by Student Rabbi Shelley Goldman
The Talmud teaches, “One who wishes to acquire wisdom should study the way money works, for there is no greater area of Torah study than this. It is like an ever flowing stream…” I thought of this wisdom after reading this week’s Torah portion, Tazria[1], and reflecting on the themes of childbirth and sickness. This week the Torah focuses specifically skin diseases and burns and instructs one who is afflicted with one of these ailments to call out “Unclean! Unclean!” as he moves about his daily life. His house is also to be outside the camp[2]. In our culture at this moment in 2016 in the United States there is much glorification of money and also much fear. Often those in the “helping professions” view money as dirty, base, or a necessary evil. However, we also have a saying in our tradition from the Mishnaic period (220 C.E.) in Pirkei Avot that states, “If there is no flour, there is no Torah![3]” This means that we must take care of our basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing before we can think of studying Torah or engaging in any of the other “meaning making” activities of life.
This week I also had the opportunity to read a wonderful piece by Rabbi Ellen Lewis about the emotional meaning of money, specifically in the context of one’s job and salary. She writes,
“… I learned three important lessons: what it feels like to be valued, what it feels like not to be valued, and how neither experience had anything to do with money. Or maybe I should say: what we think money is about is not what money is really about. What is it about? In order to answer that question, I want to start with an assumption. I believe that people have drives of which they are largely unconscious. Freud thought of them as the aggressive drive and the libidinal drive; the rabbis called them the yetzer ha-ra and the yetzer tov[4].
She goes on to say,
“Because money is all about emotion; it is about wanting; it is about human appetites. And human appetites have their root in childhood. Children are born wanting and it obviously isn’t money that they want. It isn’t hard to guess what young children want because they make their needs known so unselfconsciously. Children want to play, eat and sleep. They want to be loved and held. They want their every need responded to immediately and unconditionally. Parents may want their children to feel loved and attended to and they may even enjoy how uninhibited children are in expressing their needs, but parents also want children to be able to live in the world. That means children have to learn that they can’t have everything they want all the time. Parents spend a lot of time civilizing children so that they sublimate or repress those wants, and those appetites may go underground, but those appetites are still there. What happens to those appetites when children grow up? They become wishes. Those childhood wishes live on inside you but they reside in your unconscious. Freud says, “we [adults] are only really happy… when we satisfy a childhood wish.” And Adam Phillips adds, sometimes we use money to wish with[5]. If that is the case, then you won’t be happy with any amount of money unless you figure out what your wishes are[6].
My wish for all of us this Shabbos is that we get in touch with our inner child and remember our wishes. That we get back on the Derech to living lives of meaning and purpose with an eye towards fulfilling our childhood wishes. Shabbat Shalom.
[1] Leviticus Chapters 12 & 13
[2] Leviticus 13:45
[3] Pirkei Avot 3:21
[4] Rabbi Ellen Lewis “Getting What You Wish For: Jewish Professionals and the Emotional Meaning of Money.” Wexner Winter Institute Presentation. 1/9/07, p.7-8
[5] Adam Phillips, Going Sane: Maps of Happiness. HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, p.160
[6] Rabbi Ellen Lewis “Getting What You Wish For: Jewish Professionals and the Emotional Meaning of Money.” Wexner Winter Institute Presentation. 1/9/07, p.8-9