The Solution To Everything based on Hebrew Scripture

On today’s show, Rabbi Evan Moffic talks about wealth in a variety of terms. He relates it to freedom, our independence, and our ability to live as we’d like. He discusses navigating challenging times like what we face today. He examines Hebrew scripture and explains why God created the cure before the disease. He encourages us to be assets rather than burdens to one another and that we are capable of dealing with challenges beyond what we think.

Announcer 0:02
Welcome to the Solomon Success Show where we explore the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and the Bible as it relates to business and investing false prophets and get rich quick schemes are everywhere. Let’s not be distracted by these. Instead, let’s go to the source, the eternal principles that create a life of peace, power and prosperity. Here’s our host, Jason Hartman.

Rabbi Evan Moffic 0:40
Welcome to the Solomon success Show. I’m Rabbi Evan Moffitt, the client and friend of Jason’s and he invited me to co host the show with him, where we will learn about biblical principles for wisdom success in a meaningful life. And really, we are rooting our teachers In the Hebrew Bible, because I’m a rabbi, and that’s what I teach about. But these teachings are relevant for people of all faiths. I’ve written books about what Christians need to know about the Jewishness of Jesus, about different Jewish holidays for Christians. So my whole approach is speaking and writing for people of all faiths. And that’s Jason’s approach to, but this show specifically focuses on principles for wealth and wisdom in a meaningful life. And when we talk about wealth, we’re not just talking about financial wealth. Of course, that’s important. We’re also talking about wealth in terms of freedom, independence, and the ability to live the kind of life that we want to live in right now, many of us feel kind of stuck. We feel stuck that we don’t have those freedoms that we’re used to. We can’t leave the house as we would wish. We can’t go to the gym. If we’re financially independent, and we’ve follow Jason Since principles and have lots of passive income coming in, we’re still kind of stuck at home, probably working, not being able to enjoy that freedom that we’ve worked hard to enjoy. Now, that’s complaining from a position of privilege, so to speak. I mean, if we’re able to work from home, if we are financially independent, we’re privileged compared to many others who are doing God’s work on the front lines, the hospital workers, the food delivery workers, that people working at grocery stores, they are out there and I really in all and inspired by them. So it kind of feels awkward sometimes to complain about having the luxury of being at home. But even as we acknowledge the hard work somebody people are doing, we also need to acknowledge that it’s painful for us to be home. It’s painful, not to have that freedom that we’re normally accustomed to, and to be able to live our normal life. And as a rabbi as a religious leader, I get this Question often? Why does God allow something like this to happen? Right? Why does God allow this disease to spread around the world to kill now, I believe around the world, over 100,000 people and I know it’s over 50 here in the United States, many of whom are elderly, many of whom were already sick. But Why doesn’t God do anything about it? And I get this question a lot. And part of it is this question of God’s power. Is God all powerful? I want to leave that question aside right now, because I don’t think it’s a particularly useful and helpful question when analyzing what role does God play? Because I don’t think that question is necessarily a very good question either. The challenge for us we are merely human beings, and it’s the book of Job teaches. There are things in heaven and earth that we don’t understand that we don’t know about. So asking whether God has a plan or not. That’s a question only God can answer. We can only respond to what’s in In front of us, we can only do our best to respond to the tragedy that illnesses that we face today. And I want to highlight a beautiful Jewish teaching that can help guide and inspire our response. And there’s a phrase for it and I’m just going to teach you a little Hebrew phrase. It’s called MK Diem riffle Allah maka, which means the cure is created before the illness, the cure is created before the illness. What on earth does that mean? It’s a teaching from the Talmud that talks about illness in the time of the Talmud, which is 2000 years ago, and one of the rabbis taught that, since it is a new illness, a new cure is needed. And if man searches, He will surely find it. For when God created the world, and here’s our teaching machi will fly mufa lamarca. God created the cure before For the illness, and why is this teaching so powerful? It’s powerful because it reminds us that of the power of human ingenuity that we are not static. We are dynamic. God has given us the resources to respond to the crises, the difficulties