An interesting religious approach to the pursuit of wealth

Hi,

We are familiar with texts which denigrate the pursuit of wealth, arguing that people amass wealth for a future they might not live to see. Here's a different perspective:

"The ant lives only six months, and consumes only one and a half wheat kernels, but it gathers any wheat and barley it can find all through the summer.

"Rabbi Tanchuma said: In its entire life it consumes only a wheat kernel and a half, and it gathers all of this - why? It says: Perhaps Gd will decree that I should live, and so I need to have food prepared to eat."

(Midrash, Devarim Rabbah 5:2)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Honest ants

Hi,

"Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta said: An ant once knocked down a single wheat kernel (for collection). All of the ants came to sniff it, but none of them took it. The ant which had selected it came and took it.

"See the wisdom and glory in the ant: It learned from no one, it has neither judge nor officer... You, for whom I have appointed judges and officers, certainly should listen to them!"

(Midrash, Devarim Rabbah 5:2)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Natural Morality

Hi,

"Rabbi Yochanan said: Had the Torah not been given, we would have learned privacy from the cat, [the impropriety of] theft from the ant and fidelity from the dove."

(Talmud, Eruvin 100b)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Appreciating Gd through study of nature

Hi,

"When a person contemplates Gd's great and wondrous deeds and creations, and sees therein His inestimable and infinite Wisdom, he immediately begins to love and praise and glorify Gd, and he feels a great longing to know Gd."

(Maimonides, Laws of the Foundations of Torah 2:2)

Have a great day,
Mordechai