Bear with me a moment while I state the obvious: some people have more money than other people do. This is an incontrovertible fact of life, but it is not a new fact: there has always been a difference between people as regards to how much money they have. You don't have to like the fact, but a fact it is.
There are any number of reasons to account for this fact. Some jobs pay more than others, giving the job holder more money. Some people may be more educated and this helps to increase their monetary income. Some people seem to be more "gifted" in finding ways to increase their money. They may be smarter investors than others are. They may work harder than others do. And yes, some people just seem to be "luckier" than others. Some people have better money handling skills than others do, allowing them to keep more of the money they make. Some people come from wealthy families that give them "unearned" money, putting them ahead of others. Where you live and how you live can also affect how much money you have. But whatever reasons you give for the discrepancy for the amount of money people have, the discrepancy exists.
So, where am I going with this? Just hang in there. When I was growing up my parents always told us "Kik nisht arein in yenem's teller"--don't look at someone else's plate. The message was two-fold: first, don't be envious or disparaging of what someone else has and second, your only business should be what is on your plate. These are lessons that far too many people today ignore.
Today we seem to have a perverted kind of "equality syndrome" going on, with its main symptom of "entitlement." We are not just looking at everyone else's plate: we look and declare that we are entitled to everything that is on those plates. If person X makes a wedding that is large and lavish we look to that wedding as being the goal for everyone. That person X has the money to make that wedding without going into debt we ignore. "No fair!" we cry. That person Y sends all their children to camp for the summer becomes what we all want and have to have, never mind that person Y has the money to do so and we don't. That person Z remodels their house and puts in a top of the line kitchen, that person W drives a new and expensive car, that person Q takes vacations a few times a year, that person P has regular household help, that person M buys designer clothing etc., etc., etc. we take as what we are also entitled to. And we are wrong, dead wrong.
We spend so much time decrying the cost of being frum that we have lost track of the fact that being frum doesn't cost as much as we think it does. Sure, some kosher products and services cost more than those equivalent products and services that are not kosher. And many don't. In too many cases we are substituting the "I wants" for the "this is all that is needed." And we are doing so because somebody else is spending more than we have to spend, somebody else has more money than we do.
To those who are wealthy I say congrats and do what you want to with the money that is yours. To those who don't have that wealth, well so what? It's not fair you say? There is no fairness involved here, just plain fact. Let's keep in mind that all mankind is not equal when it comes to money and skills and talent. Many of the problems we have in Klal don't need rabbinic decrees to solve, nor do they need more layers of takanos. What they need is for people to open their eyes to reality, a reality that says that some people have more money than other people do. That fact should not engender in anyone a burning desire to have what that money can buy and do, without actually having that money. I'm really tired of hearing that "they" made me spend more than I have, that "they" have set the standards too high and I can't meet them on the money I have. No one has set any standards that have to be met except through our saying that they have. If you are spending money you don't have, if you are going into debt to have what "everyone" else has then the problem is YOURS, not that someone else's. We are letting our daydreams get in the way of reality. Social pressure? I admit that it does exist, but again, only if we let it live. Envy and desire are terrible ideas to base spending on.
We might try remembering that sage advice: "Ayzeh oshir? Sameach b'chelkoh." Who is the rich person? He who is happy with his portion. And if your portion doesn't happen to be the same size as someone else's, so what?
Note: I have purposefully left out any mention of yeshiva education in this posting. If, as a Klal, we believe that all Jewish children should be getting a yeshiva education, that it is a full requirement for the survival of Klal, then we need to think of how that is going to happen when the fact is that some people cannot afford the tuitions that are charged.
2 comments:
Agree that sometimes it's envy and entitlement that drive human beings to want what others have. But you're discounting that humans have a need to see how they measure up. They need to know if they are doing okay so they look at others as their yardstick.
Maybe the problem is that we don't always look at those like ourselves to see how we compare but look at those who we think of as above us. Sometimes it's achievements we look at but you're right that a lot of the time it's money we look at.
This isn't a new problem--Chumash is full of examples.
It's why I loved Rush Limbaugh's CPAC speech - he had a line saying that "no two people will end up exactly the same".
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