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A lot of people think about money in a derogatory way, for instance, as the root of all evil.
Others think of money simply as a means: that we work, earn and can then pay for what we need and want. The latter seems quite clear and logical: by earning, we are not a burden on society, we do not take charity, and we can then enjoy our lives.
In Hebrew, the word for money is “Kesef,” which comes from the word for “covering” (“Kisui”), i.e., money lets us cover our needs with our labor. In other words, we exert with our minds and our feelings, and such labor covers our needs.
Money is not bad and should not be thought of in a derogatory manner. There is no problem with money in and of itself. On the contrary, we can be proud of it.
The problem is when we chase money not as a means, but as an end, when we make of it a certain idol, a God, bowing before it and wanting only to make more and more money.
When we pursue money in such a way, viewing it as an unlimited source of fulfillment that we constantly strive to draw ourselves toward more and more, we then reach states where it no longer benefits us.
On one hand, nature has certain laws that aim to harmoniously connect us, developing us to a state where we will each prioritize the benefit of others over self-benefit. On the other hand, when we focus on excessively chasing money, we then act contrarily to the direction in which nature wishes us to develop.
We then make a God out of money. We idolize it, and by doing so, we greatly limit ourselves. It seems as if money buys us freedom because then we can travel wherever we want, eat whatever we want at any restaurant we want, and we can have any car and house that we want, and so on, but by doing so, we fail to see how we actually rob ourselves.
How do we rob ourselves when we focus solely on making more and more money?
It is that we make God out of money, and not out of ourselves. On the contrary, we need to make God out of ourselves, and not out of money.
What this means is that we will start developing truly godly and divine qualities, i.e., qualities of love, bestowal and connection. We will then relate to the world as our own, and manage its development in a positive direction, as if we each contain humanity within ourselves, that everyone is in our kingdom, and each one of us are its kings. We then come to see others as our own people, our kingdom’s citizens, which grants us the ability to bring them to the best possible state simply through our positive attitude to them, where we seek to make their lives the best they can possibly be.
Based on the video “Is it Wrong to Want to Be Rich?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.