TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Do You Wish You Had More Money? Stop Wishing and Make it Happen
Date: 11/21/25 Length: 00:34:01
Daniel Lapin 0:01
Greetings, Happy Warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. Thanks for being part of the show, and thank you for subscribing. There are still a lot of regular viewers and listeners who don't subscribe. So it would be great if you could do that, and if you are not yet a member of the Happy Warrior community, why? Well, you'd want to do that as well, because I do produce a private bonus podcast every week specifically for members of the Happy Warrior community, where we speak sitting around the fireplaces that were confidentially and substantially so. Thank you very much indeed for doing all of that, subscribing and becoming a member of the Happy Warrior community and enjoying the bonus podcasts. And what I wanted to do today was take a few minutes to talk about where the material comes from. When I share material on money, Where is this from? You know, if Warren Buffett would give a class on money. There would be from his life and from his experiences, and so it would be with Bill Gates or with any other substantial, accomplished and affluent person. But in in my case, I am bringing to you ancient Jewish wisdom. And that means that when we ask the question of, why is it that children of Israel, descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people, why is it that we are so disproportionately good with money. And you know, is it because we rip off people, or is it because of intelligence, or is it because of any one of a number of other reasons? And these are all easy to debunk. These are not the reasons. The reasons has to do with the knowledge and understanding that is the legacy of the Jewish people found in the Five Books of Moses, what we call the Torah. Now, the English translations, and there are many translations, perhaps none more beautiful than the King James translation of the 1600 early 1600s but no matter what translation, it doesn't convey the information on money. Now everybody knows that within the five books of Moses there are more rules, references, regulations concerning money than in the rest of the Bible. Altogether, it's all there, but understanding how it comes together well, that is part of what has been responsible for the Jewish people's disproportionate success with money? Are there no poor Jews? No, of course there are. And this doesn't necessarily apply to the stratospheric area of multi billionaires. That, again, is not what the Torah it's not what the Hebrew Scriptures is all about, but it's about doing very well, and it turns out to be disproportionately successful, well more than others. And so I do speak about the fact that the Forbes 400 has too many Jews on it every year. What I mean by too many Jews on it is that Jews constitute about one and a half percent of America's population, considerably smaller than the Muslim population of the United States. And so if you're going to identify the 400 richest Americans, and it's going to be demographically leveled, then you'd expect to find, you know, six or seven Jews on the list, but you always find many, many, many more than that, and that's, you know, at the upper end, that's at the high but if you just were to take at random, you take 1000 Americans and take 1000 Jews at random from The Jewish population, at random from the American population. It's very easy, because we have so many accurate statistics about America's population, and we have accurate statistics on health and wealth, the wealth because of the IRS and health because of the medical system such as it is. But we know that 1000 random Americans will have again, you'd expect a bell curve distribution, a few very well off, a few poverty stricken, and the majority in the middle. And if you took randomly 1000 people, 1000 American Jews, and plotted their wealth again, it would be a bell curve, but it would look very different. The Bell Curve would be much further along on the financial axis, meaning that there will be much the average will be much higher than, than the than the regular Americans. It just will be. And, you know, people have sometimes said this is because of Jewish intelligence. Not true at all. Very high intelligence is a detriment to doing well financially. Yes, it actually is. Very high intelligent people do not make a lot of money. They usually serve on the faculties of universities, because making a lot of money depends on having a lot of people who know you, a lot of people who like you, and a lot of people who trust you. That is what makes it happen, and it's important to understand exactly how money comes about. I will make an initial statement and tell you, you know that money is not metallic discs that clink in your pocket, and it's not strips of paper colored green, and it's not even the arrangement of iron oxide molecules on the back of your credit card. These are all symbols of something we call money. But what is money? And I think that perhaps one of the best ways and that I have for explaining that is if I were to tell you about my grandfather. My grandfather was a Bible scholar, but he was also a traveling salesman. He traveled. He was a peddler. He bought, he sold. You might, you might