Fixing Your Water - 002 Desire For Money & Acquisitions

Summary of the Previous Chapter

We have begun to explain the trait desire, which is rooted in the element of water. This splits into four kinds of desires – earth-of-water, water-of-water, wind-of-water, and fire-of-water.

We have begun to explain earth-of-water, which subdivides further into four more divisions: (1) Earth-of-Earth-of-Water, (2) Water-of-Earth-of-Water, (3) Wind of-Earth-of-Water, and (4) Fire-of-Earth-of-Water.

In the previous class, we have described the four kinds of desires which stem from our earth-of-water, and we have begun to discuss how we rectify earth-of-earth-of-water, which is the desire for money.

Earth-of-Earth-of-Water: The Desire For Money

Earth-of-Earth-of-Water is when a person has a desire that attaches him to materialistic pursuits. The desire for money, we explained, stems from earth-of-earth-of-water.

We mentioned that the solution to this desire is to realize that the desire for permanence, at its holy root, is rooted in Hashem’s desire, Who “desires” to have a dwelling on this world; Hashem is from a high place and descends to a lower place, the earth, by dwelling here. This is the desire for permanence on this world at its holy root, but this power becomes used for evil in a person when he seeks money and worldly acquisitions. The person with a desire for money wants to permanently “dwell” on this world.

There are many reasons why a person wants money: to be able to buy anything he needs, to seek honor and status, to seek security, and all kinds of reasons. Whatever the reason is, the root of all desire really stems from how Hashem wants to have a permanent dwelling on this world, and a person desiring money and acquisitions is using this power of desire for evil. 

The Deeper Problem Of Desiring Money

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter what is personally motivating the person to seek money. The real problem is that a person seeks to reveal his essence through money and worldly acquisitions - he considers money to be his very identity! (The solution is that he will have to learn how to change his source of identity; soon we will explain how).

For example, a person builds a magnificent building to become a shul or a beis midrash (a place of Torah), and he will want his name plastered on the front of the building. He doesn’t need to have his name there. Besides for the fact that this person is driven to seek honor, he also has another problem: he is seeking to reveal his identity, via the means of materialism.

He identifies this new building as a symbol of his identity. He wants that his name should be written on the building, because he feels that his very essence, his very “I”, is revealed through this building! When he sees his name on the building, he feels that he is a part of it. He identifies this worldly edifice as “Me.”

Hashem wants to dwell on this world, because He wants to reveal His essence precisely over here, on this world. When a person desires money and acquisitions, he uses the desire rooted in Hashem’s desire, for evil: he wants his essence to be revealed on this lowly earth, through money and through various acquisitions on this world. Therefore, he wants his name plastered in places where people will see it…

There are people who feel that they are their money. The Gemara says that a person has to give up either his life for Hashem, or his money. The Gemara asks: if a person has to give up his life for Hashem, then obviously he should give up his money for Hashem, so why did the Torah have to tell us that we must also give up our money for Hashem? The Gemara answers, that if someone’s money is dearer to him than his own life, he still has to give it up for Hashem. We see from this that there are people who value money more than their own life!

The depth behind this is because there are people who feel that they are their money; they feel like their money is who they are. They identify their very “I” in their money and in their various worldly acquisitions.

The desire for money is rooted in earth-of-earth-of-water. It is when a person wants his essence to be revealed through worldly acquisitions. Hashem has a desire to reveal Himself on this world, but a person can misuse this root desire in Creation, by desiring to reveal his name through worldly acquisitions.

The Solution To Desiring Money and Acquisitions

How can a person remove himself from desiring money? The solution to this is two-fold.

The first part of it is what we mentioned in the end of the previous chapter [that a person should use his money for holiness]. A person needs to realize the true value of his money, which is that money was given to him only so that he can use it for holy causes.

The second point is that a person should increase his yearning that Hashem should be revealed on this world, as opposed to revealing himself more and more on this world. The more a person increases this desire, the more he will find that his desire for money and worldly acquisitions will weaken.

The first part of the solution – using our money for holy causes – will only rectify us on the level of the nefesh hebahaimis (the animalistic part of our soul), and thus we cannot base our lives on this solution. Therefore, we need to also make use of the second solution, which is to yearn to reveal Hashem on this world.

It is a reflection of what Shlomo HaMelech says in Koheles (1:1), “Everything is hevel havalim (futility of futilities).” We need to realize that this world is futile, and to come to realize that money and worldly acquisitions are all vanities, because ultimately, this world was made to become Hashem’s dwelling.

“Wearing” This World and “Removing” Ourselves From This World

When we make use of the solution, what we are really doing is that we are learning how to detach ourselves from the world, while at the same time being remained with what we have to do on this world.

This is essentially another way of how we utilize the concept of “halbashah” (‘wearing’) and “hafshatah” (‘removing’), which we have mentioned in the beginning of this series[1].

We “wear” this world when we use our money for the right reasons and make sure that it goes for holy causes; we find this hinted to in Chazal, that “The money of the righteous is dear to them.” We definitely must have value for money – in the fact that we need to make sure we are using it for the right reasons. This is the aspect of “halbashah” in our world: we must “wear” and make use of this world, for the right reasons.

The second part of our avodah is the part of “hafshatah”, to “remove” ourselves from this world – by realizing that we must not desire any permanence on this world, but rather, we should desire that only Hashem can have a permanent dwelling on this world, and thus, we must increase our yearning for that revelation.

In Summary

These are the two ideas we need to acquire in order to get rid of our desire for money, which is a desire that is rooted in our earth of earth-of-water:

(1) We use ‘halbashah’, we “wear” this world and make use of it for holiness, when we use our money for holiness, through giving tzedakah and other mitzvah causes;

(2) And we also employ ‘hafshatah’, we “remove” the garments of This world, by realizing that This World is meant to be used as a permanent dwelling for Hashem – as opposed to desiring our own permanent dwelling on this world.