We have more conveniences than ever, yet we have less time. We have more “toys”, but less happiness; more communication but less connection; more wealth but less well-being; fancier houses, but broken homes.
We have so many blessings, yet are so cursed.
The Jews traveling in the desert were also blessed. They were blessed, we are told, with tremendous wealth. However, after the golden calf debacle it became clear that this wealth was the source of their undoing; their blessing had become their curse.
What happens next is a great lesson for our generation.
G-d doesn’t remove their wealth, instead G-d instructs the Jews to build a Mishkan, a tabernacle, out of gold.
The Torah dedicates four full portions to the building of the tabernacle culminating in this weeks’ portion, Pekudei, in order to teach us this crucial lesson: Use your wealth for a higher purpose and it will remain a blessing. See it as a means to an end, not an end unto itself.
Perhaps we can draw a lesson from the oldest man alive, after all he has plenty of life experience J Holocaust survivor, Yisrael Kristal, was recently formally recognized as the world’s oldest man. When asked in an interview if perhaps he had reached an advanced age due to a special diet, he said, “In the camps there wasn’t always anything to eat. What they gave me, I ate. I eat to live; I don’t live to eat.”
To live in order to eat is to confuse the means with the end. One becomes a slave to food. The same is true with all our blessings. When we confuse the means with the end we become slaves to the means.
Don’t live to make money, make money to live. You are master, money the slave.
With all the blessings of today we have the potential to be the happiest generation ever, as long as we don't become a slave to the blessings, as long as we see them as tools and as a means to a higher end.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Benjy Silverman