CA wrote:
I would like to point out a common misconception that having a high income or great wealth is some sort of monotonically increasing function of work effort, let alone a monotonically increasing function of virtue. In some cases that may be true, but there are many more examples of people who work very hard and have little to show for it. On the other extreme, there are the Jewish equivalents of Paris Hilton, whose wealth is inherited. Then again, in today's capitalist economy, the middot needed to succeed and earn a high income may not be the ones that the Jewish People wish to inculcate. Alas, such middot often are tacitly encouraged in both the Orthodox and non-Orthodox world because our institutions have an apparently limitless appetite for money. This shows that even the most frum people and institutions in the Jewish world are more assimilated than they realize.
Very well said. And this is an especially timely remark as the haves head to their Pesach hotels, while the have-nots wonder how they'll find the money for the tax and tuition bills coming due.
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