The Uniqueness of Humanity

All that exists obeys. A human being alone occupies a unique status. As a 
natural being a human obeys, as a human being humans must frequently 
choose; confined in their existence, they are unrestrained in their will.
Their acts do not emanate from them like rays of energy from
matter. Placed in the parting of the ways, they must time and 
again decide which direction to take. The course of their life is,
accordingly, unpredictable; no one can write their autobio-
graphy in advance.
      Is a human, who occupies such a strange position in the great
realm of being, an outcast of the universal order? an outlaw?
a freak of nature? a shred of yarn dropped from nature’s loom,
which has since been strangely twisted by the way? Astron-
omy and geology have taught us to disdain the overweening
vanity of humanity. Even without the benefit of astronomy and
geology, the psalmist must have been oppressed with a sense
of self-insignificance, when they asked the somber question:
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers; the moon
and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art
mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
(Psalms 8:3-4)
      However, if a person’s value and position in the universe is to
be defined as one divided by the infinite, the infinite designat-
ing the number of beings which populate the universe; if a human
= one over infinity, how should we account for the fact that an infinitesimal 
human is obviously the only being on this planet capable of mak-
ing such an equation?
      An ant is never stricken with amazement, nor does a star
consider itself a nonentity. Immense is the scope of astronomy 
and geology, yet what is astronomy without the astronomer?
What is geology without the geologist?
      If we had to characterize an individual like William Shake-
speare in terms of a measuring rod, we would surely avail our-
selves of Eddington’s description of a human’s position within the
universe and say that Shakespeare is almost precisely halfway
in size between an atom and a star. To assess humanity’s vegetative
existence, it is important to know, for example, that a human being con-
sists of hundreds of millions of cells. However, to assess the essence
of a human being, which alone accounts for the fact of their being anxious
to assess their existence, we must discern what is unique about
a human.
      Reflecting about the infinite universe we could perhaps af-
ford to resign ourselves to the trivial position of being a non-
entity. However, pondering over our reflection, we discover
that we are not only carried and surrounded by the universe 
of meaning. A human being is a fountain of immense meaning, not only
a drop in the ocean of being.
      The human species is too powerful, to dangerous to be a
mere toy or a freak of the Creator. Humanity undoubtedly represents
something unique in the great body of the universe: a growth,
as it were, an abnormal mass of tissue, which not only began to
interact with other parts but also, to some degree, was able to
modify their very status. What is its nature and function? Is it
malignant, a tumor, or is it supposed to serve as a brain of the
universe?
      The human species shows at times symptoms of being malig-
nant and, if its growth remains unchecked, it may destroy the
entire body for the sake of its expansion. In terms of astronom-
ical time, our civilization is in its infancy. The expansion of
human power has hardly begun, and what humanity is going to do
with its power may either save or destroy our planet.
      The earth may be of small significance within the infinite
universe. But if it is of some significance, a human holds the key
to it. For one thing a human certainly seems to own: a boundless,
unpredictable capacity for the development of an inner uni-
verse. There is more potentiality in their soul than in any other
being known to us. Look at an infant and try to imagine the
multitude of events it is going to engender. One child called
Bach was charged with power enough to hold generations of
people in his spell. But is there any potentiality to acclaim or any
surprise to expect in a calf or a colt? Indeed, the essence of a human being
is not in what they are, but what they are able to be.

In the Darkness of Potentiality

Yet the darkness of potentiality is the hotbed of anxiety. There
is always more than one path to go, and we are forced to be
free—we are free against our will—and have the audacity to
choose, rarely knowing how or why. Our failures glare like
flashlights all the way, and what is right lies underground. We
are in the minority in the great realm of being, and, with a
genius for adjustment, we frequently seek to join the multi-
tude. We are in the minority within our own nature, and in
the agony and battle of passions we often choose to envy the
beast. We behave as if the animal kingdom were our lost para-
dise, to which we are trying to return for moments of delight,
believing that it is the animal state in which happiness con-
sists. We have an endless craving to be like the beast, a nos-
talgic admiration for the animal within us. According to a con-
temporary scientist: “Humanity’s greatest tragedy occurred when
it ceased to walk on all fours and cut itself off from the ani-
mal world by assuming an erect position. If humanity had contin-
ued to walk horizontally, and rabbits had learned to walk ver-
tically, many of the world’s ills would not exist.”

Between God and the Beasts

Human beings are continuous both with the rest of organic nature and
with the infinite outpouring of the spirit of God. A minority in
the realm of being, humans stand somewhere between God and
the beasts. Unable to live alone, a human must commune with either
of the two.
      Both Adam and the beasts were blessed by the Lord, but
humanity was also charged with conquering the earth and dominat-
ing the beast. A human is always faced with the choice of listen-
ing either to God or to the snake. It is always easier to envy
the beast, to worship a totem and be dominated by it, than to
hearken to the Voice.
      Our existence seesaws between animality and divinity, be-
tween that which is more and that which is less than humanity:
below is evanescence, futility, and above is the open door of
the divine exchequer where we lay up the sterling coin of
piety and spirit, the immortal remains of our dying lives. We
are constantly in the mills of death, but we are also the con-
temporaries of God.
      A human is “a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5) and a 
little higher than the beasts. Like a pendulum humanity swings to and
fro under the combined action of gravity and momentum, of
the gravitation of selfishness and the momentum of the divine,
of a vision beheld by God in the darkness of flesh and blood.
We fail to understand the meaning of our existence when we
disregard our commitments to that vision. Yet only eyes vigi-
lant and fortified against the glaring and superficial can still
perceive God’s vision in the soul’s horror-stricken night of
human folly, falsehood, hatred and malice.
      Because of its immense power, human beings are potentially the most
wicked of beings. Humans often have a passion for cruel deeds that
only the fear of God can soothe, suffocating flushes of envy that
only holiness can ventilate.
      If a person is not more than human, then they are less than human.
Humans are but a short, critical stage between the animal and the
spiritual. Their state is one of constant wavering, of soaring or
descending. Undeviating humanity is nonexistent. The eman-
cipated human is yet to emerge.
     Human beings are more than what they are to themselves. In their reason they may
be limited, in their will they may be wicked, yet they stand in a re-
lation to God, which they may betray but not sever and which
constitutes the essential meaning of their life. A human being is the knot in
which heaven and earth are interlaced.
      When carried away by the joy of acting as we please,
adopting any desire, accepting any opportunity for action if
the body welcomes it, we feel perfectly satisfied to walk on all
fours. Yet there are moments in every one’s life when they be-
gin to wonder whether the pleasures of the body or the in-
terests of the self should serve as the perspective from which
all decisions should be made.

