Why do I keep buying things I don’t need?

Rabbi Landau explains that we are not really buying products. “We’re not buying a product, we’re buying a character and a story you’re never gonna live,” a self we don’t have, to impress a vision of ourselves that never exists.

Notice what happens at the moment of purchase, he says: “The moment you swipe the card, you don’t feel richer, you feel relieved.” It is the relief that for one more day you don’t have to meet yourself.

Buy now, pay later, in his words, turns your future self into the next president who has to clean up an economy he never created. The prophet Yeshayahu asks, “Lamah sishkelu chesef b’lo lechem,” why do you spend money on what is not bread?

“Real freedom begins,” he teaches, “when you realize you invented a debt to avoid being free.”

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

Surface claim

People buy things not for the product but for an image of who they wish they were.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Swiping the card brings relief, not wealth: for one more day a person avoids meeting himself.

What may be behind it

Spending on credit hands the bill to your future self, who must clean up a mess he never made.

Deepest human truth

Yeshayahu asks why we spend money on what is not bread. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the made-up person we buy for does not exist and never will; freedom begins when we stop spending to escape ourselves.