Money Feature
How to be religious with your money
By: Paula Levin
“Successful people set the norms that most people cannot afford yet try to emulate.”
Our communities are in financial crisis. The cost of living for the average Jewish family seems to require far more money than we earn, as school fees, medical aids, kosher food, and the need to fund private utilities like water and electricity take big bites out of our income! Some families are reliant on welfare or subsidies, many have ballooning debt, and most are unable to save for future expenses like weddings and old age. It’s easy to say “have faith and everything will be ok” – but is this an authentic Jewish approach or a way to evade the hard work of being responsible with our money? Rabbi Levi Avtzon shared recently (in a different context) that simplistic ideas are like unripe fruit, not only are they not nutritious – they give you a stomach ache. Even the truth that “G-d will provide”, when not fully understood, can actually create damage and dysfunction. So let’s dig deeper into how spirituality and money intersect.
There’s a Jewish joke about a conversation between a man and his future son-in-law. “How are you going to provide for yourself and my daughter?” The young man replies: “G-d will provide.” The man continues by asking, “How will you support your children?” The young man replies with great conviction: “G-d will provide.” The man, a bit concerned, asked another question, “Do you have any savings? What is your plan in life?” The young man looks the father straight in the eyes and says: “God will provide” Later on, the bride-to-be’s mother asks her husband, “So how did it go?” The father answers, “The bad news is that he has no money, and no plans, but the good news is he thinks I’m G-d!”
“In Israel, the saying “Hakol yihye b’seder” – everything will be ok, is synonymous with ‘I can’t be bothered’. What sounds like an expression of deep trust is actually the avoidance of effort,” says Rabbi Moishe Kohn, coach, trainer, and supervisor for international financial literacy organisation Mesila. Mesila has helped almost 10 000 families get a handle on their finances and build a long-term plan to maintain financial stability. The organisation promotes correct financial attitudes and habits through education programmes in schools and through workshops and seminars in the community because as they say “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”.
Rabbi Kohn visited South Africa earlier this year at the invitation of Ohr Somayach’s Rabbi Daniel Beider. As a community rabbi, former banker, and fund manager, having lived in the UK, Israel, and Joburg, Rabbi Beider has observed that many families spend more than 100% of what they earn each month, getting deeper into debt and living in not-so-blissful ignorance of the looming consequences. Seeing the need for financial coaching and an authentic Torah-based approach to money management, Rabbi Beider is working to drive awareness of Mesila’s services and the importance of being responsible with our money. “I’ve been puzzled for many years by people’s spending habits and identified a knowledge gap that I believe Mesila can help bridge. Successful people set the norms that most people cannot afford yet try to emulate. We may need to rethink our standard of living – such as frequent holidays, big homes, and entertaining. We definitely need to stop comparing ourselves to others. I’ve found Mesila’s approach to be very empowering, focused on what we can do to live within our means while still aspiring to our goals. They teach how painless or even painful cuts in spending can allow for better decision making, and how to generate more money to achieve financial goals.”
A financial advisor I interviewed years ago says that people become more ‘religious’ as the month wears on – and as they find ‘more month than money’ they turn to anxiety-fuelled prayers to ‘magically’ fix their problems. Prayer of course is fundamental to Judaism, but as Rebbetzin Yemima Mizrachi puts it, G-d is not an ATM machine. Prayer is the building of a deep and authentic relationship with Hashem, it should energise and nurture us. Whether or not our prayers are answered in a revealed way, they should bring us closer to G-d, giving us the strength to get through another day. Like a loving father faced with a child in a tantrum because he wants to put his fingers in the electrical socket, G-d will never give us something that harms our development, no matter how much we beg. Our task, then, is to become more self aware about what physical and spiritual effort we need to put into achieving a financially healthy position.
“Faith is knowing that the outcome is G-d’s will, perhaps for a reason we cannot understand and for our higher good.”
Faith means putting in effort and energy into life and working to partner with G-d in bringing Him into every aspect of our lives – this is called hishtadlus. Optimistically trusting that the outcome will be good is called bitachon. The outcome is not limited to our effort and it may not even necessarily be connected to our effort because G-d is unlimited, loves us unconditionally, and wants to give us abundance. But our effort needs to allow G-d to provide for us in a non-miraculous way. Faith is knowing that the outcome is G-d’s will, perhaps for a reason we cannot understand and for our higher good. Ignoring our part of this equation but having faith that G-d will do the heavy lifting is not bitachon. “Sometimes people say ‘Hashem ya’azor’ – G-d will help – instead of also taking action,” says Rabbi Beider. “Hishtadlus is like pressing a button to access what G-d wants to provide – we have to push the button,” he says. “This includes planning for the future. Our children’s weddings or Pesach every year cannot be called unforeseen expenses. We need to think ahead.”
