The Ecclesiastes Investor: Wealth & Enjoyment

Ibn Ezra, a Torah commentator from the 11th century, notes the theme of agriculture here; that love of the growth of wealth is as transitory as a farmer who increases his grain. Everything that is excess at the end of the harvest is consumed by someone else, or by no one, worse still. Both Ibn Ezra and Ecclesiastes use the term “breath”- it is “like breath” for a man to grow his wealth and a farmer to grow his crops. Sometimes translated as “futility” or “vanity,” “breath” is the actual Hebrew word being used (specifically it is the vapor on a cold day that one breathes out, as Bruce Heitler notes in his translation). It’s an interesting metaphor in relation to money. The harvest is the “breath” of the land, always growing and falling back, like the cycle of inhalation and exhalation. Streams flow into the sea and are part of the earth’s breathing, and the seas are never full, as Ecclesiastes notes. Breath is also just about the most natural thing a living being can do. It does this until it can’t anymore, and that is the absurdity of being in a nutshell. This sets up the entire puzzle of wealth in Ecclesiastes quite well: it is normal to work, normal to earn an income and to retain wealth, even as there is an element of absurdity that Ecclesiastes is bemused by. He notes that you can’t take it with you and that potentially makes it kind of silly to have obtained in the first place, but it’s also both natural to do so and perhaps appointed for you to do so as I’ll discuss below.

Wealth itself should not become an idol. That’s my most immediate take away. Ecclesiastes uses the word “silver” for money, which interestingly enough had every potential to quite literally be an idol in those times, with statuettes and images made from silver being both a symbol of household wealth and an object of veneration in the region. There is not enough money in the world for one who makes it the purpose and meaning of life to be satisfied by. King Solomon notes that he, of all people, should knows this is the case, as he tried that and reached just about the highest status one can reach as Jerusalem’s most prosperous king. He achieved incomes previously unimaginable, and yet here he is, scoffing at his own exploits.

So what role does wealth have then? If it can’t be the purpose of life, and it can’t be taken with you, does that make money a bad thing? I don’t think Ecclesiastes would go that far. In fact, what I’ve come to understand from this text after studying it over the past few years many times over is that the purpose of wealth is to enjoy it, to give from it in good proportion to the needy in this generation and the children of the next, and probably not a lot else. 

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (18th century) notes in his reference to this passage the inherent tension between being in the world and the impulse toward piety. Piety’s a good thing, right? But so is being alive? Rabbi Luzzatto notes that in the Talmud, it is said that one will be Judged at the end of one’s life for everything one was permitted to enjoy in life that one failed to enjoy. That there is a punishment to come for not enjoying the gifts one is given. What a notion! I think about the time right before Covid that I was having lunch with a Gentile friend at some food carts in Portland- he asked if I’d be offended by the bacon cheeseburger he was dying to eat. I said no, nothing’s stopping you from doing it! I’m guessing Chaim Luzzatto would have done something similar.

It all comes back to guilt and graciousness; to worship something versus enjoying it. There isn’t an easy answer as to where that line lies for each individual, as Maimonides notes in his comments on this book- some of us are much more resistant to enjoyment and some of us are more resistant to limitations, and I’ve always taken away from that the idea that this is actually a core, individualized purpose of life to tease out. Which temperament is your lot in life, and how does one temper that towards the good?

It just so happens that this very passage of Ecclesiastes is tied to the process of blessing food before eating it- trust me, this is far from a boring formality here! Rashi notes in his comment on this chapter of Ecclesiastes that Solomon is purported in the Talmud to have established the ritual of washing one’s hands before eating. That process of hand washing involves an important blessing that gives gratitude. This is actually extremely important to understanding this complex text: the process of consuming something involves, from start to finish: receiving something; acknowledging and giving gratitude for receiving it; and enjoying it properly having started the process of enjoyment with gratitude. The key to enjoyment without fetishizing the thing one enjoys is gratitude. If one is too guilty to eat, one cannot bless his food, and that serves no one and isn’t asked of a person. If one is too guilty about money to earn money, he can never give charity and he can’t afford to give the gift of life and nurturing to a new generation. He can’t have kids, and he can’t teach those kids Torah if he never had them in the first place. If one is too guilty to see, he cannot even read Torah! The Rabbis are wont to note that “enjoyment” in Ecclesiastes is a thinly veiled metaphor for Torah itself. Part of the awe of creation is being humbled enough to appreciate what a gift it is to experience. That isn’t exactly easy or comfortable to do. None of this is to shame those who encounter guilt. After all, Solomon, who is teaching these things in this moment was far from innocent before the moment of composing Ecclesiastes.

