Jewish why rich

Act Reconstructionist Judaism is more than a set of ideas. Connect Connect with Reconstructionist communities and resources nearby and around the world:. About Us Learn more about us and the resources available here:. Support Reconstructing Judaism's mission is brought to life by our philanthropic community. Search form Search. D'var Torah Terumah. D'var Torah. By Rabbi Lewis Eron. Share on Facebook Tweet Widget. Share this:. Related Topics Terumah.

Rabbi Lewis Eron. Recent News News Item. Jewish Organizational Letter on U. Special Envoy. Posted on: Nov 11, News Item. In this view, poverty is not a virtue nor wealth a vice.

The only individual in the Torah denied the right to amass a fortune on principle is the king, in whose hands it can so readily lead to a perversion of power.

At best the prophetic tradition tolerates a limited monarch subject to the dictates of divine law Deuteronomy As for the rest of us, Judaism tries to persuade us that money ought not to be an ultimate value in our lives, but rather a force for doing good in the lives of others. Thus the Talmud which does have a well developed notion of an afterlife informs us that the very first question to be put to us when we stand before the Almighty to account for our lives deals with our worldly affairs.

To devote all our waking hours singlemindedly to making money is to shrink the purpose and potential of our lives. Giving must become a habit of the heart; even a person dependent on the dole is not exempt from the commandment.

No one, Jewish law asserts, ever became impoverished helping the poor. Charity ennobles the giver as it ameliorates the human condition. Though Judaism and Catholicism remain apart on the morality of wealth, they are in concord on the supreme virtue of charity. Covid Read the latest updates Here. But even in this moment there remains a residue of great Jewish families and high profile donors. Some of these players are active on the global stage, while many others remain primarily involved in their home countries.

While not bound by the same norms and practices of their predecessors, these 21 st Century funders remain connected to one another through business relationships, shared charitable interests, and various civic and social associations.

In my earlier work specifically on the Bernie Madoff scandal, I noted that financial players can also have a delirious impact on the nonprofit sector and donor confidence: Anti-Semitism is very real.

Terrifyingly, it is growing. Like so many American Jews today, I find myself newly afraid for our community. But I also see how our historical and contemporary victimhood snuffs out meaningful discussion about our relationship to capitalism and power. The rhetorical connection between Jewish money and anti-Semitic fantasies, coupled with our high levels of cultural fear, overwhelms our capacity to look critically at the costs of our financial ascension and our belief in accumulating money to make us safe.

Nor are we able at this point to measure its full impact on the cultural and political life of our community. As Jack Wertheimer has suggested in his study on Jewish giving: The dramatic expansion and diffusion of big giving have made it difficult for all but the most engaged insiders to keep track of the rapidly changing field.

A variety of new players with diverse interests have entered the scene, a hodgepodge of funder-created initiatives dot the landscape, and an ever changing set of partnerships characterize big giving, so much so that Jewish philanthropy now resembles a kaleidoscope, with ever-changing optics. As we launch this new chapter in the development and evolution of eJewishPhilanthropy , we have occasion to revisit the contributions of these early Jewish philanthropists, laying the stage for the contemporary scene, with all of its achievements, challenges and possibilities.

Steven Silbiger serves as the senior marketing director at Plymouth Direct, a creative television-marketing services company. Silbiger worked as a certified public accountant for a nationally recognized accounting firm for three years prior to receiving his Master's of Business Administration from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

He lives with his wife and two children in Philadelphia.