Community Magazine August 2017

16 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Words of Rabbi Eli J. Mansour T here is a bad joke told of a man who comes into a wealthy synagogue to collect charity for the needy. A certain member of the synagogue, a successful businessman, takes a $100 bill out of his wallet and puts it into the box. Everyone in the synagogue looks at him with admiration for his generosity. A short while later, the collector places the box on a table and leaves the room for a minute. The generous donor quickly runs over to the box and retrieves his $100 bill. The rabbi of the synagogue goes over to the man and asks for an explanation. “Look, Rabbi,” the man says, “I think it’s important to give charity, so I did. But I’m a thief, and business is business.” We might chuckle at the absurdity of thinking there’s any value to charity which one then steals from the recipient, but the unfortunate and painful truth is that there aremanywho livewith thismindset – that religion is nice, but “business is business,” and what they do in the office should not be connected in any way to the synagogue, to Torah, to religious teaching. This is a grotesque misconception of what Torah is all about. “My Strength and the Might of My Hand” Moshe Rabbenu devoted a full section of his farewell speech to Beneh Yisrael to this subject – the interface between religion and money. In Parashat Ekev (chapter 8), Moshe foresees the time when the people, after spending forty years in the desert under the supernatural care of Gd, will enter the Land of Israel and develop a large, flourishing economy. They will enjoy wealth and prosperity, and will live in large homes and amass fortunes of gold and silver. Moshe warns, “Your heart will become haughty, and you will forget Hashem your Gd who took you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves, who led you in the great, awesome desert…who fed you manna in the desert… You will say in your heart: My strength and the might of my hand achieved all this wealth.” Moshe then admonishes, “You shall remember Hashem your Gd, for it is He who gives you the strength to achieve wealth.” During the years of travel in the desert, it was unmistakably evident that Gd was sustaining the people. They spent this period in areas where people could not naturally sustain themselves. There If a person goes to the office knowing that he is entirely in Gd’s hands, he will be able to enjoy what he does without the constant anxiety that plagues so many people. Dedicated in memory of the pure neshamot of the Sassoon children REPEAL AND REPLACE ‘BUSINESS IS BUSINESS’ IT’S TIME TO THE MINDSET