DEUT823 … it is morally obligatory upon a person in some contexts to place the interest of his own family or of any group with which he is associated over the interests of others (See N. Samuelson in Sh'ma 7/125). This is so because morality, which deals with the appropriate behavior between persons, must not only take into consideration the essential value of the individual, but must also determine the particular relationship that exists between the individuals involved. And human relationships are varied and complex. There are parents and children, debtors and creditors, subjects and sovereign, brothers and sisters, neighbors, professional associates, countrymen, etc., and all sorts of combinations and permutations thereof. But each relationship sets up special expectations and imposes special moral obligations upon those who stand in that relationship. Thus the Mishnah rules that in a choice of benefiting father or teacher, teacher comes first, because he has done more for you (your father has given you existence in this world, but your teacher, who teaches you the Torah, brings you into the world-to-come, the world of eternal spirit. Of course, if your father has also taught you Torah, then he has priority.) Or consider the behavior expected of the owner of a Hebrew slave. On the basis of the passage, "… Because it shall be good for him with thee ...," the Talmud rules that if the owner has only one pillow, he must give it to the slave. Clearly, it is the nature of the particular relationship, master to slave, with the subservient condition of the slave (rather than the general principle of man's obligation to man), that creates a moral obligation for the owner to sacrifice his own comfort for the sake of the slave [this verse, Bava Metzia 62a; see the comments of Maharam Schiff]. Similarly, the loyalty one owes to members of one's group, be it family, neighborhood, or country, is based on a tacit "social contract" that converts all such close social groupings into mutual-aid societies of a sort.