think of him as predating the World Wide Web, right? If you want to buy something, most people, where do you go? You go on the internet. And if you want to sell something, there are places you can go to on the internet as well. The idea of writing up an advert, you know, saying, looking to sell nine foot rubber boat used for fishing, and you nail the sign up on trees with your phone number. No, that's not how it works anymore. Today. It's an electronic version, an online, digital version of grandpa Lapin. And I just want to give you a quick glimpse into an example of a day in grandpa Lapin. And of course, we don't have a lot of time. I'll leave out the disappointments and the frustrations, but I'll just go to the mechanics of what happens, and I want you to do the arithmetic with me. And so grandpa Lapin comes to one house and he says, Do you have anything you don't need, anything you're getting rid of? And the housewife says, Sure, we have an old table that we're getting rid of. And I says, What are you doing with it? She says, we're putting it out in the alley, and on Tuesday, the city will come by and take it away, and they charge us $5 for taking away big objects like that. Grandpa Lapin says, Have I got a deal for you? I will take your trip, your table, put it on my pickup truck, and I'll give you $5 and the question I ask you now is, how much better off is this family because grandpa Lapin knocked on their door? Figure it out if your first instance say $5 because that's what grandpa Lapin gave, not so fast. Back up a little bit. The lady knows she was going to have to pay $5 to the city. Now she doesn't have to pay that. And so that's $5 that's moved from the owing column to the possessing column. That's five plus the $5 grandpa Lapin gives her, that's a total of $10 his family is better off by $10
Daniel Lapin 9:47
now let's imagine that grandpa Lapin stops at the hardware store and gets a little bit of paint to paint up scratches on the table make it look nicer, and then he knocks on another house. Says, anybody here need a table? So. And the lady says, Yeah, as a matter of fact, we do need a table. He says, What were you going to do about this need? She says, we were going to go to a furniture store and buy a table. And grandpa Lapin might have said, how much would that have cost you? She'd say, well, we'd set our eyes on a $20 table. Grandpa Lapin says, How would you like to buy my table for $10 now mind you, it's used. There were a couple of scratches I painted out, but it's a perfectly usable table. And the lady goes out and looks at it, and she says, fantastic. It'll do just fine for us. And so grandpa Lapin helps him take the table inside, and the lady gives grandpa Lapin $10 how much better off is this family because grandpa Lapin knocked on their door. Well, you know, to be careful now, right? This family was going to have to pay 20, but now they only have to pay 10, and they've got a workable table, so they're better off by $10 now, some of you might be worrying that this is all very well, but this is at the expense of the heart the furniture store. Furniture Store has a table in their in their inventory. They were going to sell it for $20 they are going to sell it for $20 but now, because of grandpa Lapin, this family is not going to buy that table. They bought the one on the back, Grandpa Lapin pickup truck. You don't have to worry about that. That doesn't impact because that store, the net asset value of their inventory, didn't change from before grandpa Lapin came to town to after grandpa Lapin was in town. Town, absolutely no difference. They had a table in inventory. They still got a table in inventory. You know what? Somebody else will buy it. That's how stores operate. But as far as family number two is concerned, they didn't have to pay 20. They only have to pay 10. They're $10 better off. So I ask you this question now, in aggregate, in total, how much better off is the town? How Much Money extra has the town now got we know that if we look to the financial statement to family number one, they're $10 up. Family number two is $10 up. And don't forget the storekeeper the hardware store, he's got $1 in his till from when grandpa Lapin bought paint. And so the total there of that has been the total amount of money that has been generated literally out of nothing, only out of two people serving one another, Grandpa Lapin, serving one family. Grandpa Lapin, serving the second family, the hardware store serving grandpa. And the aggregate value that has been brought to the town is $21 and that's why it is that towns with active trading going on have a feeling of prosperity to that because money is being created, created. By the way, government cannot create money. Right? Is that clear money? Government can print money. But as you might remember in the United States in the years 2020, through 2023, or 2024 you might remember the result of what happens when governments print money, if you're not sure, go take a look and see what happened when Germany printed a lot of money in the 30s, 1930s go and see what happened in Zimbabwe or Venezuela. When governments print a lot of money, they don't create wealth, they destroy it. It's called inflation, but money is brought into being almost magically, but I prefer to say miraculously, by