Perhaps buried beneath the existential tone of this text is the hidden observation that we are in the continuous process of receiving. Reading the text for uses of “the sun,” this becomes a less hidden metaphor.  Talmud notes many of the symbols in the book are things we spiritually receive- “Torah, Talmud, and Aggadah, as it is said. “Opting out” of the cycle of receiving and letting go of what we’ve been given is not an option Ecclesiastes is interested in. In fact, he’s quite interested in the process of letting go (“it is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting; for that is the end of every man, and a living one should take it to heart”, Chapter 7, verse 2). 

Reading Ecclesiastes this year, I’ve been struck by the theme of permission to enjoy. It is one of the things I encounter most often in working with clients who have accumulated a fair amount of wealth. On the one hand, it would seem the concept of “responsibility” dictates that we not spend anything above the necessary, that we hang on to as much money as possible. On the other hand, there is a deep sense of futility to having money that just sits there making more money. There is an alienation embedded within the fabric of financial capital. Why work so hard and commit so much of one’s brief time in this life to earning something that will not be spent? As Ecclesiastes asks at the beginning of this text, “What real value is there for a man In all that he gains under the sun” Ecclesiastes 1:3. 

The truth, from a Wealth Manager’s perspective, is that the vast majority of people can’t just go out and spend everything for the sake of enjoying one’s wealth. It may surprise you to learn we have relatively few King Solomons among our clientele here at Chaim Investment Advisors. Most people who are thinking about wealth have many years, if not many decades, to provide for themselves (“let a man enjoy himself in all of his years,” as Ecclesiastes says) and only so many years they reasonably can expect to earn new money. Saving does matter, and planning matters. Nonetheless, as a Financial Planner, I’ve matured after many years and many dozens of Financial Plans for folks from all walks of life. Ecclesiastes has been a crucial element of this, helping me reckon with the fact that a plan has to include enjoyment! The plan cannot be to hoard as much as possible, for that is no true plan at all. A plan needs to both save enough for the future, perhaps leaving enough for those who come after us and will need our wealth when we’re done with it, and it needs a robust permission to enjoy wealth. It needs permission to spend. 

As I’ve struggled with this notion of being judged for what one refuses to enjoy, I’ve come to appreciate what that means for my role as an advisor. Who would I be if I were to facilitate a client not enjoying the gifts they’ve given in life? How should I be judged at the end of my time? I’ve always been aware of how uncomfortable I am with the idea of telling clients to do things that are depressing and overly aggressive in terms of saving money. I don’t like saving rates that are too high (my apologies to the F.I.R.E. movement). I don’t like telling someone to live in a mother-in-law suite in the yard of one’s home while the home itself is rented out for cashflow, I refuse to tell people to sell their boats, paintings, and collections just to earn more “passive income” in markets when it is not absolutely, mission-critical necessary to do so. Reading Ecclesiastes this year has helped me explore why I’ve always felt that way, and I have a lot of work to do in exploring this aspect of Financial Planning. The industry and its research, academics, and training are very much geared toward advisors finding new ways to hoard assets to in turn make money for themselves and for the financial institutions above us. I’ve always resisted that, and I feel more strongly about that resistance each year, especially as I sit down with Ecclesiastes. That means I have a lot more of my own work and my own research to do. As a new dad, with these tropes from this text calling to me, the beginning of Ecclesiastes strikes me more profoundly than ever, and that’s what I’ll leave you with: “Merest breath, said Ecclesiastes, merest breath. All is mere breath.”