SCATTERED RESOURCES

Hillel’s final mishnah in Avot is quite a catchy one. It opens with five things we should think twice about before desiring them because they’re not as beneficial as one might initially imagine:

מַרְבֶּה בָשָׂר מַרְבֶּה רִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה נְכָסִים מַרְבֶּה דְאָגָה, מַרְבֶּה נָשִׁים מַרְבֶּה כְשָׁפִים, מַרְבֶּה שְׁפָחוֹת מַרְבֶּה זִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה עֲבָדִים מַרְבֶּה גָזֵל

The more flesh, the more worms; the more possessions, the more worry; the more wives, the more witchcraft; the more maidservants, the more immorality; the more manservants, the more theft (Avot 2:8).

As for the second of these give items, the basic idea is that of a proportionality between one’s material wealth and the anxiety that accompanies it. This concept is beautifully illustrated by a story told by the Netivot Shalom about a king who suffered from an ailment that could only be remedied by wearing the coat of a man who was perfectly happy and had no worries. Eventually the king’s agents tracked down such a man and asked to borrow his coat so that the king might put it on and be cured. Said the man, who was blissfully contented with his lot: “But I don’t even have a coat”.

Rabbi Ovadyah from Bartenura adds a little story of his own. He relates that a chassid—a pious person—once prayed that God should spare him from pizur hanefesh, a scattering of his soul. This was because his wealth and material assets were spread across many places and it was consequently necessary to spread his nefesh, his serious attention, over all those places in order to pay attention to them.

Citing the Arve Nahal of Rabbi Dovid Shlomo Eibenschutz, another Hillel—Rabbi Yaakov Hillel (Eternal Ethics from Sinai)—contends that the possessions to which our mishnah refers are not merely material but embrace a person’s physical, mental and spiritual talents and energies too. These are given to us to help us fulfil the mission that God has designated for us. We can concentrate these special resources on the performance of mitzvot and the learning of Torah, or we can dissipate them—and that is pizur nefesh. Rabbi Hillel writes:

“If we disperse our energies heedlessly, wasting them on trivial or mundane pursuits rather than concentrating them on serving Hashem and perfecting our soul, we have ‘scattered our soul’. The choice is ours. It can be real estate, the stock market, wardrobes and cruises, or it can be Torah, chesed, mitzvot, and good mlddot. Will we choose this world, gone before we can even savor it, or the next world, which lasts forever?”

Rabbi Hillel backs this up by citing Tehillim 90:9 ( כִּי כָל-יָמֵינוּ פָּנוּ בְעֶבְרָתֶךָ; כִּלִּינוּ שָׁנֵינוּ כְמוֹ-הֶגֶה, “For all our days passed by because of your fury, we consumed our years like a fleeting thought”) and, referencing the Chida, adds

“If we scatter our words thoughtlessly, they are lost forever, along with the energy they consumed”.

This is a powerful notion. We do indeed often use up our physical resources in vain. But I am certain that this has nothing to do with Hillel’s teaching in our mishnah and that, if I am wrong and his words did once mean this, it is hard to imagine how it applies today. It makes sense to speak of anxiety being induced by material wealth because we see this all around us: it’s not the poor of this world who fret over share prices, purchase electronic security devices, bar their windows and keep guard dogs. But most people today expend their physical energy willingly and happily in the pursuit of social and leisure activities: going on holidays, working out at the gym, chatting with friends, and generally killing time in a manner that few find worrying and many find pleasurable.

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Worrying about the cure for worry?

Is having something to worry about part of the human condition? The answer probably depends on how you choose to define "worry". Some people appear to deny they worry at all ("I haven't a care in the world"; "I put my trust in God, so whatever happens is up to Him"; "If things are just meant to be, there's no point worrying about them" etc).  Others treat "worry" as one of those irregular verbs ("I have a reasoned and sincerely motivated concern"; "you worry"; "he is just a neurotic paranoid"). 

My personal belief, based on years of listening to other people talking about their feelings, is that everyone experiences a degree of worry but that (i) the level of worry is patently not the same as between different people, (ii) at different times in their own lives and (iii) when confronted by different issues. However, we do not all use the term "worry" for the same feelings. Also, many people who express the fact that they are worried find it annoying when others tell them "don't be so worried" or "there's nothing to be worried about" since these words do not remove the subject of worry but merely deny the validity of another person's feelings.

Hillel is the only contributor to Pirkei Avot to address the concept of "worry" full-on when (at Avot 2:8) he teaches, as part of a long and complex mishnah: "the more the wealth, the more the worry". These words, like many other teachings of Hillel, are brief and easy to understand. We know in our own lives that it is the rich who are more likely to live in homes that are protected by burglar alarms and security cameras, with barred windows and well-locked doors. These homes are often in areas where an additional level of protection is procured through the hire of neighbourhood security services, whose marked vehicles cruise slowly through areas where theft is thought to be more likely. The homes of those who are less affluent and have less to lose are, if protected at all, far less secure.

Yet Jewish tradition and practice do not condemn worry or the accumulation of wealth per se: these are, after all, only means by which an end may be achieved. Thus a person who works for a living is expected to look beyond the days of his productivity and to put aside the material resources that he will need in order to support himself in retirement. 

Writing a generation before Maimonides, Rabbenu Bachye ibn Paquda touches on the question of worrying about one's wealth in his Chovot HaLevavot, in the Sha'ar HaBitachon (Duties of the Heart, in the section on Trust). Citing Hillel's teaching, he reminds readers that there is an equation that links wealth to worry. In the case of putting aside enough to subsist through one's old age, this is a prudent course of action since it assuages one's worry about facing hunger and poverty when one is no longer able to help oneself. However, the very action of addressing this worry generates further worries: will the amount that a person has put away for this purpose be adequate for the purpose -- since we cannot predict how long we will live -- and will it be safe? In our own generation we have read so many times in the media of the actions of confidence tricksters who have parted pensioners from their savings, as well as of supposedly well-managed pension funds that have been tapped by those responsible for them or damaged by poor investment advice.

Where does all of this leave us? It is difficult to draw firm advice. The most obvious approach for anyone not yet of pensionable age may be to alleviate any worry by investing in a pension scheme -- and then to forget about it since no one knows the day of their death and they may run out of breath before they run out of investments. As usual, readers' thoughts and suggestions are invited.