Kosher Money: More Valuable Than $ - Family Time {Part 1}

if you wake up in the morning and you're sane you have people in the house with you you have a family you're not a millionaire you're a lot more than that right how many millions would people pay to be alive to be healthy to have family to have friends all of these things you know each one of the billion things that have to go right for brother not to be in pain you would pay a million dollars for each of them you could make a list of at least a million things that you would pay a million dollars to fix with the person's body and you have all of them hi guys Ellie Langer here with the kosher money podcast if you don't know what the kosher money podcast is it's a show about money the things they don't teach you in school from a Jewish perspective sometimes our episodes are about investing or managing your finances but today's conversation is different it's the view from a rabbis lens on seven Commodities more valuable than the thing everybody is seemingly chasing money enjoy the episode being a Jew awesome managing personal finances not so awesome welcome to kosher money R gladstein so good to have you let's get right into it the world revolves around money there's no denying that everyone needs money to live the question is are there actually things more valuable than money yeah right like how could that be how could anything be more valuable than money you know money makes the world tick but this is one of my favorite questions because when I was thinking about this I had I don't know to me at least it was a revelation because you could look at it the exact opposite way is anything more value than money you know it hit me is there anything not more valuable than money is there anything in this world less valuable than money because think about it we take money and we exchange it for a myriad of possible things we exchange it for milk bread bananas cars clothing houses tuition that means whatever we're exchanging for money we are deeming is more important than money so there's almost nothing in this world less important than money actually the question is not what is more important than money but we need to measure up all the various Myriad things in this world what is more important than the other so that we will use money to buy that instead of other things so it was a a reality shifting question for me what is uh more valuable that money now when you ask a rabbi what's more valuable that money you know the audience is thinking you know you know we know what's coming you know he's going to say all the spiritual Pursuits and all of the values of family life so I want to carefully introduce this subject with an important message I think and that is Judaism values money greatly money is extremely important there's a documented story about one of the greatest R this's is a little trivia question the rim from the era of the middle eval era who was the greatest of all the ram the risham was the era of Jewish history say from about the year 900 to 1500 approximately and if you ask most Yesa students you know who is the greatest of all the rim they would probably say Thea myones actually that is the opinion of theard but ashkenazim Jews of ashkenazic descent from Germany from Germany and later Poland um and other countries our tradition is that Rabin the grand son of Rashi was the greatest of all the in wisdom and in the number of students he had he was extremely sharp one of the greatest analytical Minds in the last thousand years and rabam was extremely wealthy he had many house attendants and Rabin Tam before he would begin to study a Torah portion he would actually take out his money MH he would count it mhm it would put him in a happy mood and then he would begin to learn so let's think about it at first it sounds like uh a story we want to cover over right but the Mahar Mahar was one of the earliest of the say of the after 1500 he records this as a legitimate tradition that we have about rabo so what we see from the story is that money is valuable but it's a tool if you have it it gives you a certain peace of mind so now you could use that content to be able to study and come close to hasem and be involved in spiritual Pursuits so on the one hand it shows the value of money but it also shows that money is a tool to help you get to another place in fact if I could add you know in in Psalms uh King David says I'll say in Hebrew I'll translate it's you know there a lot of songs with that uh with that verse literally means God your teaching is better for me than thousands of dollars of silver and gold but says there's another interpretation so about 200 years ago he says you know when the Torah is sweet to me if I have money and I could appreciate it and I could have peace of mind then the Toyah is even sweeter than than that and I could appreciate the T from the contentment I have from the money so it's not that we're undermining or devaluating money it's it's there are things more valuable it's interesting because when we think of money we think of it as a physical item right that there's nothing spiritual it can't lead to any growth in spirituality but you're saying that that's not the correct way to look at money it's not the correct it's a tool money is a tool a tool could be dangerous and a tool could be extremely powerful and it all depends how you use it so Rabin by the way throughout his discussions in the his comments to sh to the you find consistently the value he places on business and how it's considered a mitzvah for example just you know short example the is you're not allowed to take a business trip and set sale uh Less Than 3 days before because you might not make it in time or the the jarring nature of travel might disturb your peace of mind on chabas however for a mitzvah for for a fulfillment of a commandment of Hashem you're allow to set sail within three days of chabas RA says going to do business deal is considered a Mitzvah is considered a religious activity because it's a way to support your family so Rabin valued money but he used it as a way to advance his uh Torah learning so whatever we're going to say today is not coming from a place of not appreciating money but just the opposite Judaism values money as a tool to bring us to bigger and better and we spent so much of our time at work which it it kind of flips the script right when you leave synagogue in the morning and then you come to work you feel like you're doing the mundane you're doing physicality and then you know in the evening when we go to learn or pray then we return to God then we return to spirituality but you're saying it's one fluid motion throughout the day absolutely we've once discussed in the past that you know in the month of el we blow the Shar when not before we pray not before we learn right before we work because our focus is okay we want to make sure that our work is done with the proper spiritual frame of mind that's mha Feinstein writes this in his respons Ra was on leading Hal authorities of the last uh generation and I also want to just um correct and misnomer that people have they think okay there's a secular world and then there's a religious world and the religious world is the world of the supernatural the mysticism we're above and beyond reason I'm not coming from that Vantage Point here I want to share with you a teaching of actually we have the privilege tonight today to get together on the yard side on the day of the passing of the 24th day of el taught he says you know in the world people think that religion demands that we be from from religious uh saintly no in Judaism the objective is not to be from saintly the objective is to be smart so whatever we say today I'm not here to tell you Superstition or mysticism it's a matter of making smart decisions so with that introduction you know you uh rais a very challenging question what in this world is more valuable than money what could it possibly be right we spend 8 to 10 of our