We live in a time of increasing shortages. Sea levels are rising, cities are on fire, and food shelves are often empty. As with all times of shortage, there are people who are asking, “What can I get for myself? What value can I find in this too-short life?”

And as the pie is shrinking, some people are asking, “Who deserves the biggest piece of the pie?” People on the right say that they built this country, that the pie belongs to them. And others – blacks, women, and others – rightly say that the country was built on their backs. They are long since due a piece of the pie.

But Judaism asks us to consider another possibility: that it’s not what we get that matters. It’s what we give.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once described the funerals he led when he first became a rabbi. “I didn’t know what to say,” he wrote, “so I would ask what the deceased was proud of.” Sacks quickly noticed a pattern. No one was proud of their car or their house. And no one wished that they had spent one more day at the office. They were proud of the way they had helped others. Rabbi Sacks teaches:

Happiness is the ability to say: I lived for certain values and acted on them. I was part of a family, embracing it and being embraced by it. I was part of a community, honoring its traditions, sharing its griefs and joys, ready to help others, knowing that they were ready to help me. I did not only ask what I could take; I asked what I could contribute. To know you made a difference, that in this all too brief span of years you lifted someone’s spirit, relieved someone’s poverty or loneliness, or brought a moment of grace or justice into the world; these are as close as we get to the meaningfulness of life.

Happiness does not come from how much we have. It does not come from who we take advantage of. Happiness comes from the relationships we make, from the people we help, from the grace and the justice that we bring to the world

For generations, we have prayed for the coming of the Messiah – for the descendant of King David who will usher in the time of redemption. But our tradition tells us that the Messiah will not come through prayer. The Messiah will only come after we create a world where the Messiah would want to live.

This is our work – to lift up others, to create a better world, to bring the world a little closer to redemption.

We argue, at times, about who deserves the biggest piece of the pie. But the more important question is “What can I do? Who can I help? How can I be God’s partner in repairing the world?

And for Jews, “Who deserves the biggest piece of the pie?” is almost a non sequitur. Judaism insists that there is a difference between ownership and possession. What we have, Judaism teaches, is not really ours. We are merely stewards for God’s sacred bounty. Our souls themselves are only on loan to us, our prayer book teaches, and someday we will return them to God. For the short time that our souls are in us, we must use them as God intended.

And so, too, everything that we have is on loan to us – placed in our hands so that we can lift someone’s spirit, relieve loneliness, or bring a spark of kindness into their lives.

There is a story of a Chassidic rebbe who lived in a beautiful house. A man came to see him, to ask the rebbe for advice. When the man entered the rebbe’s house, he was shocked to see that the house was totally bare. 

“Rebbe, where are your things?” the man asked.

“Where are yours?” said the rebbe.

“But I am only a visitor here,” the man said.

And the rebbe responded, “I am a visitor, too.”

That is the secret to leading a good life – to know that we are only visitors in God’s world, sent here to help each other.