Money Is a Cover for Egoistic Desires

Question: Money in Hebrew is called “Kesef.” What does this mean from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Money (Kesef) is from the word “covering” (Kisufa). We can say that with its help a person can cover all his expenses, everything he wants. In other words, it is a cover for one’s egoistic desires.

However, if he actually acquires what the concept of Kesef means, i.e., the screen (covering, Masach), then he will begin to rise above himself and instead of material fulfillments, he will feel the upper fulfillment of the next degree.

Our egoism needs covering. Either you cover it by giving it everything it wants or you cover it by stopping it at a certain normal level and begin to work above it.

Question: In our world, money is a measure of value: how much your time is worth, how much this or that thing is worth. In spirituality it is a measure of the strength of my screen, an anti-egoistic quality. Is the extent to which I can cover pleasure, i.e., enjoy not for my own sake, but for the sake of the other or the Creator, called “money”?

Answer: However, you do it in order to reach the goal. You do not just bestow to someone else by making some kind of charitable donations, but you have a certain goal, and you are bestowing for the sake of it, in order to rise to the next degree. And although this action is anti-egoistic, it pursues this goal.

One may ask: “Why is it anti-egoistic? After all, I replace one with the other.” Let’s say I give $100 million and want some spiritual fulfillment for it. Here we also need to understand how we bestow in order to receive spiritual fulfillment and how I replace one with the other.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

Related Material:
Kabbalah And The Consumer Economy, Part 3
Kabbalah And The Consumer Economy, Part 2
Kabbalah And The Consumer Economy, Part 1

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