By Rabbi Shlomo Linden
Valley Village Community Kollel
In Parshas Vayishlach, Perek 32, Passuk 25, it says “Vayivaser Yaakov levado, vayei’aveik ish imo.” Rashi cites the interpretation in Chullin 91a that Yaakov forgot some pachim ketanim, small jugs, and returned to retrieve them even though he was putting himself in danger. Chazal derive from here that “to the righteous, their money is dearer to them than their bodies.” Since they earn every penny diligently and honestly it is precious to them. This gemarah needs an explanation. Why is their money dearer to them than their lives?
Perhaps we can understand the gemarah based on a principle taught by the Chafetz Chaim. The Ponovezher Rav relates that while he and R’ Elchanan Wasserman were learning in the Kollel in Radin, they wanted to look something up in a specific sefer. Since this sefer is quoted in the Mishnah Berurah, they figured the Chafetz Chaim must own it, and they went to ask him for it. To their astonishment the Chafetz Chaim told them that he doesn’t own this sefer as well as many other sefarim that he quotes. Every time he needs a sefer he borrows it. Noticing their surprise, he explains that in fact he is not upset by the sefarim that he doesn’t have; rather he’s bothered by the sefarim he does have. Instead of learning sefarim and putting them in his head so to speak, he has applied effort and money to have them sit on his bookshelf. It was the lack of Torah learning that he felt was worth agonizing over.
Based on this, the Chafetz Chaim explains a gemarah in Gittin 47a. The gemarah states that when Reish Lakish passed away, he left a small amount of spices to his heirs. Nevertheless he applied to himself the passuk “veazvu le’achairim cheilam,” “And they leave for others their wealth.” This passuk is referring to foolish people who gather a lot of wealth they have no use for, and it ends up going to others. The obvious question is why is he agonizing over leaving over an inheritance, especially when it is such a small amount? The answer is that once he realized he won’t be using the spices, he regretted the fact that he wasted the time and effort needed to acquire them, while he could have been learning Torah. He calculated how to spend every minute of his life and only invested in what was necessary to live in this world.
Now we can understand what Chazal say, “To the righteous their money is dearer to them than their bodies.” They didn’t put any effort or time into creating their bodies, rather they received them as a gift. This is as opposed to their money for which they invested lots of time and effort, but only to the point of what they needed to serve Hashem. A tzaddik values his time to such an extent that spending time acquiring items that aren’t an absolute necessity is considered a waste!
The real value of the money is the time spent acquiring it. Every minute is dear and precious and not to be wasted on unnecessary pursuits. We can learn from here to appreciate every minute we have in this world, and the responsibility to use it wisely, learning more Torah and keeping Hashem’s mitzvos to the best of our abilities.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!