How should I look at a bankruptcy or a big financial loss?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that bankruptcy “is not a coincidence. It's a curriculum.” For the ones who made it, he says, “it was actually chapter two.”
Does wealth come from intelligence, timing, or luck? “Not always,” he says. “It's actually one thing: stamina. The ability to lose everything and show up Monday morning anyway.” The fear of losing everything “is the exact thing keeping you from gaining anything.” In his words, “You cannot play big while protecting small.”
He brings the words of Shlomo HaMelech: orach tzaddikim k'or nogah, holech va'or, the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, growing brighter. “It's dark in the morning, it's dark at night. One is rising, one is falling.” The problem, he says, is that “people leave right before it turns light.”
Related concepts: Entrepreneur · Success
In A Soul at Peace: Growing Brighter, Until Full Day
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Success is not mainly intelligence, timing, or luck. It is stamina: losing everything and showing up Monday morning anyway.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
The fear of losing everything is exactly what keeps a person from gaining anything. “You cannot play big while protecting small.”
What may be behind it
How can I tell if my darkness is the end or a beginning?
Rabbi Landau notes there is darkness in the morning and darkness at night; one is rising, one is falling. In A Soul at Peace he suggests asking yourself which of the two you are in.
Deepest human truth
The path of the righteous grows brighter. The tragedy is leaving right before it turns light.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Wealth, Work, and Divine Sustenance · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz