Income Insurance

 

Let me tell you what happened at the wedding of one of our students from the yeshiva. After the main course, when the really exciting action and dancing started, the bride’s father pulled me over to the side. Rather than looking happy, his forehead was creased with wrinkles of worry. He asked me, with genuine fear in his voice, "Rabbi, what will be with my daughter’s income? Her husband won’t be working – he insists on continuing his studies at the Yeshiva!"

 

“Great,” I said, “he has a wonderful mind and he’s making tremendous progress in his Torah studies.”

 

“Yeh, but what about money?” he asked. I told him to look around at all the other married men from the Yeshiva – they all had smiling faces and they certainly weren’t underfed. I told him that his daughter and new son-in-law wouldn’t be underfed either.

 

When we desire to dedicate our time and energy to Torah, Hashem sends an easy and effortless income. A young married Yeshiva student from New Jersey, an aspiring Torah scholar with wonderful potential, was making a fantastic income while working no more than 90 minutes a day as a day trader, buying and selling stocks from home on his computer. He didn’t even have to leave the sanctity of his house; Hashem gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in Torah without “wasting” too much time making a living. To make this long tragic story short, the money went to their head. He gradually increased his work hours and decreased his Torah learning – eventually, he came up a loser on both counts – he lost his Torah and he lost his money in the recent market crash.

 

That’s just as our sages said (Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach, 20), namely, that the Torah was given to those that eat the manna. There’s no manna – bread from Heaven – without emuna.

 

Making a living is the biggest test of emuna. King David said in Ashrei, Psalm 145 that we all say three times a day, twice in the morning and once in the afternoon – "The eyes of everyone look to You with hope, and You give them their food in the proper time."

 

"Look to You" means trust in Hashem – when a person trusts in Hashem, he or she knows that all they have to do is smile and turn their heart toward Hashem and then they get their livelihood in the proper time. Trusting Hashem means that you don’t need stacks of currency in front of your nose to feel good. If Hashem would give us money when we don’t need it, we could end up losing it or squandering it, Heaven forbid. That’s why "in the proper time" is one of the best blessings there is. It’s a blessing that you can’t get without emuna. Practically, it means that the minute you trust Hashem, He sends the money for the mortgage, or tuition, or the electric bill, or whatever you need.

 

King David continues in "Ashrei and says, "You open Your hand, and satisfy the needs of every living thing". The first letters and the last letters of this passage in Hebrew constitute two of  Hashem’s Holy Names that invoke livelihood and abundance.

 

So, if a person says Ashrei thrice daily and focuses on emuna, he or she will make an easy living. How can we be so sure? The entire purpose of creation is to learn emuna; all our difficulties in making a living are none other than Hashem’s messages that we have to learn more emuna. As soon as we strive for enhanced emuna on our own initiative, Hashem takes the sweat out of making a living.

 

Many claim that the Torah’s curse of “By the sweat of your brow” (Genesis 3:19) renders making a living necessarily troublesome. Yet, we neutralize the curse by enveloping ourselves in blessings, and there’s no bigger blessing than Torah.

 

So, when we sit down to learn Torah, we don’t have to worry about making a living. Guess what – there’s no mitzvah in the Torah that requires a person to worry, but we’re commanded in several places to devote our lives to Torah! It’s our job to learn and Hashem’s job to worry about us and our needs. Many people turn the scales around: They want Hashem to learn Torah, and they take the worry upon themselves. No wonder so many people are stressed out of their skulls, suffering from anxiety and ulcers and making the pill companies rich! The minute we worry, we’re not doing our job! Stress, anxiety, and worry are warning signs that we lack emuna and trust. As soon as we lack emuna, we’re missing the train, and failing to perform our mission on this earth. The only reason our souls got sent here is to attain emuna, the entire purpose of creation.

 

Many people give advice to Hashem. Everyone knows the joke about the cheapskate who for days that Hashem should let him win the lottery. A voice from Heaven called out and said, “First buy a ticket!” Emuna is the ticket to winning the lottery of an easy income.

 

Our sages teach that if a person accepts the yoke of Torah, Hashem relieves him of the yoke of maintaining a living. The spiritual law is the same as the material law – you can only put one yoke on an ox.

 

If only people would turn to Torah and Emuna and realize that Hashem will give them an easy income, as promised in the Torah (Exodus 16:12), “You shall be sated with bread, and you shall know that I am Hashem your G-d." There’s no better income insurance on earth.