|
|
|
Jewish World Review Oct. 17, 2008 / 18 Tishrei 5769 Sukkos and the Great Meltdown
By
Jonathan Rosenblum
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
All the Jewish holidays are times of rejoicing, but only Sukkos is
specifically known as "the time of our rejoicing." The special joy of Sukkos
is connected to the extra measure of closeness to G-d we feel as we leave
our fixed, permanent dwellings to spend a week in an impermanent structure,
with no fixed roof over our heads.
That miniature exile, explains Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, leads to a
negation of the material world (bitul hayesh) and paves the way for a
greater closeness to G-d. The sukkah booth is a reminder of the Clouds of Glory
that protected our ancestors in a howling wilderness, and helps us feel
G-d's enveloping love.
THE ENTIRE WORLD is currently experiencing its own form of negation of the
material, though few have been heard rejoicing. World stock exchanges are
crashing, and the retirement nests that millions had squirreled away in
"safe" pension plans are disappearing. The only question according to many
economists is whether we are on the cusp of a worldwide recession or
depression.
Already the meltdown in financial markets has had major consequences. Two of
the world's leading investment banks have bit the dust, and the rest are
being reorganized on a completely new footing. The American presidential
election, which was a dead heat three weeks ago, increasingly looks like an
Obama rout, though he has given no indication that he knows anything of
economics and even though one of the causes of the crisis was the pressure
placed on banks by Democratic legislators to offer mortgages to
non-creditworthy home purchasers. (By speaking more frequently and
impulsively, McCain has removed any doubts about his own grasp of
economics.)
Whatever slim chance remained that President Bush might act to thwart Iran's
nuclear ambitions prior to leaving office have been reduced to zero. The
global economy could not bear another such shock at present.
In my own community, the social safety net based on private philanthropy
from abroad has been removed from under thousands of families, as much of
the massive wealth which supported thousands of chesed organizations has
disappeared.
ECONOMISTS WILL STUDY and debate the causes of the meltdown for years. But
it is clear that the crisis has a moral component — in particular the
severing of the relationship between productive activity and wealth. Decades
ago, I read that the economic future of a society can be judged by the ratio
of engineers to lawyers (and, we might add, financiers.) For the last
fifteen years, too many of the brightest (if not the best) in the United
States have been drawn to Wall Street and affiliated hedge funds. Rather
than inventing better widgets or finding a cure for cancer, they opted for
the quickest way to earn millions.
Financial institutions are an indispensable part of the grease that makes a
global economy possible and play an indispensable role in wealth production.
But the only thing that the twenty-somethings in big Wall Street firms could
take pride in was the size of their annual bonuses, which were often in the
millions and based almost entirely on short-term profits. Money became the
measure of all things.
No wonder the young hotshots ended up, in the prescient words of a 2007
British comedy skit, bundling thousands of mortgages pushed upon "unemployed
. . . men in string vests" sitting on the porches of tumbledown shanties,
into investment packages sold to other investment firms around the world, in
which neither buyer or seller had any idea of the value of the mortgages
comprising the package. If the underlying real estate turned out to be
worthless, well, the bonuses would have already been paid and someone else
left holding the bag.
As long as these young men and women were pulling down million dollar
bonuses, they were sure that their success owed directly to their superior
brains and talents. "They were infused," writes David Brooks, "with a sense
that they have it all figured out." But the complex risk-allocation
instruments they developed failed to take into account the markets' herd
psychology, and their risk-sharing swaps only served only to link financial
institutions around the world in one death grip, like a drowning swimmer
pulling down his would be rescuer.
Hundreds of thousands who viewed their million dollar bonuses as the just
measure of their talents are now out of jobs. And the fingers of blame are
pointed elsewhere - at dim-witted politicians, failed bosses, and all manner
of forces beyond their control.
Not only on Wall Street and other world financial centers was the
relationship between productive activity and the enjoyment of the fruits of
such activity severed. Americans have been living well beyond their means,
unwilling to postpone enjoyment of those things money can buy until that
money was earned. Household debt swelled to 100% of GNP in 2006 from 50% in
1980.
IN THE MIDST of the worldwide depression beginning in 1929, Rabbi Elchonon
Wasserman, who would be martyred in the Kovno ghetto, wrote a piece that
applies no less to today's crisis. The problem, he wrote, is not that there
is no more money, but that all trust had broken down. The credit upon which
any modern economy is based had dried up. Those with money refuse to lend it
(check the current interbank overnight lending rates), suppliers will not
sell on credit.
Reb Elchonon saw a Divine lesson in that loss of trust. He attributed the
loss of trust between people to a loss of emunah (belief) in G-d.
The sukkah beckons us to leave behind our false sense of security in the
physical world and to enter into a different realm, the realm described in
the central Shemoneh Esrai of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in which awareness of
G-d fills the world. The move from our fixed abode to the sukkah allows us
to contemplate the world of Spirit, a world without limit because its Source
is infinite, a world of peace and unity in which men are not set against one
another in competition over a limited pie.
The Talmud interprets the verse, "I caused the Children of Israel to dwell
in booths when I took them out of Egypt," to mean that only by throwing off
our bondage to the physical world do we escape the spiritual depravity of
Egypt.
Sukkos will not return all the trillions that have been lost. But it can
help us recognize that true joy does not come from the things money can buy
and that our ultimate security does not rest in the size of our retirement
fund.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the Hebrew daily Maariv. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. Rosenblum lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.
© 2008, Jonathan Rosenblum | ||||||||||
