I did it all myself

At Avot 4:1 Ben Zoma succinctly and a little surprisingly defines four personalities that are well known in Jewish circles: the wise, the strong, the rich and the respected. Of the rich person he teaches:

אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵֽחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: יְגִֽיעַ כַּפֶּֽיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Who is rich? One who is happy with his lot, as it states (Psalms 128:2): "If you eat of the effort of your hands, you are happy and it is  good for you" (Tehillim 128:2); "you are happy" in this world, "and it is good for you" in the World to Come.

Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Gur maintains that this statement is demonstrably true. It’s only when a person makes the effort to do something himself that he truly appreciates its value: he has invested a bit of himself in it.  In contrast, the pleasure one gets from acquiring something that one has not made is of a lesser quality: it is people who acquire without effort who tend to be dissatisfied with what they have and always want more.

Anyone who has ever had a small child—or been one—may recall a common experience. Picture the following scenario. It is Friday night, the table is laid and the silverware sparkles in the light of the Shabbat candles. The smell of fresh warm challot pervades the house. Enter one small child, clutching a grubby item that vaguely resembles a challah roll, baked by the child at school. Proudly the child shoves his own manufacture under the challah cloth along with the sleek brown loaves baked by his mother.  It’s time for hamotzi and the challah cloth is lifted. Beaming with the happiness of achievement, the child looks with pride at the result of his handiwork. He knows that his mother’s challah is of a far higher quality but he will insist on eating his own—and maybe on others taking a nibble too—because it is a monument to his own achievement.

As adults we tend to grow out of this phase and regard it as a natural part of growing up. Don’t we become more discerning as we mature? Isn’t it, well, childish to take pride in something we can objectively assess as being second-rate?  No, it isn’t. And we should never allow ourselves to lose the connection between the effort we expend and the pleasure we derive from it. As Ben He-He says at Avot 5:26,

לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא

According to the effort, so is the reward.

This need not mean a Divine reward for the fulfilment of mitzvot and the performance of good deeds. It can equally mean the internal reward one receives in terms of the satisfaction experienced by doing something oneself.

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Real Wealth? Sophie Tucker v Abba and The Beatles

Much of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin’s classic commentary on Avot, Ruach Chaim, has a distant and detached feel to it. Written by a major Torah scholar for a generation where the pursuit of Torah and commitment to its precepts required neither excuse nor apology, it sometimes seems that many of his explanations of the practical impact of Avot’s mishnayot lie beyond the grasp of contemporary readers who do indeed value Torah but still must struggle to accommodate it within their busy, compartmentalised lives.

If we can overcome our feeling of distance between ourselves and Ruach Chaim, there is much in it that speaks directly to us. A good example is the author’s position on that most unfashionable of concepts, that of the need to be satisfied with what one has, to be truly appreciative of it rather than focus on what one does not possess. This principle is stated overtly in Avot 4:1 (“Who is the person who is wealthy? The person who rejoices in his portion”) and echoed in a baraita at Avot 6:6. But Reb Chaim finds further support for it elsewhere.

In Avot 4:11 Rabbi Yonatan says:

“Anyone who fulfils the Torah in poverty will ultimately fulfil it in wealth, while anyone who neglects the Torah in wealth will ultimately neglect it in poverty”.

As Reb Chaim points out, these words cannot be taken literally. As he puts it,

“We witness that many righteous people live their entire lives in grinding poverty, while wicked people enjoy a lifetime of prosperity”.

So what does the mishnah mean? He explains:

“This mishnah needs to be understood on a different level. Me’oni (“in poverty”) literally means “from poverty” or “due to poverty”. If someone realizes that his lack of wealth is a blessing, an opportunity to focus on service of Hashem without the distractions that accompany wealth, then he will be able to fulfil the Torah in wealth”.

He then references Ben Azzai (Avot 4:1, above). A person who is satisfied with his lot will not regard himself as being poor, even though he may be objectively regarded as such in purely material terms. Further comments then follow, regarding the dangers of wealth and the pursuit of it.

Today we are culturally attuned to be poverty-averse and this is quite understandable. Reb Chaim himself speaks of “grinding poverty” and we are only too aware of its impact on lives of ourselves and others. But we must still ask if, when we have the chance, we go too far and continue to flee poverty long after it has ceased to pursue us. Much of what we today label poverty would not be viewed us such in previous generations, when expectations were far lower and provision for relief was far less.

In past generations, singers could allude to poverty and strike a note with their audiences. Thus in our grandparents' time Sophie Tucker (My Yiddishe Mamma) could sing lyrics like this:

"How few were her pleasures, she never cared for fashion's styles
Her jewels and treasures she found them in her baby's smiles
Oh I know that I owe what I am today
To that dear little lady so old and gray
To that wonderful yiddishe momme of mine".

Lyrics such as this once helped to affirm social values, but they sound embarrassingly mawkish and sentimental today. In contrast, the past half-century has resounded to the compelling chorus of Abba:

Lyrics such as this once helped to affirm social values, but they sound embarrassingly mawkish and sentimental today. In contrast, the past half-century has resounded to the compelling chorus of Abba:

“Money, money, money

Must be funny

In the rich man's world

Money, money, money

Always sunny

In the rich man's world

Aha

All the things I could do

If I had a little money

It's a rich man's world

It's a rich man's world”.

Let's not forget The Beatles. Back in 1964 they expressed a similar ideal in Can't Buy Me Love:

"Say you don't need no diamond rings

And I'll be satisfied

Tell me that you want the kind of things

That money just can't buy

I don't care too much for money

Money can't buy me love."

However, by the time they released their Revolver album only two years later, in 1966, they had quite literally changed their tune and were singing, in Money (That's What I Want):

“Now give me money (That's what I want)

That's what I want (That's what I want)

That's what I want, (That's what I want), oh, yeah (That's what I want)

Money don't get everything, it's true

What it don't get, I can't use

Now give me money, (That's what I want)

That's what I want”.

These lyrics lead one to revisit the age-old question: is it better to remain an active participant in wider society and learn to resist the insistent messages we absorb effortlessly through the media, or to retreat into a smaller, safer society in which we hear only the messages coined by our sages?

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