To have an honest relationship with G-d and trust in a positive, abundant outcome, we must do everything in our power to create the spiritual and physical vessels to contain the financial security that can be ours. The many spiritual vessels available to us such as giving tzedaka and practicing gratitude are beyond the scope of this article, but they don’t preclude the physical vessels we must create. “These involve doing work that can provide an income ‘b’derech hateva’ – the natural way – without requiring a supernatural miracle, and then managing that income responsibly,” explains Rabbi Beider.
“Say ‘yes’ to the future vision, rather than saying ‘no’ to the present temptation.”
Every month, we are given a certain amount for our needs but how responsibly – and consciously – do we spend this money? “The first step to financial health is awareness,” says Rabbi Kohn. “In our coaching process we ask people to track and categorise every cent they’ve spent in the previous three months. So often people say, “I don’t even know where the money goes.” Only with awareness can we take back control. This step should give you a high-resolution picture of what your income and expenses are. Next, we talk about where you want to get to. Your vision. Perhaps you want to live with less stress, take a family holiday, save for a wedding, or retirement. Every person has a different vision and couples need to talk about what their shared vision is. Again, we need a high-resolution picture in vivid detail – we need to really imagine what it would feel like to achieve these goals. Then we look at what changes need to be made to get from your current reality to your goal. Making changes will involve some hard choices, but we want to frame these as saying ‘yes’ to the future vision, rather than saying ‘no’ to the present temptation.” Then we learn about how to maintain this change – like revisiting the budget once every month.”
Mesila has a school curriculum designed to teach children basic financial literacy, but parents should also be paying attention to what messages they are teaching their children about money. These messages and experiences form deep-seated emotions that drive future behaviour. “We advise parents not to tell children they can’t afford something, and rather say a more neutral statement like ‘it’s not in the budget’,” says Rabbi Kohn. Rabbi Beider suggests we help our children make good spending decisions when they are old enough, for instance when buying stationary for the new school year. “Give them a budget and help them walk around the store and see how much things cost. Help them see that if they choose everything from a high-end store, they won’t be able to get everything on the list, but if they are smart about what they choose, they will be able to get one ‘luxury’ item. Personally, I would add a bit extra to the budget so that they can get one really nice thing. It should be a positive experience.”
Rabbi Kohn says that sometimes people need to go a little deeper into the “money scripts” they have embedded in their thinking, become aware of them, and change them for a healthier attitude. Awareness is the key to healthier spending habits. A major contributor to financial stress which has a knock-on effect on shalom bayis – peace in the home – is our desire to have what wealthier people have and spend as if we actually do! Nowhere is this more apparent than in how we celebrate simchas like weddings and bar mitzvas. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, Rabbi Levy Wineberg shared a powerful anecdote that happened to his father. The senior Rabbi Wineberg used to broadcast a Torah class over the radio every motzei Shabbat. With his son Levy’s bar mitzvah scheduled for a motzei Shabbat, he asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe if he could do the broadcast remotely and tell the audience he was broadcasting from the bar mitzvah hall. The Rebbe told him not to use the word “hall”, as this would conjure up a lavish image in the eyes of the listeners, putting them under financial pressure to also have an expensive function. “The Torah has regard for the money of the Jewish People,” he explained, and taught a valuable lesson about the power of our words and actions to influence others, as well as the importance of sensitivity to the financial situation of members of our community. Rabbi Beider explains that this same principle drove Rabbonim from a previous era to go the extra mile even merely to declare a chicken kosher – so as not to cause a significant financial loss to the family who had already bought it.
Ultimately, though we do indeed face financial constraints and a changing lifestyle in South Africa, we cannot allow these realities to determine our happiness or blind us to the abundance we still enjoy – living today like the kings of old. As Mesila Chairman Shmuli Margulies puts it, it’s how you manage your money that defines your quality of life, rather than the cost of living. “We all want a worry-free life,” says Rabbi Beider. “For 40 years in the desert Hashem showed us He takes care of us, so we don’t need to worry – but we do need to be responsible.” He concluded with the story of a Satmer Chassid who asked his Rebbe about the importance of reciting Parshat Hamon (the Torah portion describing the Manna that fell in the desert) as a segula for parnassa. The Rebbe replied that a good segula was being at work by 9:30 in the morning! Indeed, navigating the delicate dance between the spiritual and the physical is the work of our lifetime. May we develop the wisdom, strength, and self-awareness to partner with G-d in bringing financial abundance into our lives and use these blessings to make this world a kinder, better, more G-dly place.
Resources
Mesila.com
