(ו) וַאֲנִ֗י הִנֵּ֤ה לָקַ֙חְתִּי֙ אֶת־אֲחֵיכֶ֣ם הַלְוִיִּ֔ם מִתּ֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל לָכֶ֞ם מַתָּנָ֤ה נְתֻנִים֙ לַֽה׳ לַעֲבֹ֕ד אֶת־עֲבֹדַ֖ת אֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵֽד׃ (ז) וְאַתָּ֣ה וּבָנֶ֣יךָ אִ֠תְּךָ תִּשְׁמְר֨וּ אֶת־כְּהֻנַּתְכֶ֜ם לְכָל־דְּבַ֧ר הַמִּזְבֵּ֛חַ וּלְמִבֵּ֥ית לַפָּרֹ֖כֶת וַעֲבַדְתֶּ֑ם עֲבֹדַ֣ת מַתָּנָ֗ה אֶתֵּן֙ אֶת־כְּהֻנַּתְכֶ֔ם וְהַזָּ֥ר הַקָּרֵ֖ב יוּמָֽת׃ (ס)
(6) I hereby take your fellow Levites from among the Israelites; they are assigned to you in dedication to the LORD, to do the work of the Tent of Meeting; (7) while you and your sons shall be careful to perform your priestly duties in everything pertaining to the altar and to what is behind the curtain. I make your priesthood a service of dedication (Everett Fox: "and you are to do-service; serving-tasks of special-grant I give your priesthood"); any outsider who encroaches shall be put to death.
Rabbi Shai Held, "Giving, Taking, and the Temptations of Leadership"
The Torah is only too keenly aware that belief in divine election can easily give way to triumphalism and self-congratulation—and even worse, to the conviction that God has given Israel a moral blank check. Do not delude yourselves, says Deuteronomy; God chose you through no merit of your own. And the nation as a whole is more culpable— not less—on account of its special status.6 Similarly, the priests must bear in mind at all times that their elevation flows from divine grace rather than human achievement.
R. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951), pp. 36, 146.
Rabbi Shai Held: R. Abraham Joshua Heschel sharply distinguishes between two ways of being —“the way of expediency,” on the one hand, and “the way of wonder,” on the other. In the former, our eye is always on how we can get what we want; in the latter, our focus is on how we can serve. As R. Heschel puts it, when we are driven by expediency, “we accumulate information in order to dominate”; when we are animated by wonder, in contrast, “we deepen our appreciation in order to respond.” We are, all of us, pulled by two opposing forces, “the impulse to acquire, to enjoy, to possess and the urge to respond, to yield, to give.”
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, (comments to Numbers 18:7)
[Priestly service is] Characterized as a gift, of giving oneself, of devotion. All the acts performed in the Sanctuary reach their height in the concept of matanah, of giving oneself up, of devotion… The whole service in the Sanctuary has the purpose of teaching us to give ourselves and to give all the gifts that we receive from God up to God and God’s Torah.
Adam Grant, Wharton School professor of organizational psychology, author of Give and Take.
Here is my simple suggestion. It might just change your life, and it might just help to begin to change the world. Do a search and replace operation on the text of your mind. Wherever you encounter the word self, substitute the word other. Instead of self-help, other-help. Instead of self-esteem, other-esteem. If you do that, you will begin to feel the power of what for me is one of the most moving sentences in all of religious literature, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me."
We can face any future without fear so long as we know we will not face it alone. For the sake of the future you, together let us strengthen the future us.
Rabb Jonathan Sacks
https://rabbisacks.org/videos/facing-the-future-without-fear-together-ted-talk-at-ted2017/
Once, when I was traveling, I met a young woman who told me she had been in the mountains for eight months; she was trying to find herself. She spent most of her days sitting at the edge of the lake, searching for meaning in the ripples, trying to find patterns in nature that would help her make sense of who she was. I didn’t know her purpose, but I had a strange sense she wouldn’t find it in another eight months on that mountain. You want to find yourself? Go feed someone who’s hungry. Go help a child learn how to read. That may not be your life’s work, but it will surely help you discover what is. The answers are found in the service. Practice asking yourself at the start of each day, How can I be of service today? What can I do today to help another person? Just the questions will awaken you to the many daily opportunities we all have to do something small, even seemingly insignificant, for another person. When we habituate to seizing those small moments, we may discover that without even meaning to, we’ve landed on our purpose.
Rabbi Sharon Brous. The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World (pp. 184-185). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.