Beyond Our Needs

In spite of the delights that are within our reach, we refuse to
barter our souls for selfish rewards and to live without a con-
science on the proceeds. Even those who have forfeited the
ability for compassion have not forfeited the ability to be hor-
rified at their inability to feel compassion. The ceiling has col-
lapsed, yet the souls still hang by a hair of horror. Time and
again everyone of us tries to sit in judgment over their life. Even
those who have gambled away the vision of virtue are not de-
prived of the horror of crime. Through disgust and dismay we
struggle to know that to live on selfish needs is to kill what is
still alive in our dismay. There is only one way to fumigate the
obnoxious air of our world—to live beyond our own needs and
interest. We are carnal, covetous, selfish, vain, and to live
for the sake of unselfish needs means to live beyond our own
means. How could we be more than what we are? How could
we find resources that would give our souls a surplus that is
not our own? To live beyond our needs means to be inde-
pendent of selfish needs. Yet how would a person succeed in
breaking out of the circle of their self?
      The possibility of eliminating self-regard ultimately de-
pends on the nature of the self; it is a metaphysical rather than
a psychological issue. If the self exists for its own sake, such in-
dependence would be neither possible nor desirable. It is only
in assuming that the self is not the hub but a spoke, neither its
own beginning nor its own end, that such possibility could be
affirmed.
      A human being is meaning, but not their own meaning. A person does not even
know their own meaning, for a meaning does not know what it
means. The self is a need, but not its own need.
      All our experiences are needs, dissolving when the needs are
fulfilled. But the truth is, our existence, too, is a need. We are
such stuff as needs are made of, and our little life is rounded
by a will. Lasting in our life is neither passion nor delight,
neither joy nor pain, but the answer to a need. The lasting in
us is not our will to live. There is a need for our lives, and in
living we satisfy it. Lasting is not our desire, but our answer to
that need, an agreement not an impulse. Our needs are tem-
poral, while our being needed is lasting.

Who Is In Need of Humanity?

We have started our inquiry with the question of the individ-
ual human being—what is the meaning of the individual human being—? and es-
tablished their uniqueness in their being pregnant with immense
potentialities, of which they become aware in their experience of
needs. We have also pointed out that a human being finds no happiness in
utilizing their potentialities for the satisfaction of their own needs,
that their destiny is to be a need.
      But who is in need of humanity? Nature? Do the mountains stand
in need of our poems? Would the stars fade away if astrono-
mers ceased to exist? The earth can get along without the aid
of the human species. Nature is replete with opportunity to
satisfy all our needs except one—the need of being needed.
Within its unbroken silence a human being is like the middle of a sentence
and all human theories are like dots indicating its isolation within     
its own self.
      Unlike all other needs, the need of being needed is a striv-
ing to give rather than to obtain satisfaction. It is a desire to
satisfy a transcendent desire, a craving to satisfy a craving.
      All needs are one-sided. When hungry we are in need of
food, yet food is not in need of being consumed. Things of
beauty attract our minds; we feel the need of perceiving them,
yet they are not in need of being perceived by us. It is in such
one-sidedness, that most of living is imprisoned. Examine an
average mind, and you will find that it is dominated by an
effort to cut reality to the measure of the ego, as if the world
existed for the sake of pleasing one’s ego. Everyone of us en-
tertains more relations with things than with people, and even
in dealings with people we behave toward them as if they were
things, tools, means to be used for our own selfish ends. How
rarely do we face a person as a person. We are all dominated
by the desire to appropriate and to own. Only a free person
knows that the true meaning of existence is experienced in giv-
ing, in endowing, in meeting a person face to face, in fulfilling
other people’s needs.
      When realizing the surplus of what we see over what we
feel, the mind is evasive, even the heart is incomplete. Why are
we discontent with mere living for the sake of living? Who has
made us thirsty for what is more than existence?
      Everywhere we are surrounded by the ineffable, our famil-
iarity with reality is a myth. To the innermost in our soul even
beauty is an alloy mixed with the true metal of eternity. There
is neither earth nor sky, neither spring nor autumn; there is
only a question. God’s eternal question of humanity: Where art
Thou? Religion begins with the certainty that something is
asked of us, that there are ends which are in need of us. Un-
like all other values, moral and religious ends evoke in us a
sense of obligation. They present themselves as tasks rather 
than as objects of perception. Thus, religious living consists in
serving ends which are in need of us.
      A human being is not an innocent bystander in the cosmic drama. 
There is in us more kinship with the divine than we are able to be-
lieve. The souls of humans are candles of the Lord, lit on the
cosmic way, rather than fireworks produced by the combus-
tion of nature’s explosive compositions, and every soul is in-
dispensable to God. Humanity is needed, it is a need of God.