There are lots of gurus out there that will sell you the
Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the desert of Arizona and promise you, if you
only buy their secret to success, you will have great riches. Lots of people
get taken, and when they follow the advice and don’t make the seven digits a
year income, all types of explanations and excuses are offered. You didn’t do
it right. You need to buy more…. Bottom line, it’s your fault, on and on.
G-d created the world and knows best how it operates, for
ultimate success and happiness. If you are struggling to make it really big in
your industry and just seem not to be able to crack that ceiling, let’s see
what the Torah-G-ds wisdom has to say regarding the movement of money, how it
flows.
Said Rabbi Yitzchak. “If someone tells you, ‘I labored but
did not succeed’ do not believe him. ‘I have not labored, yet I have succeeded’
do not believe him. ‘I have labored and succeeded, you may believe him.”
This sound like a reasonable “self-made” capitalistic recipe
to riches. Take full responsibility and get with it. There are no short cuts,
and as the expression goes, “the harder I work the luckier I get.”
But before you get snug with this great advice, the Talmud
continues.
“This (the above statement) is true of Torah study, but with
regards to business, ones success is dependent not on one’s personal efforts
but on assistance from heaven. And even with Torah Study, that was not said
except to the understanding of Torah, but in regard to retaining one’s
learning, one’s success is dependent on assistance from heaven.”
Now we are looking at an entirely new paradigm. Making money
is not a matter of, “working hard to succeed” but rather, entirely in the hands
of Heaven! As a matter of fact the Sages couldn’t be any clearer. “Everything
is in the hands of Heaven except for the fear of Heaven.”
In another place, the Talmud writes. “All the livelihood of
a person is determined at the New Year, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
except for the expenses of Shabbat, the expenses of the Holidays, and the
expenses of teaching his son Torah – in these, if a person subtracts, it is
subtracted from him and if he adds, he is given more.”
This is not a fatalistic or a deterministic point of view no
more or less than saying, no matter what you do, the weather is in the hands of
G-d. Some people may try to convince you they have the exact recipe how to make
it a sunny day and some of the times they are right. Another person is pitching
his recipe how to make it rain, parallel to our first salesman selling the sun,
and sometimes he will be right.
The truth is neither is right, since no one has a recipe on
the weather. In Yiddish there is an expression, “when you’re rich they think
you’re smart.”
Taking the entire burden of the weather on your shoulders
would be an unreasonable responsibility that would undoubtedly bring
disappointment, anxiety, depression, misplaced expectations etc. The illusion
that the weather is in anyone’s daily control, would place the blame on people
who didn’t produce during a drought, and the entire credit on those who got
“lucky” with a good rain season.
According to the Torah/Bible a person is obligated to “six
days a week you shall work and on the seventh day you shall rest.” Working
honestly, is another way to fulfill the wishes of G-d. When we approach work
this way, it never comes at the expense of any other responsibilities we are
expected to fulfill, by the same G-d.
Knowing that it is G-d that provides, eliminated the need to
steal, to be jealous, to be anxious, and,
to be compassionate with those who need the help from those who G-d has
granted with a better rain season.
No comments:
Post a Comment