Beshalach (Exodus 13 - 17) GOOD MORNING! Every week I teach a few business classes to both high school and college age students. Even though they are entrepreneurship courses, I focus the first four or five classes on helping my students develop a healthy perspective on what money is, its true value, and its purpose. I think this is crucial because it has been my experience that many, if not most, people have a terrible relationship with money. There are many examples of relational financial toxicity: From resenting having to spend hard earned money on one’s life necessities, to feeling compelled to spend every penny that comes into your possession. Even worse, many spend the money before it even comes into their possession (e.g. splurging on something costly on the basis – or hope – that they’ll receive a big year-end bonus). Unfortunately, there is a huge portion of the population that not only struggles to live within their income, but can barely live within their credit limit. One of the worst aspects of financial toxicity is when we tie our self-worth to our financial success. Unfortunately, our society feeds into this perception; in modern parlance a “successful man” is almost always solely referring to his financial success. He may be an absolutely awful person – a terrible husband, father, friend, business partner, etc. – but, as long as he is wealthy, we will label him a “successful” person. Because of this, too many people define their personal success by their accumulation of assets (or lack thereof). The result of this delusion is that they use it as a barometer of the societal pecking order; leading some people to resent others who have more money than them – and the converse – looking down on those who have less money. It’s a pretty debilitating, not to mention disturbing, worldview to maintain. Of course, this spills over into personal relationships. I once heard a prominent marriage counselor state that the vast majority of marital issues that come before him stem from the couple either having too much or too little money. While I think that’s a rather oversimplification of the underlying causes of marital strife, there is definitely some validity to the fact that finances present serious challenges within a marriage. One of the fundamental truths of living is that being able to provide for oneself is the source of both our independence and personal dignity. At least this is the way it should be. But we live in unique times; one of inborn entitlement where many in our society expect someone else to provide for their basic needs. But this is not the way things are supposed to be. King Solomon, often referred to as “wisest of all men,” wrote, “he that abhors a gift will live” (Proverbs 15:27). This principle is further emphasized by our sages in the Talmud (Sotah 47b) who also derided receiving gifts. In discussing the rapid declination of ancient Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple the rabbis said, “When those who received gifts became numerous, the days became few and years short.” Several Talmudic sources likewise indicate that one must be careful not to accept gifts. By contrast, earning a living allows a person to feel that he can take care of himself and that he has justified his existence. But even more importantly, it is what gives our existence meaning; this ability to earn gives us a sense of independence and allows us to feel that we truly exist. This week’s Torah portion has a strong message regarding our perspective on what it means to earn a living: Then God said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain portion on every day, that I may test them, whether they will follow in my Torah, or not” (Exodus 16:4). This week’s Torah reading introduces the “manna” (pronounced monn in Hebrew) – the miraculous food that sustained the Jewish people for the following forty years in the desert. This daily “bread” was collected by the Jewish people each morning (aside from Shabbat) and was their basic sustenance for all those years in the desert. In my mind, there is a definite connection between the manna or “monn” and the word money. In the verse above, the Almighty tells Moses that the rules pertaining to the monn would reveal if the Jewish people were prepared to follow the laws of the Torah or not. In other words, if they were able to adhere to the rules surrounding the monn, it would indicate that they were ready to follow the laws of the Torah as well. According to the sages, the two laws that were being used to test the Jewish people to see if they would follow the Torah are: 1) Whether they would leave monn overnight, which had been prohibited (except on Fridays) and 2) whether they would go out to collect monn on Shabbat, which would violate Shabbat (see Rashi’s comments ad loc). | 
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