Why More Is Never Enough - What Judaism Teaches About Being Content - with Rabbi Michael Skobac

The Greek philosophers taught that the unexamined life is not worth living. And our Torah sages also emphasize the importance of thinking about what we're living for, why we're here, what our ultimate goals in life are. Are we on the right track for achieving these goals? These are the kind of questions we should always be thinking about. One of the most important questions that we need to clarify is what is going to be the primary focus of our lives? Will it be material acquisitions or spiritual achievements? Where are we going to basically play in life? In the world of the physical or in the world of the spiritual? It's not an entirely binary choice, but the question is where the emphasis is going to be. When our life is focused primarily on materialism, on luxuries, on indulging in entertainment, we're going to be detoured from more spiritual pursuits and the more ultimate goals in life that are built around our relationship with God. Judaism teaches that we should view ourselves primarily as a soul. Who am I? I'm a soul. And my soul has taken on a physical body for a limited amount of time. 50, 70, 90, 120 years. It's a fraction of our ultimate life. We're going to be living forever. Our soul is going to continue for infinity. So our soul takes on a body, puts on an earth suit for a very short period of time. But when we reverse this and we don't see ourselves as a soul that happens to be in a body for a short period of time and we place our emphasis on the physical and the material realm of accumulating more and more money and more and more possessions, we're identifying primarily as a physical body that happens to have a soul. What's primary and what is secondary? When the physical and the material is our focus, not only does it demand more and more of our attention, as we'll soon discuss, but it begins to shape our values. We begin to judge other people through a materialistic lens. I remember when I was growing up hearing many adults speaking admirably about others that they admired because they were successful. And this success was invariably based on how much money they made each year, the size of their bank account, the size of their home, what kind of cars they drove, how often they traveled and took vacations, and the more the better. But as Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, to have more is not to be more. Rabbi Elijah of Vilna taught that a life of materialism is like drinking salty water. The person may think that they're going to quench their thirst, but they're going to only become thirstier and thirstier. If we do not learn how to be satisfied with less, we will never be satisfied. Our sages teach that he who has a hundred will desire two hundred, and when they get the two hundred, they won't be satisfied. They're going to want four hundred. Once we believe that we have to have something, we get trapped on a treadmill of constantly desiring more and more and more. King Solomon taught in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 9, that one who loves money will never be satisfied with money. You're never going to have enough, and much of what drives people to accumulate more and more is not really an intrinsic need. We don't need these things, but it's often the effect of competition, keeping up with the Joneses. It's difficult to live modestly when you're surrounded by in-your-face affluence. Children really suffer from this. Children may not really need a certain toy or game or device, but if all their friends have one, it becomes irresistible. It is really worth contemplating this tenth of the so-called Ten Commandments. Don't covet what others have, and this is very clearly a much-ignored commandment. People may pay lip service to the Ten Commandments, but when it comes to not envying or coveting what others have, this is generally a commandment that is ignored. There's an interesting law concerning the temporary booth that we're supposed to live in during the holiday of Sukkot. It has to have at least two and a half walls with a thatched roof. The walls are not supposed to be more than 28 feet high, and the reason is that at that height, if you build your Sukkot to be more than 28 feet tall, it needs a support structure. You have to have support for the walls, and that would render the Sukkot no longer a temporary dwelling. It's supposed to be the Sukkot a temporary dwelling, and once you have to build a support structure for the walls, you've transformed it into a permanent structure. But if the walls are less than 28 feet high, they could even be made, the law is, of solid gold or solid titanium. Now, we don't do that, but if it's less than 28 feet high, you can even have walls of the Sukkot made out of solid gold, because that height doesn't require a support structure. So a possible lesson we can learn from this is that it's okay to have luxuries in life. You can have luxuries in life, as long as you don't have to have them. Once it's over 28 feet tall, you've got to support it in a way where it is solid now, it's supported, it's got to be there. As long as it's still flimsy and you don't need to have the luxuries, it's okay to have them. Someone once visited the United States from Israel, and when she got back to Israel, she was asked about her impressions of the US. And she said, you want to know what the United States is all about? She said, shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping. That's what the United States is all about. Shopping should not be an activity. It's okay to buy things, but we should shop mindfully and always think about why we're making the purchase. The Talmud teaches that in order to be a wealthy person, a rich person, you have to be happy with what you have. You have to be happy and satisfied