Honestly, robomatic, I didn't intend to make a federal case out of it, nor am I particularly ego-involved in the accuracy of the translation, especially since it is not my own (as I said, I don't speak Hebrew). I was relaying the Hillel quote as it was translated for me by my friend, who spoke Hebrew fluently. If it was not as most people would translate it, that I don't know. I presume that my friend had a reason for translating it the way he did. Perhaps it is one of those things that can be read either way, but as to that, I couldn't say.

But—what I was attempting to point out in my original post on the subject was that, as Troll posted it, the quote was incomplete. "If I am not for myself, who will be?" (or whatever) standing by itself could be someone's brief for self-centeredness. In the complete thought that Hillel was endeavoring to put across, "If I am only for myself, what am I?" negates the self-centered aspect of it. That was where I drew the parallel with the Jesus quote, which strikes me as saying essentially the same thing, but in a somewhat different frame.

Anyway, that's all I was trying to say.

Don Firth