Abraham and the Stock Market

November 14, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

You invested in the stock market. You trusted that your 401K, your retirement funds, would grow securely in the hands of good advisers and a diversity of investments. The sands of the marketplace shifted, of course, but the winds blew steady and sure and the sand piled up in neat dunes. Even then, if you had picked up the sand, you would have noticed that sand has a tendency to slip through your fingers. But could you really anticipate what was coming? Can we ever really know in advance what is about to happen? Can we imagine that we are encountering sand, when we are encountering quicksand? Looking back, we can see that there were early warning signs, but most of us were unable to recognize them.

What if an angel came and told us what was about to happen in the stock market. How would we react? Would our first thought be, "I need to get my money to safety?" But no one came forward to tell the world that disaster was looming, to tell the unsuspecting little investors that they were about to be caught in the deluge. Hundreds of thousands of people needed to know what to do, how to save themselves from ruin. Many of them were already retired, living on income from their mutual funds and stocks. Many were saving for a rainy day, never thinking that the floodwaters would wipe away their savings before their very eyes. Did any prophet step forward to warn them?

In this week's portion, we meet the first Hebrew prophet in the Bible. He is the father of the Jewish people, Abraham Avinu, Abraham our father. Not only do we see Abraham through God's eyes, we also hear how God understands the future role of Abraham's people. Here is how it begins:

Now Adonai thought: "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of Adonai by doing what is just and right, in order that Adonai may bring about for Abraham what God has promised him." [Gen. 18:17-19]

What God has in mind is to destroy the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Everyone should have known this time would come. As God said, "The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave! I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether according to the outcry that has reached Me..." [18:20-21]. The noise of the evildoings of the people of the twin cities was so loud that it disturbed God's peace in the heavens. But, if it was that loud, and that pronounced, surely people on earth must have heard it, too.

It may seem strange to modern ears to learn that God could hear the outcry of the twin cities, but God had to go down to see first-hand if the evil was as great as it sounded. But this is how people thought of God. In the tales of ancient Mesopotamia, the gods decide to destroy human beings with a great flood because the noise of the humans was so disturbing that it kept them awake at night. Even in our Bible, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree, God had to come down into the garden to confront them. God strolled through the garden looking for them and calling them to come out of hiding. Today, we think of God as seeing everything and knowing everything. Yet, the God of Genesis may be all-powerful, but not exactly omniscient, not able to see all things from heaven. So God came down to inspect the twin cities and see if the evil there was as great as it sounded.

Why didn't the people of Abraham's time see and hear this evil? Obviously, they paid it no attention. They were concerned with themselves. But the first thing God tells us about Abraham is that it is his job to be concerned for others. Abraham will grow into a mighty people and all the people of the earth will be blessed by Abraham's people because this people will not stand idly by when there is evil on the earth. This people will notice. This people is unique because it specializes in raising the cry for justice and in calling out for righteousness.

Abraham shows how his people will behave. He argues that God must not destroy wantonly. Abraham says, "The old gods, the idols that people worshiped, they used to destroy on a whim, if even their sleep was disturbed. But surely the God of justice will not act in such a willful way. Shall not the God of justice do justly? If only a few good people can be found should they be destroyed along with the wicked? Is that a just thing for a righteous God to do?"

So God and Abraham bargain. If there are fifty good people, fifty innocent souls in the cities, will not God save the cities for the sake of the fifty? God agrees. "For the sake of fifty, the cities shall be saved." Abraham presses, how about for the sake of forty-five righteous souls? Will God not save the city if only five innocent souls are lacking? Okay, God says, if there are forty-five, the cities shall be saved. Abraham presses again. How about for the sake of thirty? What if only ten innocent souls can be found? Is the city not to be saved for the sake of ten innocent souls?

Here we get the meaning of a minyan. If only ten people stand together as just and righteous folk, a city can be saved. In every city, if there is just a minyan of people willing to be kind and just, just a single Jewish congregation, then the whole city is blessed for their sake. This is the mark of the prophet.

If God had said to Abraham, "I am about to make the stock market crash," would Abraham have whipped out his cell phone to call his broker? Or would he have pronounced the truth to the world so that as many people as possible could be spared pain and suffering?

This is the role of the Jewish people. Right now, you can hear the effect this economy is having on the people of America, on the people of Spring, even as you know what effect it is having on you. Right now, you must be like Abraham. You must reach out to help. You must make sure that places like Northwest Assistance Ministries have the resources they need to feed the hungry because now there will surely be more hungry. You must send donations to NAM and Mazon, donations to feed the poor and the elderly who have limited means, because you know that they will surely be trapped in quicksand even if you manage to scrape by. You must offer your time to help. You must lift your hands and lift your voices and open your pocketbooks to share. This is the moment to become what you were pledged to be, a blessing to the peoples of the earth.

Do not let God wipe away these people because they were caught in a loop of evil, even if they thought they were doing good for themselves. Think less for yourself and more for them. Who knows, this may be the very reason that you were put on this earth! If we do not reach out to help the needy now, they will surely be swept under and we will surely be ashamed because we had something and they had nothing. This week, I stopped by NAM to give them a check from the rabbi's discretionary fund. This week, I sent a check to Mazon from the rabbi's discretionary fund. I did this for us, for our congregation, but it is not enough. Now, I need to write a check from my account for each of these places and get it to them before Thanksgiving. I encourage you to do likewise. You can even make these donations on line, from home, on your computer. We are a minyan and we need to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. That's what Abraham teaches us this week, that's what will make it possible for us to enjoy a real Thanksgiving this year. Do it for yourself, because everything you do for others is always something good you are doing for yourself. And let us say, Amen.