Is money evil according to the Torah?

Rabbi Landau teaches that money is not evil, and he wants people to stop saying it is. “Money is a hammer, a tool, nothing more,” he says. A hammer can build houses or smash them: “It's not the hammer, it's the hand.”

He warns about a common hiding place. People say, “I don't want to be materialistic,” and call it holiness. Sometimes, he says, it is really fear of effort in disguise: “Don't dress up fear of effort and call it spiritual. That's a mask.” Holiness, he teaches, “is not running from money. Holiness is using money for good.”

“Torah never told you to be poor,” he says. The Torah says, “Six days you shall work,” and that is a mitzvah: to work, build, earn, and elevate it. The true sin is not money; “a true sin is refusing to work.” And “the greatest poverty is not a lack of cash, it's a lack of ambition.” His instruction is simple: work hard, and elevate it.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Money is a neutral tool. What matters is the hand that holds it.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Some people avoid earning out of fear of effort and call it piety. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau calls this “laziness with a beard,” and adds that each person must check honestly, between himself and Hashem, whether it applies to him.

Underlying need or longing

Holiness is not escape from the physical world but using it for good: to build, earn, and elevate.

Deepest human truth

The greatest poverty is a lack of ambition, not a lack of cash. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the goal is not to run from this lower world but to make it a home for Hashem.

More questions from this teaching

• Does the Torah want us to work for a living?