Earning a Living — Earning a Life

Breslov Research Institute © 2006

Thank HaShem Who gave us the ability to travel to Uman for Rosh HaShanah. Hopefully, we will be able to invoke blessing and bounty, for each and every person individually, as well as for klal Yisrael, with a year of joy and happiness, good health and success, Amen.

To keep these essays going, despite our not being “connected” these days, we will present in the next few weeks quotes from Reb Noson’s Likutey Eitzot, (“Advice” in English) as well as quotes from Rebbe Nachman’s Sefer HaMidot (“The Aleph-Bet Book”). We begin with Likutey Eitzot on “MONEY and LIVELIHOOD.”

1) Worthless pursuits and malicious gossip can only lead to poverty in the end. Pride also causes poverty. The remedy is to give charity, which brings blessing and prosperity.

2) Immorality can deprive a person of his livelihood.

3) Intense prayer makes one worthy of one’s livelihood.

4) The less careful a person is about upholding his moral standards, the more unpleasantness and hardship he will experience in his efforts to earn a living.

5) In order to draw God’s providence upon ourselves completely, it is necessary to break the desire for wealth. The way to do this is by giving charity. When a person gives money to charity, it cools his urge to acquire. He will conduct his business affairs truthfully and honestly, he will be satisfied with his portion in life, and he will have pleasure and contentment from what God has blessed him with. Because he is not desperate to get rich, he is free of the constant struggle to make extra profit. The burden of this struggle is the fulfillment of the curse: ‘by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread’ (Genesis 3:19). Giving charity frees a person from this. It is accounted to him as if he had made an offering of incense before God.

6) The desire for wealth is literally a form of idol-worship. So long as it continues to exist, the world is under the shadow of God’s anger. But the more completely it is uprooted, the more God’s anger is lifted and the world radiates with the blessing of His love. The messianic spirit begins to spread; understanding springs forth, and it is as if the Holy Temple had been rebuilt. New horizons of Torah are revealed Ì the Torah that is destined to be revealed in time to come.

7) People who are obsessed with the idea of getting rich lack faith in God’s power to send man his livelihood with little effort on his part. Instead they get involved in all kinds of complicated enterprises in the struggle for extra profit. Only after great toil and anxiety do they eat their daily bread. They are constantly worried and depressed. They have attached themselves to the “countenance of the forces of the Other Side” – the domain of darkness, depression, idolatry and death. It is completely different for those who go about their work in a spirit of faith and trust in God. Having decided to content themselves with what they have, they are happy with their portion regardless of what it may be. They know and believe with perfect faith that God alone is the source of man’s wealth and income Ì except that He desires that man should make some small movement of his own to initiate the chain of events that will bring his income to him. People like this are attached to the light of God’s countenance, which is the realm of radiance, life and joy.

8) A person who is sunk in his craving for wealth is not just enslaved to one kind of idolatry, but to every single idolatrous cult belonging to all of the seventy nations of the world. This is because all forms of idolatry are rooted in materialism. Again and again the Shekhinah cries out in pain because of these idolatries. ''Woe for the pain in my head! Woe for the pain in my arm!’’ (Sanhedrin 46) There are seventy cries (corresponding to the seventy nations) for the pain in the head, and seventy for the pain in the arm, making one hundred and forty. This corresponds to the gematria of MaMON (money).

9) Another way of breaking the desire for wealth is to contemplate the spiritual source from which material wealth and blessings flow. By concentrating on this root, the desire for material wealth is dissipated. This is because at the root, radiant with translucent light, the joy is purely spiritual. By comparison the object of the craving is extremely degraded. Only a fool would throw aside spiritual joy for the sake of some crude pleasure. But the only way to attain this spiritual perception is through self-purification, as it is written: “And from my flesh will I perceive God” (Job 19:26). Only when a person has sanctified himself and his body can he contemplate Godliness. Therefore the basic remedy for the desire for wealth is through fulfillment of the Covenant. When a person achieves this, he will not fall into this desire.

10) Whenever a person falls from his level, the fundamental reason is always the desire for money. This is basically why people fall into heresy and idolatry. For the same reason when the enemies of the Tzaddik stir up opposition against him and God wants to chase them away, He causes them to fall into lust for money. There is no greater fall than this. As a general rule, in times of controversy and strife, the greater the purity with which a person guards the Covenant and the closer he is to the Tzaddik, Ì who is the embodiment of the Covenant Ì the greater his power to resist his opponents and throw them down. And when they fall, it is into lust for money. For this reason a person who finds himself involved in a dispute should be very careful not to succumb to the temptations of wealth.

11) The mitzvah of mezuzah is a remedy against the lust for money. When you observe this mitzvah carefully your livelihood will fly into your hands!

12) As long as a person is reluctant to spend money on the mitzvot he performs, his mitzvot are deficient because they have not yet entered the category of true faith, which gives them their perfection. But when a mitzvah is so precious in his eyes that he does not mind parting with his money and he spends liberally for the sake of the mitzvah, this is called Faith. Because the essence of a person’s faith is seen in his relation to money. When he breaks his desire for wealth he becomes attached to the “countenance of holiness.”

13) People who are sunk in the desire for wealth are always in debt. We can actually see this. When people are dissatisfied with what they have they start trying to speculate Ì and saddle themselves with a mighty burden of debt. They borrow from others in the hope of making big profits from the investment. But in the end they die as debtors. And even if they are not literally in debt when they die, they are always effectively in debt to their own lusts, as we can see. There are many people who have more than enough to cover their needs. Yet they spend all their days chasing after profit. They are prepared to struggle and submit to all kinds of risks and inconvenience just for the sake of money. In fact they behave exactly like someone with real debts strung around his neck Ì except that their only real debt is the debt they owe to their desires, which are so demanding that it is as if they really did owe an enormous sum. In effect they are debtors all their lives, and they die in debt Ì to their desires. Even a whole lifetime is not long enough for them to pay off the debts they owe to their desires, because there is no limit to them, for “No one in this world achieves even half of what he wants before he dies” (Koheleth Rabbah, 1). All of their days they are depressed, worried, and bitter, because of their appetite for money. The more money people have the more depression and worries they have, because they are entangled in idolatry, which is the very source of depression, darkness and death. Their money eats up the days of their life with problems and worries.

May you all be written into the Book of the Righteous with good health, emotional stability, financial success and, of course, spiritual growth. Amen.

Have a good year, Chaim Kramer