with what you have. Rabbi Noach Weinberg would always say that each one of us is already a multi-millionaire. We just are not aware of it. He would ask someone, would you accept $5 million for your eyes? No one would say, sure, here, take my eyes. I'll take the 5 million. You would never accept it. If someone offered you $3 million for your hands and feet, you wouldn't accept that. If someone offered you $2 million for your ears, you wouldn't take it. So the reality is that we have in our possession things that are worth many millions of dollars. We just need to appreciate them and not take them for granted and realize that in truth, if all of these limbs that we have are worth so many millions and millions and millions of dollars, we're very wealthy. In the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, we read about the special blessings that God gives the Jewish people that are going to be relayed to us through the Kohanim, through the priests. And the blessings begin, May the Lord bless you and protect you. And this is understood as God blessing us with riches, with nice things, but God protecting us from what often can be the negative fallout of this wealth. We know many people that have won the lottery and their lives go down the toilet. The wealth destroys them. So we both ask for blessing from God. God should bless us with wealth, with riches. It's good to have. We can do wonderful things when you think about it. A person can build a bigger house to be able to have more guests at their Shabbat table. A person can have more money to be able to give to charitable causes. There's nothing wrong with having money, but it can be something which could turn against us. So we pray that God should bless us, but then protect us from the blessing itself. And the blessings the priests give end by saying, May he bestow peace upon you. And the famous sage, the Chassam Sofer explains, what does it mean that God should bestow peace upon us? It means that we have a blessing here that we should be satisfied with what we have. With whatever God gives us, whatever he blesses us with, we should be satisfied with it. We should be happy with it. Because if we can't be at peace with what we have, we have nothing and we'll be dragged into the never-ending trap of always pursuing more and more and more and more. Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol wrote in the 11th century, Seek what you need and give up what you don't need. For in giving up what you don't really need, you'll learn what you really do need. The truth is that to lead and to live successful lives, truly successful lives, we have to have discipline. It's possible to be out of control when it comes to shopping and accumulating things. When it comes to striving to make more and more money, we can be totally out of control. Discipline means being able to say no to ourselves. Saying no because there may be more valuable things to pursue. Like growing as a human being. Like our relationship with God. Investing in closeness with our friends and family. Helping those in need. There are incredibly important things that we can do in our life. And accumulating more and more money is not in and of itself at the very, very top of the list of what we can accomplish in life. Discipline means living with a degree of restraint. Dennis Prager once wrote about the Jewish dietary laws. And he said it's not a bad thing for a young child to know that they cannot eat every single candy in the candy store. Not everything is kosher. And therefore you have to be able to say no. And when you learn that at an early age, that you cannot eat everything that presents itself to you, you begin to build a life of discipline and restraint. And that kind of discipline will get you very, very far in life. There was once a wealthy American visitor who came to visit the saintly Chafetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaKohen, in Europe about 100 years ago. And the visitor was shocked by how little there was in the home of the Chafetz Chaim and how sparsely it was furnished. He couldn't contain himself. And he blurted out to the rabbi, where's all your furniture? So the Chafetz Chaim, in good Jewish fashion, answered a question with a question. And he asked this businessman, where's your furniture? The businessman said, I'm traveling and I'm only passing through. And the Chafetz Chaim said, I too am only passing through. I'm not here to accumulate more and more and more and more stuff. There's a story told of a wealthy man from the big city who came across a village fisherman. And he noticed that the spent a few hours a day working and fishing and would relax for the rest of the day. The wealthy man said, you know, if you worked a full day, you could buy a much bigger boat for yourself. And then what? The fisherman asked. What's going to happen if I have a much bigger boat? Well, the businessman said, well, then you could hire more workers and catch more fish. And so the fisherman said, so, well, the businessman said, well, then you could buy more boats and eventually you'll have a whole fleet. And the fisherman said, and after that, well, then you could move to the big city, get yourself a big house and sell your fish there and make even more money. And what then the fisherman said, well, you could put aside some of your profits every year. And within a short period of time, you'd be able to retire. Yeah. And then what? The fisherman asked. Well, then you could move to a quaint, small village and spend the rest of your days fishing and relaxing, doing what you really want to do. And the fisherman said, but that's exactly what I'm doing now. So when we go on this rat race and on this treadmill of constantly trying to acquire more and more and more and more question is, do we really get anywhere? Do we really, really get anywhere in life?