Holding Compassion and Justice Together?

I find myself in a strange place in regards to my divorce, holding both compassion and justice together, side by side. They bicker with each other occasionally, as they often encourage contrasting courses of action. It's a weird sense though. I feel like I'm in some kind of irreconcilable conflict with myself.

In trying to make sense of it I keep going back to the Kabbalistic shattered vessel, in that my divorce shattered my reality, and my self-identity, into disparate parts, justice, compassion, and others (though justice and compassion have the strongest voices). I wonder if my desire to re-boot my life through graduate school isn't really just my attempt to re-build those disparate parts into something new, and hopefully better.

It's funny, that seems selfish and frivolous in some ways, as if I'm doing this just for myself. And that wouldn't be an unfair assessment either, yet one of my goals from graduate school is to build my knowledge and skills to advocate for my community, which is laudable, in a more typical moralistic context.

Again, another contrast to hold. If one's goals are sub-consciously directed by self-interest, but consciously directed by benefiting others, what's the root here? Or is it within this balance, of self-interest and helping others, that harmony is found? Perhaps to be truly capable this contrast must be hold together?

Then, what of, in a larger sense, is my moral nature? My morals are built on the conscious idea that their precepts and dictates are of the benefit of others, not me, yet I selfishly hold strict to them. Many would see this is as an unhealthy balance, that I should have both my conscious and sub-conscious mind in harmony, yet the Kabbalistic tree of life speaks differently.

The tree of life is a balance of opposite forces, of passivity and activity, of femininity and masculinity, of harmony and chaos. Why cannot I find my path through these balancing extremes? Isn't that inherent in the Kabbalistic natural world?

Or maybe I'm just finding religious precepts to cling to in order to justify myself.

Food for thought...

- Jason