waking hours the other eight were sleeping and then we have six left over all in the pursuit of this green bill or whatever country you're in and then we take it we put it in our pocket and we feel good right like is that it is that the Pinnacle of this world attaining that taking a green rectangle right and putting it in your pocket right and let nobody touch it so you know there's a ceremony in Judaism if someone has a firstborn son so technically it's owned by you know the clergy by the cohain by the the priest even today we have many kohanim you go to they get the they get called up to the Torah first and we do a procedure called pen right we we redeem our firstborn where the Torah teaches technically speaking your firstborn kid is owned by the clergy but obviously there's a way to have him released have their claim on him released so the procedure goes you know you invite all your friends it's like another Brisa celebration you invite all your friends and you have the priest sitting up there and you know we want to make sure this priest has the purest lineage he could trace back to Aron hen the first high priest and we give him five silver coins the total value is I don't know 100 bucks or something like that and we give him the coins and he poses an amazing question he says and now we're going to learn Aramaic because our very sophisticated audience they need to know English they need to know Hebrew and we're going to do a little Aramaic we we'll we'll translate we'll give captions okay good he says pal what do you want more what would you like more your firstborn kin or the five silver coin okay so just imagine you know you have a kid you give theen the five the five bucks the five silver coins and he asks you you sure you want to give me the money and take your kid what do you really want your kid or the money and obviously the father I don't think in history any father ever said hm you know come to think of it I'd rather have the money for sure not by the first kid maybe by the third kid already the father's thinking I'm not sure any and the father says I want I want my kid so here's the money I'm going to take my kid so it's it's like a rhetorical question what would you like more well mean what would you like more your kid or the money so Ruderman who is the rashash the the leader of the Yeshiva Nar Baltimore he would say that this is not an isolated question this is a question that reverberates into every decision we make in our entire life we always have to ask ourselves what do we want more do we want the money or is there maybe an more important value that we should be pursuing whenever we make a decision in life we have to ask ourselves you know when we go on vacation we have to ask what do we want more do we want this vacation or maybe there's a value that we need to be looking into that's more important than this vacation or whenever we spend money on something or whenever we decide on any activity we partake in we have to ask ourselves what do we really want more in life so there was a a rabbi in New Jersey a lot of rabbis in New Jersey yeah he was counseling a couple a high-powered uh couple and this couple uh would work every night till 9:00 p.m. 10 p.m. 10:30 p.m. and the kids would be waiting at the window you know noses pressed up against the glass waiting for Daddy and Mommy to come home and you know the half asleep and the father and mother would come in half asleep and the kids you know were half asleep and the father and mother would take the kids up to sleep and the rabbi so why why you doing this why are you working so much and the parents said what do you mean we want to give the kids a good life we want to give the kids food clothing good vacations good college education good future just not just our kids our grand we want to give our kids everything everything but parents the parents wanted to give the kids everything but parents so that's something we always have to ask ourselves money is very valuable is it more valuable than being a parent than raising our children you know in Judaism sometimes we ask you know what value does the Torah place on spending time with children you know do we find great rabbis spend time with children so it's it's interesting you know I I researched this topic I have a friend Kenny pinu he showed me that the again it's his yard side so he he's just making a lot of appearances said the same way Judaism believes we have to be K set aside fixed times for learning in the morning in the evening one also has to betim set aside fixed times to overseeing the education and the development of your children every morning every evening you can't just say well I'm just going to DAV in today I'm just going to learn today you also have to spend time with your children daily you know this is coming from the who valued time more than the you know the didn't want to buy shoes with laces because it took a few extra seconds a day to tie the shoes better with velcro or slip on okay so we're not talking about somebody who had a lot of time on their hands we're talking about somebody who valued every millisecond of life but he said you have to set aside time every morning and every night to spend time with your children so that's something that's more valuable than money when it's all said and done people regret oh I wish I could have spent more time with my children that I wish I could have spent more time in the office the brisker of you know the brisker of dedicated 10 years of his life to learn with his children now you know in in the early days of the state of Israel the reality was many of the Great Torah leaders their children did not always stay on the streight Arrow there were many many very prominent religious families that their children because many of them gets got swept away with the spirit of the day and uh they would ask the brisar you know like what did you do what did you do to marit brisk all his children were what we call God-fearing wholesome and the brisk would always downplay it he would say you know there are no techniques there's no there no parenting courses it's all all about prayer you have to pray for your children but you can't help but think he really the bisar dedicated 10 years of his life you know not not for his own not to write his own Torah innovative ideas to learn with his children that's something that uh every parent is challenged to really carve out the time to to spend time with their children you can't do it every night you know certainly shabas weekends as much as you can in Jud this is more valuable than money you know the one of the greatest Torah Scholars of the last generation was R kki lived in Ben and he was the address for all all of the Jewish people for any problem any halic inquiry any any issue and you know where did such a person come from his father his father rakov Isel kki he was known as the stier G when R kki was young the stier Learned with him always daily many many tractates ofas many many different garas he learned with him hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and you know one might have said that well you know why is he spending so so much time with his kid he could be you know writing his own books he could be and look look what he produced you know so the real investment the real investment because what you're saying gives a whole new meaning to homework homework is considered a chore right I have to sit and go over math equations with my son I have to learn with him and break my teeth to try to better understand a already after a Long Day's Work homework's not in the morning I mean for the most part right so look I'm not the biggest homework guy it doesn't have to be you know what the morrow what the teacher what the rebi said okay learn this it's a matter of cultivating that relationship regarding of course spending time doing things the kid enjoys but regarding the values that the parents want to transmit to their children so that's certainly something more valuable than money