How to think about the STOCK MARKET

The Midrash explains “Let every neshama – soul, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord” to mean that with every neshima – breath, you must thank God. The practice of praising God before eating or deriving benefit from something is a clear obligation in Jewish law. But the Midrash goes further, based on the verse, “Let every soul praise the Lord.” “We must bless God for every breath we take.” Now, it’s difficult enough to persuade the animal instinct in man to acknowledge that everything it possesses was in fact given to it by God; that before eating or drinking, it should affirm that “everything is created by His word,” without Him, even with the greatest of efforts, it would not have water to drink. We are talking about a sip of water, which is insignificant next to other possessions. Does one really need to give thanks for a small sip of water? Torah says: Not only must you express thanks, you must recite a blessing. And it must be said aloud so that another person can hear and answer, “Amen!” The blessing states: “Everything came to be by His word.” You only have this drink of water because it is being brought into being by God. Granted, you might have a lot of money, and give a lot of charity – that’s all great. But before you take a drink of water, you must give thanks to the One Who created it. And likewise with everything else that requires a blessing. The Midrash comes and takes this idea even further: God created human beings, including non-Jews, without their choice. And as long as you live, you must breathe. Whether you want to or not – you have no choice in the matter – you need to breathe! And the Midrash states that because you are able to breathe – even though it’s imposed upon you – you must give thanks to God for every single breath that you take. This ties into the idea brought in books on Jewish ethics and the like, that the more a person becomes accustomed to something, the more they begin to take it for granted. So a Jew must work on truly internalizing that everything exists thanks to God. When a person cooks up some clever business deal and succeeds beyond expectations and makes a handsome profit, they will agree that their success must have come thanks to God. But if it’s just a small deal with a small profit, or even if there was no major deal and the money came in a straightforward way:<a id="_gjdgxs"></a> You bought a stock on Wall Street, you went to sleep, and then the shares went up for everyone who bought them. Comes along your evil inclination: “Why are you suddenly waking up and thanking God for your fortune? The company has a million shares, of which only a small fraction belong to Jews, and you happen to be one of them. <i>All </i>the shares went up. Clearly, God wouldn’t perform a miracle to ensure that only your shares do <i>not </i>go up. Obviously, your shares will go up together with everyone else’s... That’s how Wall Street works. So what are you thanking God for? It feels like you’re being disingenuous.” You see nothing special here, no special connection to the Jewish shareholders. In fact, the percentage owned by Jews is only a tiny fraction of the total shares. No. If you own a share, your thinking must be exactly the opposite. All the shareholders, the company itself, in fact, <i>all </i>of Wall Street, were all created only to serve God. Inasmuch as God wants to provide you with financial success and to add a few extra dollars to your net worth, He created all the rest of the world so that <i>you, </i>the individual<i>, </i>can serve Him. You suddenly realize that God created Wall Street and all its brokers, and all the “experts” who can wheel and deal even better than you... Torah wants you to know that all these experts were created for you to be able to make your deal. And <i>your</i> entire success is just so you can have another few dollars in order to give more charity. So we need no further explanation as to why we must give thanks to God. But to truly internalize this is one of the most difficult things. Just like giving thanks to God for every single breath we take.