R. Abba states: The Holy One, Blessed be He, seized Yerovam by his garment and said to him "Repent and I, you and the son of Yishai will walk together in Gan Eden." Yerovam said " Who will be first?" [God answered] "Ben Yishai will be first." [Yerovam responded] " If so, I do not want this." (Sanhedrin 102a)

This story certainly conveys the destructive potential of human egotism. Yerovam turns down a choice portion in the world to come simply because Dovid haMelekh will receive a more prominent position. R. Yaakov Ettlinger, in his Arukh leNer, finds an additional element in this tale. He notes that God's original offer was "I, you and the son of Yishai." The ordering of the three parties implies that Yerovam had a chance to come before Dovid. R. Ettlinger suggests that the original offer did involve Yerovam coming first as it was based on his repenting out of the purest idealism. Once Yerovam responded with the question of who gets to be first, it became clear that he was only capable of a much less refined type of teshuvah and the divine offer shifted.

If Arukh leNer is correct, this story reminds us that the ravenous hunger for honor often prevents the hungry individual from satiating his hunger. Those who strive after other ideals may end up with honor but those who shamelessly pursue honor will only find themselves the subject of ridicule. Honor falls into the category of achievements that one can only arrive at through the pursuit of a different goal. Both happiness and friendship may also depend on such an indirect approach.

C. S. Lewis says it beautifully in The Four Loves: "That is why those pathetic people who simply "want friends" can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be "I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend," no Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow - travelers."

I am certainly not suggesting that choosing the right ideals leads to a life in which everything always works out and all problems go away. This is patently false. Nonetheless, I think it striking the degree to which achieving honor, happiness and friendship truly depends upon the pursuit of other ideals and not the direct pursuit of the above. Of course, one can not pretend to want real ideals while only doing it for the sake of honor. The indirect method only works when one has an authentic desire to strive for the noble.

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