Rabbi's Message

                         What Money Cannot Buy

 

“Surely there is a mine for silver and a place for gold which they refine. But where shall wisdom be found? And where in the place of understanding?” Job22:1, 12.

 

         The story is told of a group of businessmen who once met for dinner. They began to discuss money and one particularly successful and aggressive individual opined that there wasn’t anything that money couldn’t buy. To back up his opinion, he wrote out a check for a thousand dollars, and told his dinner companions that they could have it if they could convince him there were at least four desirable things that money could not possibly buy.

          One man took out a piece of paper and wrote the following four things that money could not buy: a baby’s smile, youth after its gone; the love of a good person and entrance into heaven. Realizing that there was no arguing against these invaluable things, the check was immediately handed over.

          Yes, it is important to understand what money can do, but it is just as important and vital to comprehend what money cannot do.

          G.H. Lorimer, for many years the editor of the Saturday Evening Post,once wrote these words: “It is a good thing to have money and the things that money can buy, but it is good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you have not lost the things that money cannot buy.”

The things that money cannot buy would make a long list—here are some of them:

Money cannot buy real friendship—friendship has to be earned.

Money cannot buy a clear conscience—square dealing is the price tag.

Money cannot buy the glow of good health—right living is the secret.

Money cannot buy happiness—happiness is a mental attitude.

Money cannot buy sunsets, singing birds and the music of wind in the

trees—these are free as the air we breathe.

Money cannot buy inner peace—peace is the result of a constructive philosophy of life.

Money cannot buy character—character is what we are when we are alone with ourselves in the dark.

 

Remember this: You aren’t really wealthy until you have something money can’t buy!