A Torah Guide to Personal Finance

By Gil Weinreich

Transform your financial habits based on the Torah's guidance.

While the aspiration for wealth is common to all, most people get waylaid on their path to prosperity. This is not for lack of guidance on the topic; to the contrary, there is an overwhelming flood of available advice on personal finance, which is itself a big part of the problem, since much of it is more harmful than helpful.

Not so the guidance of the Torah, which resolutely presents the achievement of wealth and worldly success as compatible, and even concurrent, with the realization of the true wealth of a life of Torah and mitzvot. Based substantially on halachot compiled by the Rambam in his halachic code, the Mishneh Torah, together with advice from Shlomoh HaMelech and Chazal throughout the length and breadth of the Talmud, A Torah Guide to Personal Finance lays out the path to true wealth in a manner that is achievable by all.

No matter your age, occupation or level of education, this short but potent and readable guide will provide the tools and spiritual outlook needed to live a life of Torah prosperity. Specifically, the reader will learn the Torah's view of wealth, its logical approach to financial planning, along with advice on how to go about earning a living, investing for the future, managing risk and retirement.

Along with Shabbat and holidays, kashrut, human relationships and education, our finances are a very large dimension of our lives as Jews, yet all too often we are confused about how to advance our lives as the Torah would like us to. Written by a lifelong financial journalist and committed Torah learner, A Torah Guide to Personal Finance dispels this confusion and offers a clear vision of how we are to forge our financial lives.

 

"Accesses the wisdom of the Talmud and the Rambam to help us make intelligent lifestyle decisions and overcome the obstacles blocking the achievement of true Torah wealth." — Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, co-founder of Breakthrough Chinuch and author of The One Minute Masmid

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gil Weinreich
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215832004

Book preview

Foreword

Society’s gaping void in financial literacy is well known. There are government-mandated programs in place across the globe to address this deficiency. Still, academic reviews of such programs have found them ineffective in meaningfully improving financial decision-making. This may reflect the limitations of teaching against the values and institutions of societies that are broadly unsupportive of financial responsibility. Indeed, as a veteran financial journalist, my observation is that even industry professionals lack a clear understanding of finance; they may possess a lot of technical knowledge, but all too frequently lack an awareness of how finance connects to life.

As an Orthodox Jew, I look to what our Talmudic Sages have had to say about financial life, and I find that here too, even the community of observant Jews lacks a comprehensive view of the Torah’s values as they relate to our personal finances. I have not found a single book that puts together these teachings on matters of personal finance, despite the great need for Jewish households to organize their finances in a manner conducive to their unique lifestyle needs.

Seeing this void, my son Ariel and I worked together to create a book that relates the Torah’s view of wealth, its logical approach to financial planning, along with advice on how to go about earning a living, invest for the future, manage risk and retire. These are topics which people from all walks of life investigate daily online; this book presents this highly sought-after information in an easy-to-grasp manner, tethered to the Talmudic and other sources for these ideas. The goal is not merely to offer guidance in these practical day-to-day matters, but to impact readers’ inner world in equal measure.

The aspiration for wealth is common to all, but we too often get waylaid on our path to prosperity. The overwhelming flood of available advice on personal finance is itself a big part of the problem, since much of it comes with a sales motive and in any case is frequently more harmful than helpful. The Torah, in contrast, resolutely presents the achievement of worldly success as compatible with the realization of the true wealth of a life of Torah and mitzvot.

Based substantially on halachot compiled by the Rambam in his halachic code, the Mishneh Torah, together with advice from Shlomoh HaMelech and the Sages throughout the length and breadth of the Talmud, this book aims to lay out that path to true wealth in a manner that is achievable by all.

Acknowledgement

I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of my son, Ariel Weinreich, who eschews any form of recognition, but who was nevertheless a full partner in the writing, researching and refining of this book. In truly remarkable fashion, our similar writing styles blended seamlessly together. What’s more, in the same way that I was able to parlay my experience in personal finance, he marshalled his Biblical and Talmudic scholarship to help us firmly establish the Torah perspective on these matters. Additionally, his critical thinking and the restraint he showed in not needlessly multiplying sources and ideas are responsible for making this book more readable and digestible than it would otherwise be. I have yet to encounter a more professional developmental editor or literary coach than he.

1

Judaism and Wealth

Along with Shabbat and holidays, kashrut, human relationships and education, our finances are a very large dimension of our lives as Jews, and yet all too often we are confused about how to advance our lives as the Torah would like us to. As children we receive gifts, save and spend money, give tzedakah and hope for financial prosperity when we grow up, but upon growing up we do not automatically know what we are supposed to be doing to climb the ladder of success.

Yet our Torah resolutely presents the achievement of wealth and worldly success as compatible, and even concurrent, with the realization of the true wealth of a life of Torah and mitzvot. We need to get our financial affairs right to lead a successful life of service to God. But the desired balance in our monetary pursuits is far from the Western materialistic view of endless consumption and accumulation. The Jewish concept of wealth is founded on modesty and restraint, as we learn in Pirkei Avot – Who is wealthy? He who is satisfied with his lot.¹

And yet the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs were more than just comfortable – they were fabulously wealthy. The Torah describes our righteous forefather Avraham as loaded, literally: "And Avram was very heavy with livestock, silver and gold."² As always, our Sages elaborate, seeing clues to Avraham’s great wealth in other passages. Avraham’s nephew Lot benefited from staying with his uncle, becoming wealthy like him. No one who had any commerce with Avraham was not blessed from it. The midrash even notes that the international reserve currency of that era was minted on the basis of Avraham’s wealth.³

Avraham’s son Yitzchak was also singularly wealthy. Most people would be very happy with a 10% yearly return on their portfolios. To double their wealth would be a dream come true. To triple it would be unheard of. Yet the return on Yitzchak’s agricultural labor shows that Hashem’s blessing is outside the natural order – a hundredfold profit.⁴ As with Avraham, our Sages connect God’s blessing with the beneficiary’s righteousness. Yitzchak counted the yield on his crop in order to accurately tithe his produce.⁵

Yitzchak’s son Ya’akov was initially very poor. His father-in-law Lavan serially cheated him out of his wages. Yet Hashem took note of this and made him very, very rich from that work.⁶

These were our forefathers, and this is our inheritance to claim. Jews and wealth – which is nothing other than the blessing Hashem wishes to bestow on His people – can go together. Hashem also desires to bring blessing on the nations of the world – but through the Jewish people. As He told Avraham: I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and through you will all the families of the earth be blessed.⁷

And indeed we saw a shining example of just that in our first exile, in the first generation after the Patriarchs. Ya’akov’s son Yosef, whom Pharaoh