Exploring the Book of Ya’aqov, Pt. 22

Go, now, you who are rich! Weep, howling over your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches have rotted, and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and the corrosion of them will be to you for a testimony, and will eat your flesh like fire. You stored up treasure for yourselves, as if we were not in the last days! Look! the wages of the workmen (…which had been fraudulently withheld by you) cry out…. You lived in luxury upon the earth, and were self-indulgent; you fed your hearts in a day of slaughter…. (יַעֲקֹב Ya’aqov 5:1-6, mjlt)

By now, it may be a laughable statistic: the “good old days,” when the U.S. national debt was only $25 trillion—of which the debt per tax payer was merely $200,000. This, of course, does not even seem real—it is literally unfathomable—given that the average American has enough trouble with his share of our collective personal debt (mortgages, credit cards and such) totaling $14 trillion. With such a heavy weight, then, it is understandable for us to see the accumulation of wealth as a way out—a rescue from a mounting and unsustainable deficit. But what if achieving financial security is not the answer? What if being rich is actually more risky than simply having enough? Read more