God's plan for human economic interaction. And so just because grandpa Lapin knocked on two doors and visited a hardware store, $21 has been brought into existence, and an honest society would now print 210s in a single and put them into circulation, because that would match the amount of money that's actually been created. By the way, if you want to check to see how good your arithmetic really is, tell me how much is in grandpa's pocket now, because the wealth that was generated is not just what's in family number one, family number two in the hardware store, Grandpa Lapin also has money in his pocket. How much? Well, this is easier done if we work backwards. Family number two gave grandpa Lapin $10 remember, of that $10 he spent $1 in the hardware store. How much has grandpa Lapin got at $9 but don't forget, he gave the lady in the first house five so he's left with $4 terrific. So the town is wealthier by $21 and Grandpa Lapin is better off by $4 Dollars. This is the miracle of how God arranged human interaction. And you might say, Well, where is that found? Well, that's found in the second chapter of Genesis, where God said it's not good for man to be alone, and God provides not one but two solutions. And again, it's a little easier to see in the Hebrew text than it is in the English translation, no matter how beautiful. And what we see is that God says, really not good for man to be alone. Okay, what do we do about it? Well, we got two solutions, marriage and money that eliminates the dreadful scourge of existential loneliness, complete isolation, and that's what happens. So the first thing is marriage, God creates this model of male female connection called marriage, and all the details are given there. It's that we won't go into those details for now, but that's one solution. But there's a second solution that does concern us today. Do you know what the second solution is? The second solution is money, because a little further along in the chapter, God says to Adam, by the sweat of your brow, you will eat bread. That's right, this isn't a curse. This isn't part of the punishment. This is part of the solution, because biblical nomenclature always treats the word bread as if it also means money. Why is that? You think about it's pretty obvious, right? Because we live by producing bread. How do you produce bread? You go into the field, you gather your wheat, turn it into flour, bake it into bread, and money is again a metaphor for how we live. Literally, we do eat bread, but we make money, and that's what allows us to buy How do you make money? You go into the field. What am I talking about? Have you ever asked somebody at a meeting or a gathering, at a party, on an airplane, you say to somebody, so what field are you in? Ever heard that expression? What field are you in? This is where it comes from, straight out of the Bible, the book that, more than any other, shaped the contours of Western civilization. And so yes, bread means money, and that's why, in many languages, it's almost like a slang. Can you lend me some dough? Right? Dough? Or have you got any bread on you? Bread is money. We get that. And so God says I'm going to give you this great gift called money. It's a miracle, and it only exists in environments where faith exists. That's part of my deal. And so that's why America became one of history's greatest engines of prosperity, because the country was founded on Judeo, Christian, Biblical faith, and almost every aspect of making money requires an act of faith. If you give credit to somebody, you have faith that he's going to pay you at the end of the month, or that enough of your debtors will pay you So as you'll be able to come out all right, faith is involved in almost everything we do. If you know, you might be a craftsman who makes things on spec, you might make jewelry. You might make carpentry objects, and then you put them up for sale on Etsy, on the on the internet. You spent a lot of time, energy and even money making these objects. What's that going to do for you? I got faith that in a healthy economic environment, they will sell somebody will come along and buy those things and how beautiful is that it actually does work that way. It's marvelous. That's what money really is. And so when you ask for a definition of money, and somebody might say, well, it's a medium of exchange at slows value, etc., etc, no money is evidence that you have served another one of God's children,
Daniel Lapin 19:44
and that's what's really important to understand, because God wants us to take care of his other children. Really important. I once as a boy, my first car failed. My dad said, Take. Could have Benny Goldberg's garage. He's a member of my congregation, and he'll look after he's a good guy. I took it there and and Benny Goldberg looked at my car, and he made the worst noise that you ever want to hear a mechanic say. And I thought I was this was bad, bad news. But he said, Listen, give me two hours. Come back into our came back two hours, and my car is running smoothly. It's so wonderful. It sounds just like I always dreamed my car should sound and I uttered the terrifying words, because I'd spend most of my money on the car. I said, Mr. Goldberg, how much do I owe you? He said, nothing at all. Years ago, your father did me a