give is divine — it reflects the qualities of the Creator, who has mercy and bestows good and gives without expecting anything in return… That is why man is described as created ‘in the image of God,’ for he can show mercy, bestow goodness, and give.

“However, the capacity for taking is one that man desires and which he is drawn after — this is what we call selfishness. The capacity to give is what brings about tikkun [the attainment of full spiritual potential] to all of creation.”

Every Action is Either Giving or Taking

Rabbi Dessler emphasizes that giving and taking are at the root of all human character traits. “There is no neutral ground: every thought, word, and action is either an act of giving or an act of taking. And in a person’s innermost desires, there is no compromise — our souls aim toward one direction or the other.”

Even people who seem completely self-centered still retain a “spark of giving,” he adds, because God does not allow people’s tendencies to take to entirely obliterate their desire to give.

Why? Because without that desire to give, “the entire world would be destroyed.” People would not marry or raise children and society would collapse. God therefore ensures that this inner desire to give unconditionally is never fully extinguished from the human soul.

That doesn’t mean that we can rely solely on our natural instincts to reach our spiritual potential. Most people only express their tendency to give with those whom they perceive as extensions of themselves (family, friends, those they respect and so forth). Everyone else falls into the category of “other,” to be exploited for personal gain or competed against.

If we fail to develop our trait of giving, the result is often that we fall back into selfishness, which blocks the spiritual light of chesed, leaving the emotions dulled and unable to absorb anything spiritual.

Giving Creates Love — Not the Other Way Around

One of Rabbi Dessler’s most well-known teachings is that love does not lead to giving — giving leads to love. The more you give to someone, the more connected you become to them. That’s why people love their children more than their children love them: because of how much they have given to them.

He writes:

“Let a person reflect: to whomever he gives, he will come to love. He will feel a part of himself in that person and become attached to them. Then he will recognize the truth — that the person who seemed like a stranger only appeared so because he hadn’t yet given to them. But once he begins to do good for others, he will start to feel that everyone is his relative, his beloved, his extended self.”

At this point, the mitzvah (Torah commandment) “Love your neighbor as yourself” becomes natural and self-evident — like yourself, without any distinction.

The More We Give, the More We Are Able to Receive

Ultimately, Rabbi Dessler teaches, giving is not only a way to refine the character. It is the only way to fulfill the purpose of creation, to be vessels worthy of containing God’s spiritual goodness.

God created the world in order to bestow Divine goodness upon His creations. But that goodness is not physical; it is spiritual. And only someone who lives with chesed — who gives like God gives — can receive and appreciate it.

If a person remains in “taker mode,” he will look at someone doing chesed and assume they must have an ulterior motive. Since he himself is trapped in selfishness, he projects it onto others. He cannot understand what pure giving is — because he has never tasted it himself.

As Rabbi Dessler writes:

“A person understands the qualities of God only to the extent that he embodies them. As the verse says, ‘With the kind, You show Yourself kind’ (Tehillim 18:26). Only someone who is kind can truly recognize God’s kindness.”

And so we return to where we started.

Why were we created? Why do we build families and communities? Why do we strive to do good?

Because we were made in the image of the One who gives. And when we learn to give, we begin to reflect that Divine light — and fulfill the very purpose for which we were created.

(Many of Rabbi Dessler’s teachings have been translated into the three-volume work, Strive for Truth.)