we face in the world, whether the cure is some vaccine or whether we find a plant that yields the medicine for us to create a vaccine, or to stop the spread of coronavirus. Whether the cure is something created in a science lab, God has given us the minds and the hearts to figure them out. That is a gift. God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle. Now, you might be saying, Well, why didn’t God just give it to us right away. But that’s just not how the world works. Why does a child have to fall when they learn how to walk? That’s the way the world works. So Nothing, things don’t come easily we have as human beings, we have challenges. The challenges are what make life meaningful. But what this teaching does is gives us hope, that there’s hope that we will find ways to respond to the challenges to the illnesses, disease to the human problems before us. That is something that, you know, this show was for both people of faith and also for real estate investors. That’s something that as a real estate investor, you, you know, all the time, when there’s problems in an investment. A house has issues, a tenant has issues, financing has issues, who has ever gone through a real estate transaction without some problems emerging. We figure out how to solve problems. We believe that there is a solution to these problems. And we find that solution we work hard to find it, because that’s the way God created us. That’s in our spirit, until God doesn’t create problems that we ultimately can’t solve. Now, sometimes those problems won’t be solved in our lifetime. So issues. We don’t know the solution and it takes time. And there’ll be tragedies as we’re finding it. But we have to have that faith that it’s there. That’s optimism. That’s hope. And this is true not only when it comes to illnesses, although, of course, that’s important. But it’s with everything in life. You know, one of the things that Jason has taught us, he talks about the air of the Malthusians, and people that are so concerned about overpopulation, and that it’s going to destroy all of our resources and food supply. And this view of the world sees human beings as a burden, rather than a beneficiaries that humans are burdens rather than assets. Where the truth is, is that every human being born has the potential to figure out new ways of solving food shortage problems. Every human being born has the potential to find new technologies to help cure illnesses, human beings are assets rather than burdens. We are capable of handling so much more than we can even imagine. Think about it. People were worried about overpopulation in the 18th century, and then the middle of the 20th century. And then even 20 years ago, people were worried about overpopulation. It’s going to destroy all the world. And yet the population grows and grows. And we have more food available now than ever before. Now, there really is no food supply problem. There’s a food distribution problem. There are people that don’t have the food they need because of the way food is distributed around the world. But there’s no supply problem and distribution problems we can figure out we can solve. Same is true. In fact, you know, this could get into a messy financial discussion, which is not what the show is for, but think about the notion of debt and deficits. You know, it used to be that we were worried about having a trillion dollar debt. Now, I think the debt is like 4 trillion and growing and deficits people were worried about the deficits of the 90s. Well, the deficits today Make that look like pennies. Potentially our economy is able to handle more debt than we really understand. In other words, we’re capable of dealing with so much more than we even imagined. And to bring this back to the human level. I see this all the time. One of the most amazing human qualities is resilience, that we don’t think we can handle a problem until we are forced to handle it. And then we do and it’s amazing. And we realize that we’re capable of so much more than we imagined. We are until let to take a step back and look at this Coronavirus. On one level we are going to find a cure, we will find either a vaccine or a way of treating it. I don’t know when but I know that we will, because God doesn’t create an illness without a cure for it or at least some way of responding to it. Secondly, we are capable of dealing with this shutdown. We are going to find ways to As business people, as consumers as citizens to survive and ultimately thrive, that’s our faith. That’s faith in possibility that’s a quality of Americans, but it’s also a quality of the Hebrew Bible. It’s something that permeates from Abraham to Moses to Jacob. It’s there. That’s it hope and optimism and figuring out a way not only to survive, but to thrive. And I know that all of you can do that. Remember that teaching mock Diem refl Allah maka, the cure comes before the illness, the curious there. We just need to keep pushing and pushing and finding it. Shall.

Announcer 10:43
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