huge favor. I can never repay him, you know, just go ahead, enjoy your car. So I was about to go off, but, but then my conscience bothered me. Don't you hate when that happens? And I went back to Mr. Goldberg, and I said, I'm sorry. I just have to tell you, you obviously think that this is my father's car, and that by not charging me, you're paying it isn't it's my car. I bought it, and he laughed, and he said, you don't get it, but you will one day. The best thing you can ever do for somebody is help his son. Help his child, and your father will be very, very happy that I took care of you and I said, You know what you really are, right? And I appreciate it. Thank you very much indeed. And our Father in heaven is no different. It is true, every human father wants to see his son being helped by somebody else, maybe another son. In other words, children. Helping Children makes parents very happy. So why shouldn't it happen with our Father in heaven? We you know, Grandpa Lapin helped a family get rid of a table. He helped another family acquire a table. Now the cynic in me would say, Oh, what are you talking about? He just did it to make money. She just did it for the profit. That's all. The answer is that the action exists independently of the motivation, and it's arrogant for us to determine other people's motivation half the time. You and I don't even know why we do things ourselves. For us to determine what the explanation is for why somebody else did some maybe, maybe it was for the Prophet, maybe. But it doesn't change the fact that when somebody serves you, they're doing something good for you. It's one of the reasons, by the way, that Americans have always been good on tipping always. Because, yes, it's true, the housekeeping staff in the hotel you stayed at last night gets paid. So why did you leave $5 on the table for them? Because you appreciate that they did something for you. It's not a crisis of did they do it too? In order to keep their job. They took care of the room beautifully. So you would come in and you are a beneficiary of that. Don't be cynical and say, Oh, they just, they did a nice thing for you. Leave them a tip. That's the idea. And so, yes, God smiles on economic transactions. God thinks it's, it's a wonderful thing, and how do you know that you have effectively served another human being? Answer is the profit or the pay, that money proves that you served another human being. And so God isn't only happy when you take money you've made and you give it a charity, that's a separate matter at all. We're not even discussing that God's happy that you made the money in the first place. Because if you didn't rob somebody, the only way you made that money is by pleasing them, because they gave it to you voluntarily, didn't they? And that is what makes all the difference. Money. You want a definition of money. Money means it's a certificate of performance. It's something you proves that you served another one of God's children. That's what it does. Money shows you that it's a wonderful thing, right? And one of the best ways of making money is through the profession of selling. I think it's a wonderful, wonderful profession, because selling is really an act of leadership. You are helping another human being think or act in a certain way. And it is a way. It's true, it'll benefit you. You'll make a commission or a sale, but it will also benefit them. And if you're a sales professional of integrity, then you are only selling things to people who will benefit from those things. And the overwhelming majority of sales professionals I've met are exactly those people. And so the whole. Question of selling, there's a whole art to it. And by the way, what's so important to understand is that selling is the same as influencing is the same as persuading. And so when a parent encourages a child to work hard and get educated, that parent is practicing selling influencing and persuading. And if, if a company sells a contractor a bulldozer that's selling influencing and persuading, and if a teacher encourages a child to become interested that's selling, influencing and persuading. And so we discover through ancient Jewish wisdom that whether you are selling, whether you're influencing or whether you're persuading, you are using the same key spiritual powers of how you connect and how you communicate and how you collaborate and how you compel This is very, very amazing stuff, and it's part of the secret of Jewish financial success, because if a really good sales professional leads you into a purchase of something that enhances your life. You don't feel manipulated, you don't feel that you've been tarnished. You feel grateful, and that's why you and I, I certainly do, and I'm sure you do. We know many, many people who've been friends with their customers for many years. One example I just came across again for the repeatedly for multiple time, and that is a car dealer in town who tells me I've just sold a car to the grandson of a man who bought a car from me many years ago. I sold him all his cars. I sold his son all his cars, and now I've just sold a car to the grandson. That doesn't sound like people who feel manipulated. Doesn't look sound like people who feel taken advantage of. No not at all. These are people who knew, liked and trusted their