By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Are you rich?
Or poor?
Or neither rich nor poor?
If you answered yes to being rich:
Do you wish you were poor?
If you answered yes to being poor:
Do you wish you were rich?
If you answered yes to being neither rich nor poor:
Do you wish you were richer or poorer than your current state?
The question came to my mind because of two conversations I had with people who are on opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. One is wealthy. One is poor.
The rich one was philosophizing and waxing eloquent to me about how happiness is a state of mind. One can be happy regardless of one’s economic state.
I told him that I agree fully. Happiness is in the mind. But I asked him to be a bit more mindful of the suffering of the needy. Take into account that when one has a padded bank account it is more conducive to be content. Just like when one is healthy it is easier to be upbeat than if one is G-d forbid unwell.
The person I was speaking to was not really coming around to my way of thinking. He was quite adamant that even if he went through deprivation and illness, he would maintain his inner equilibrium. He communicated a message that sounded to me like ‘I wish I was poor so I could exercise the muscle of inner contentment and rise to the challenge of being happy even under duress’. I tried to get him to ‘climb down from the tree’ and convince him to count his blessings, but he seemed to be genuinely envious of the tremendous spiritual elevation of the poor. Incredulously he was desirous of the challenge of rising above the pitfalls created by deprivation and suffering.
The other person I spoke to was someone poor. She asked the existential question. ‘Why do I have to be on the receiving end all the time. I worked all my life in an honest way, my husband is an upright hardworking man. We have fallen on hard times, and now to survive and cover our basic needs, I need to be a recipient of help from the Tzedaka fund. I know that G-d has arranged giving and receiving as foundational principles in His world, but why did He place me on the receiving end?’
Two people. One rich. One poor.
The poor one dislikes being poor and wants to be rich.
The rich one, doesn’t think wealth is all that important. He would rather be poor and prove to himself that he could still be happy.
I was left a bit bewildered at the end of the day.
You see, I could relate to the poor person wanting to not be poor.
But I was wondering how the rich person could be so ungrateful and unfeeling about his blessings of wealth.
Maybe he had never felt the taste of poverty? So he was simply unempathetic to the plight of those who live in fear about where tomorrows food will come (or where todays food will come).
Or maybe he was onto something. Perhaps it was truly admirable to be dismissive of wealth and wish you were struggling. For after all, struggling and rising higher, brings out the best in some.
As in everything, the answer is to be found in the Torah which is the blueprint for life.
The Torah speaks this week about the gifts the Jewish people should bring for constructing the Temple.
Everyone must contribute. At their level of possibility and generosity.
The list of materials starts with gold, then moves to silver, and finally copper.
The Rebbe points out that it would seemingly be more caring and inclusive if the donation list started with the more affordable metal of copper. Surely everyone could afford to give some copper for the Temple. Gold may be out of the reach of some.
The answer is simple and profound.
The Torah starts with gold, because the preferred and more blessed state is that every Jew should be able to afford to give some gold. Being financially well-off is a BLESSING. It is the blessing of REVEALED good as opposed to DISGUISED good.
Everyone’s life will have challenges.
The rich have their sets of challenges. The poor have different challenges.
One of the challenges that gold and wealth brings with it, is to do the RIGHT thing with the gold. If you have gold, you have the struggle of giving away ten (or preferably twenty) percent of it to others. Giving gold to build G-d’s abode on earth, means that you have the right perspective on life. Wealth is for usage in higher and holier and more benevolent purposes.
One of the challenges of poverty is to remain upbeat and joyous even through the indignity of being one of the have-nots of life.
When one is confused about which mission was handed to him, that is truly sad.
A quick story.
A wealthy businessman and his experienced wagon driver showed up to a town on Friday. They stopped there for Shabbat. The businessman quickly brought provisions for Shabbat and came to Synagogue a few hours early. While he was there studying, someone came running in to the Synagogue to look for help in getting his horses out of the deep winter mud. The businessman was a kindhearted man and went out to help. Not being experienced with horses he got battered up, muddy and was not much of a help.
The experienced coachman also went to buy Shabbat provisions. He was also of the kindhearted type. After the services, he decided to invite fellow itinerant travelers to his hotel room for the Shabbat dinner. As a working-class wagon driver his meal was meager and although he shared, the menu was paltry. The guests were hungry even after the meal.
Where was the wealthy man? He was sitting in his upscale room muddy, bruised and all alone. He had plenty of food, and plenty of leftovers that weren’t eaten.
When they got up to the Heavenly court, the verdict was that these two souls have gotten their missions confused.
The wealthy businessman should have hosted many guests and given them a hearty meal. The poor guests would have been satiated.
The coachman should have helped get the horse out of the mud. He would have done an effective job.
A cosmic mix-up.
The Heavenly court said, the souls would have to go back down to earth and try and get their missions right.
My message to you is, be honest with yourself and recognize your mission here on earth.
To those who are wealthy your challenge is how to use your wealth wisely.
Don’t wish you had the poor man’s challenge.
Rather step up to YOUR mission with determination.
To the poor.
You too have challenges. Why you?
Hashem is the One who chose who gets the position of giving and who gets the challenge of taking.
While changing the reality may not be possible, we can at least change the mindset by reframing how one looks at being a recipient.
Just as those who give must do so with a sense of purpose and mission.
So too those who have been instructed by G-d to be on the taking side, must do so with gracefulness and the equanimity that comes with full faith in Hashem and His decisions regarding us.
You may not be able to give money. But there are numerous things that you can contribute back to society. Through the non-monetary gifts that G-d has blessed you with. Some of them far more important than money.
Which is harder? Being poor or wealthy?
Depends how you look at it. On the one hand it is harder physically to be poor. On the other hand, wealth is harder on the spiritual side. It is easier to become spiritually insensitive with wealth. Excess money allows one to get into more indulgent and decadent activities.
What should you wish for and pray for?
The Rabbi’s throughout the ages gave various angles to this.
The Rebbe taught us that in our times we ought to wish for wealth.
(Wealth is not identified by a particular monetary figure. Wealth starts from the point of having enough for your needs and then some).
Why pray, wish and bless others with wealth? Isn’t it more difficult to stay spiritually sensitive with wealth?
Because the more you have, the greater opportunity you have to help others. And there are so many causes and things that need help.
Both are challenging.
However, the challenge of wealth when overcome, yields far more help to the poor.
Imagine. A poor person sacrifices their café brewed coffee and gives the equivalent to tzedakah. It’s a great sacrifice. Practically though, the yield is a few dollars.
Now let’s imagine the wealthy magnate who ‘sacrifices’ and forgoes their private jet and flies on a commercial airline. And gives the money they saved to tzedakah. It would amount to a few tens of thousands of dollars.
For both of them it was a real sacrifice. Each of them did something that was not easy for them.
For the poor people benefiting from the results, the yield is tremendously higher in the case of the wealthy magnate.
Thus, we pray for wealth, and we pray to use that wealth in the way that G-d intended.
Most importantly, don’t waste energy on wishing you were someone else, who lived somewhere else and who was doing other things.
Recognize who you are, where you are, and what your G-dly mission is.
And don’t let your unique challenges stymie you. Recognize that they are your G-d given, tailor-made ‘hurdles’ intended not to obstruct you, but rather to cause you to jump higher and reach deeper.
With blessings for a Shabbat Shalom!!!!
And an early Happy Purim for this coming Thursday night/Friday.
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS with all this talk of helping others, please help others who are in need www.jewishthailand.com/tzedaka