If it be the fantasy of a man to wreak himself upon another, to possess, then it can be the fantasy of a woman only to be possessed, to be material that is had. This notion of the self, I, as possessor, as owner, is undermined by those of us who think of ourselves as in ourselves material goods, which is to say, possessed of ourselves, and being of immediate benefit to others merely by being at all. This is the notion of the Creation as having been for the sake of giving the Torah to the Jews, and dementedly, this betokens a benefit to the cosmos by our having come to be, which it is incumbent upon us to redeem: it shall not have been a lie that the Torah was given to benefit the nations, and we must see to it that we are good, in keeping with our promise, in order that this shall be so.

As for the notion that this is a cosmic good, see Protagoras’s dictum that man is the measure of all things. We are wont to say that man is so small, and meaningless in view of the immensity of the cosmos, but this is reference to some standard that it is not given to us to measure by: it is surely meaningful to do well by your neighbor, or the reverse. – As Moses says: this teaching is not far away, in the heavens or over the sea, that you should need to go fetch it; it is upon your lips, that you may do it.