Money the root of all evil?

I just read something amazing in a nice booklet on the Besh”t.

 

Summing up this great masters advice, a striking comparison between his philosophy, the philosophy of Chassidus / Jewish mysticism and the previous philosophy in Judaism, somewhat still prevalent, not to mention the general philosophy of religions, was examined.

 

The question:

 

Good vs. Evil.

 

O.k. we all know that good comes from God but where does evil come from?

 

Christianity divides – an unnecessary, unhealthy and philosophically untenable division – between two equally powerful forces, God and the devil.

 

Buddhism simply rejects, sort of ignore, one for the other.

 

The uniqueness of Judaism is of course in the non uniqueness of its approach to reality, namely that it should be engaged.

 

However a fundamental subconscious or shall we say prelude is often misunderstood.

 

Do we begrudgingly engage the world, its affairs, sex etc. because so we are commanded to by God, or does God who created this world, its affairs, sex have a spiritual  purpose in so doing.

 

Up to the time of the Baal Shem Tov, though Jews engaged, they also had a clearly subconscious difficulty in so doing – Adam himself caused all of the world to descend by not knowing the boundaries in this difficult union.

 

The Baal Shem Tov revealed a new paradigm, namely that God is just as much within this world then without, just as much here then in heavens, and in fact the entire purpose is to create a dwelling place – a home – a comfort zone – for God on earth not in heaven.

 

As the verse sur m-erah ve-aseh toiv, stay away from evil and do good – Chassidus teaches, turn the mundane into Godliness, change physical into spiritual, bring the Divine into the mundane.

 

How is this achieved?

 

No one will deny that one person cannot be going in two directions.

 

And this is precisely the point.

 

It is the direction that counts.

 

Not the action – say eating breakfast. For eating, sleeping, intercourse etc. are in and of themselves natural acts of life which assume the meaning we place in it.

 

Nowhere is this seen more than in our attitude towards money.

 

Is money the source of all evil?

 

To Chassidus / Jewish mysticism it is the closest act of communion with God possible.

 

What? Money!?

 

Yes! money!

 

For in charity, God’s desire for a unified world – people uniting with each other through helping one another – is completely manifest.

 

So is money the root of all evil?!

 

No, arrogance, hording; but certainly the same coin used to help, to give, to share, to glue hearts, namely money is the root of God himself.

 

As the Lubavitcher Rebbe – the successor to the Baal Shem Tov in our times – oft exhorted us; Just as God desires we keep Kosher, Shabbat etc. so to (and perhaps even more so ) he desires that we should make the mundane kosher; by dedicating our actions such as eating, procreation, making a living, to the noble pursuits – even if simply to provide us with sustenance, children, to pursue noble pursuits, for the means are no less than the ends when it comes to drawing in purpose into life – like spicing up a bland pasta with a delicious blend of your favorite spaghetti sauce.