Idolizing Wealth

נמצאו 8 תוצאות חיפוש

1. Suddenly - Sinister Sales and Societal Values

   Chazal's Preambles to Megillat Esther: Part 4

   Rabbi Moshe Taragin | 18 דקות

   Why do Chazal characterize Achashverosh as "the first of the sellers" and Haman as "the first of the purchasers"? How is this reflective of Haman's evil displayed in the megilla? Market forces are used by Haman and Achashverosh to sell the Jewish people to their death. A deeper message that emerges is that Jews must be indignant when injustice takes place, and must not be part of a value system which idolizes wealth.

2. Shlomo’s Sins

   Rabbi Alex Israel

   Three broad approaches exist to explain the jarring discrepancy between the love and dedication that Shlomo displayed towards God and His Mikdash and his love towards foreign women that led to idolatry.

   1) The approach adopted by the majority of traditional commentaries posits that Shlomo himself did not partake in idol worship but facilitated his wives’ idolatry and it is therefore attributed to him.

   2) A careful read of chapters 9 and 10 points to a wide range of failures, a sense of spiritual disorientation identified by Shlomo's overconfident abrogation of the Torah's restrictions for a king.  All these lead in a direct line to the more serious offenses of chapter 11. 

   3) Shlomo's marriage to Pharaoh's daughter at the very outset of his reign is a competing love to his love for God as is subtly described in the text and more explicitly described in the Midrash. Shlomo is caught ideologically between competing worlds.  Bat Pharaoh represents Egypt, the power and trade, the skills and crafts, wealth and international control that appeal to Shlomo's imperial mind.  These come along with a religious worldview that is polytheistic and pagan.  On the other side is the Torah, the Mikdash, the path of David Ha-Melekh.  Shlomo is committed to both.  He seeks to balance the two, but he fails.

    

3. The Best of Times: The Reigns of Yerovam ben Yoash and Uziya

   Rabbi Alex Israel

   The long and impressive reign of Yerovam ben Yoash sees the Northern Kingdom reaching the summit of its regional power and material prosperity. The prophet Amos who prophesies during this period, reveals a society of enormous wealth, complacency, and security and yet bearing startling inequalities of income, and outrageous exploitation of the poor by the rich.

   Uziya's long reign is filled with a long list of impressive accomplishments: Military conquests, extensive fortification of Jerusalem, development of agriculture and a cutting-edge military. However, his successes lead to arrogance and his eventual downfall, plagued till his death with Tzaraat. Yishayahu describes a society in Yehuda similar to what Amos described in the North.

   While Sefer Melakhim dwells almost exclusively on the issue of idolatry, Amos and Yishayahu highlight the sins of arrogance and social injustice. Amos warns of an earthquake which shakes the kingdom a mere two years after Amos begins his prophecy. And yet, even with a national disaster of this proportion, Israel and Yehuda fails to harness its peace and wealth towards kindness, justice, and communal support.

4. Avraham and Lot: Divided by a Pause or a Gaping Chasm?

   Rabbi David Silverberg

5. Lot's Quest for Material Objects Turns him into One

   Rabbi David Silverberg

6. What Paradise Means to Lot

   Rabbi David Silverberg

7. Purim Special - The Culture of Shushan

   Cultural and Historical Challenges of the Megilla Story

   Rabbi Moshe Taragin | 54 דקות

   In this shiur, we analyze two layers of the story of Megillat Esther: Events didn't occur in a vacuum, but as part of cultural struggles and historical challenges.  As we examine the historical and cultural contexts of the story, we find that there is structure to the megilla supported by the numerous feasts in the story. These parties become an icon for a problematic type of multiculturalism: Shushan lacks a shared ethic or value system, so it unites in valuing and celebrating money and the power of wealth above all else. The overlooked letter-carriers in the Megilla help to highlight the flaws of this misplaced value system. 
    

8. Alshikh on Tithes, Wealth, and Spiritual Distance

   Rabbi David Silverberg