Why We Shouldn’t Chase Possessions - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

Ultimately, you can never own things. Things can always be taken away from us. They can break or they can be stolen or we can be taken away from them, which is why physical things never give us that much pleasure. The only things that really give us pleasure are spiritual things, our mitzvahs and our good deeds. Those can never be taken away from us. In this week's Torah portion, the two tribes of Reuben and Gad >> [music] >> ask Moshe if they can receive their portion of the land of Israel on the east bank of the Jordan. They say they want to build pens for the flocks and for our livestock and cities for our small children. Moshe agrees and says, "Build for yourselves cities for your small children and pens for your flocks." [music] Moshe reverses the original order of the sentence. There's an implicit [music] criticism here. It was as though Moshe was saying, "Why are you talking about building [music] stables for your cattle before building cities for your children? It seems you attach more importance to your possessions than to your children." In Hebrew, the word for possessions is nechasim. The word nechasim is related to the word muchuseh, which means concealed. For after a person passes from this world, he no longer possesses his possessions. They're concealed from him. Similarly, the coin known as a zuz derives from the verb lazuz, which means to [music] move, implying money is restless. The Hebrew word for money itself, mamon, is a contraction of ma ata moneh. What are you counting? Meaning, what you're counting is nothing. Nothing more than a Bentley that's going to turn into a pumpkin Continental.