Why It Is Never Enough

“Whoever loves money will never have enough money, and whoever loves wealth will never have enough gain. This too is empty.” A Moment We All Know There is a moment we all know. You open your banking app and see your balance, and something inside you pinches. It does not matter how much is there. It always seems you need a little more. One more deal. One more good month. And then, maybe, you will calm down. King Solomon saw this thousands of years ago: “Whoever loves money will never have enough money.” Our Sages explained it plainly: “If he has a hundred, he wants two hundred.” Every one of you who works to earn a living knows this is not poetry, whether you are a family man with a job or a young married man. It is an exact description of everyday life. The question is: why? Is this only a human weakness? Is a person who loves money simply greedy? A New Way to See It There is a deep and precise point here. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught that Hashem’s personal providence does not deal only with outside events, such as the market, the customers and the opportunities. Hashem also guides every detail of our deepest inner drives: our feelings, our cravings, our fears. Every spark of life in us comes from Him, at every single moment. Based on this, we can turn our question around. Maybe the feeling of “it’s not enough” is not a malfunction. Maybe it is part of the plan. Think about it. Suppose there were a certain amount of money that could give you complete security, a security that needs nothing and no one. What would happen to your connection with Hashem? One of our great teachers already warned that the real danger is not poverty. It is wealth, which leads a person to think, “My own strength and the power of my hand made me all this wealth.” This endless wanting for more does not come only from you. It is Hashem’s providence, using money to keep you depending on Him. To keep you connected. To keep you searching. How It Works The more you earn, the bigger the hunger grows. The bigger the deals, the bigger the risk. And the bigger the risk, the deeper the trust in Hashem you need. That is the system. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, a great eighteenth-century teacher, and the classic book Duties of the Heart, in its Gate of Trust, explain that true trust in Hashem is not a passive state of “I don’t care.” It is living, real, daily inner work. The truth is that a person who lives in complete comfort does not have to do this work, because he has no money pressure at all and depends on no one. But us? We are invited to it every single day. If you pay attention, the hunger for more money is really a hunger for the Source. It is a hunger for the true security that does not depend on your account balance. Every money worry is, at its root, a question: “Who is in charge of my life?” That is exactly the question Hashem wants us to ask. All the time. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains in its section called the Gate of Unity and Faith that the thought “my own strength and the power of my hand” is an illusion from the start. This is because “there is no place empty of Him.” Nothing exists that does not come from Him. The constant wanting for more is, as Hasidic teaching would put it, a “built-in reminder” from Hashem’s providence: do not forget where everything comes from. What to Do So the inner work changes direction. The goal is not only to earn more. The goal is to trust more. Every moment when the worry rises is a moment of calling. Do not open the spreadsheet right away. First open your heart. The Ethics of the Fathers says: “The more possessions, the more worry.” This is not meant as criticism. It is a description of reality. More possessions mean more dependence, and so more chances to trust in Hashem. The Tanya’s collection of holy letters explains that trust itself is the vessel through which blessing flows down to us. This means trust not only as a thought, but as real work of the heart. In other words, there is nothing wrong with doing business. There is nothing wrong with wanting to grow. But at every single step, the whole point is this: whom do you trust? Closing The next time you open your banking app and feel that pinch, stop for a moment. Smile. That pinch is not a sign of failure. It is not a sign of greed. It is a sign that the system is working. It means Hashem is holding you close and is not letting go. “Whoever loves money will never have enough money.” But some people learn to turn that hunger into prayer, into trust, into closeness with Hashem. They have discovered something that a bank account has no place to record.