After earning millions as a real-estate mogul, he gave away a 87,000-square-foot apartment building to a school for the disabled in Philadelphia and, later, bestowed multimillion-dollar gifts on health causes. Shedding almost his entire fortune in 2003, he then did the nearly unimaginable: He donated his kidney to a perfect stranger, against the wishes of his wife.

Here are five questions for Kravinsky, a Jewish philanthropist, husband and father, who is in Honolulu with his wife, a psychologist, for a conference on teaching children about community service.

What kind of message do you have for students?

"It's possible for a morally- average individual such as myself to conceive moral ambitions and attempt to fulfill them in some fashion beneficial to others."

Since you're a parent yourself, what can parents do to encourage children to show service to others?

"I think they have to do it by example. They have to show, in essence, their love of others

extends beyond the family. If they love exclusively, they learn to love exclusively. If they love the family of man, they'll respond to the larger family of men and women."

But don't children need to have someone who loves them exclusively, and above all others? I am a mother, and I would make sure my sons have the last morsel, if it's all that's available, even if it meant I went without or other people went without.

"Yes, but what about when your son has a morsel? Then, what should you do with the rest? No one should have two houses until everyone has one. Until everyone has something."

Is there such a thing as a limit to giving? And giving till it hurts?

"I don't believe there is a limit to giving. That's why people find me strange. I genuinely don't. As for giving, it has to hurt so much, it has to kill you. Then, you've given by your example. We'll admire the fireman who rushes into the burning building to save an infant. Each of us is that fireman, and each is that infant."

You gave away one kidney. Would you give away the other, even if it meant death?

"I'd be willing to give my second kidney to a scientist who couldn't otherwise obtain a kidney, who's about to cure cancer or AIDS."