car dealer, and that's how we all choose who to do business with, whether it's whether it's buying a car or anything else you do, finding a plumber or finding a lawyer or anybody you look you try and get recommendations. You want somebody you can know who you like and your trust. And that's one of the really nice things about business, is it encourages good be good behavior. Oh, wait, you say Rabbi Lapin, are you entirely oblivious of all the rotten business people we've run into? You actually haven't run into that many. And I did a survey, which I would recommend you to do as well. I want you to find out how many teachers are not allowed to teach because of bad things they did to the students in their charge, and we can find the number is available. You might want to know how many doctors are prohibited. They've lost their license. They're no longer allowed to treat patients because they did bad things to patients. Well, when you look at the number of doctors who've done bad things to patients,
Daniel Lapin 28:37
with reference to the total number of doctors, there are many, many fewer doctors in America than there are business professionals. If you look at all the teachers that have done rotten things as a fraction of all the teachers in America, there's many, many, many more business professionals in America, small business people larger medium size than there are teachers. And so we discover that the number of business professionals who've done bad things is about 8% of the number of doctors who've done bad things and 12% of the number of teachers who've done bad things. In other words, by and large, you know, if you're a doctor, to find a humble doctor is hard because everybody builds up the egos of doctors. Understandably, they do miracles. They do wonderful work. They do God's work, and it's great. But there are many, many doctors who really feel as if they are amazing things. A nurse told me a few months ago how a doctor finished doing if you'll pardon me, because I'm saying something that doesn't exist. It's not a reality. Was doing transgender surgery, and he came out boasting into the hallway. Come everybody, come and look at what I've done. I've turned this man into a woman. No, you actually mutilated a man. But regardless, the spirit. Nature of the doctor is to be you know very much, there's not anything in the practice of medicine that automatically forces you to become a better human being. And the same thing is true in teaching. But in business, business can be humbling, because in business, you've got to please other people. You've really got to please them. Your customers can fire you by just going somewhere else, not doing business with you. And so in business, we are encouraged by the nature of the work to please other human beings. And so we do that. We say hello, welcome when they walk into your store, and then we wish them a good day when they leave. And we pack things up nicely for them. We treat people well, yo. We're doing it for self serving reasons. That's not important. It really isn't important doing the right thing is much more important than the motivation by that made you do that right thing. And so that's really a wonderful thing about being in business. And again, no matter what you do, with a few exceptions, if you work for the post office, you're not in business, you can't be fired. If you're a judge on the Supreme Court, can't be fired. But for most, for most everybody, most of us, we're in business, even if we are employees. But don't think of yourself as an employee, because if you think of yourself an employee, you start feeling powerless. You feel a victim. You feel as if you have no independent agency, even if we are employees, we should think in terms of ourselves as independent business professionals. And we are selling our services to our employer. We can sell them to other people as well, and we can ask for a raise, which is another way of saying, I'm raising my prices. Different mindset, very different mindset from being an employee. We think of ourselves as really being independent business professionals, and that is the beauty of the world of business and how money really works. And so in terms of selling and persuading, we created a beautiful resource called Persuade with Purpose. Persuade with Purpose. And if you go to we happywarriors.com that's the membership site for all of you who are members of the Happy Warrior community. And other people can visit as well, but you don't get access to the member side of the site. But if you go to we happy warriors.com you will find that there is this product. It's a great resource. Persuade with purpose, how to become more effective in selling influencing and persuading, and it's an online course. You do it at your own time, work your way through it and achieve the success that is so readily available for people who understand how the world really works. And so dear Happy Warriors, until next time, let me wish you a week of progress onwards and upwards. In your families, in your finances, in your fitness, your friendships and your family finance, friendship, fitness and faith. Can't forget any of the five. Finance, family friendship, fitness and faith, lots of success. Have a great week. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. God Bless.
